A scientific approach to scientific writing

123 Pages·2011·0.62 MB·English

by  John Blackwell, Jan Martin

A Scientific Approach to Scientific Writing

·
John Blackwell Jan Martin
A Scientific Approach
to Scientific Writing
123
JohnBlackwell JanMartin
Sees-editingLtd Sayer-MartinLtd
Weston-super-mare,BS232JU,UK Aberaeron,SA460HS,UK
[email protected] [email protected]
ISBN978-1-4419-9787-6 e-ISBN978-1-4419-9788-3
DOI10.1007/978-1-4419-9788-3
SpringerNewYorkDordrechtHeidelbergLondon
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2011926358
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Acknowledgements
This book would probably not have been written without suggestions and
encouragement by Jianquan Liu (Professor of Molecular Ecology, Lanzhou
University,China)andXuxiaZhao(InternationalCoordinator,NorthwestInstitute
ofPlateauBiology,ChineseAcademyofSciences).Inaddition,valuablecomments
have been made at various points in its writing by Dr. David Blackwell (Organic
Chemistry, Cambridge), Elena Conti (Professor of Systematic Botany, University
of Zürich, Switzerland), Prof. Anna Linusson (Department of Chemistry, Umeå
University,Sweden),Prof.ThomasMoritz(HeadofDepartmentofForestGenetics
and Plant Physiology, SLU, Sweden), Prof. Michal Otyepka (Head of Department
ofPhysicalChemistry,PalackyUniversity,CzechRepublic),Prof.GöranSandberg
(Executive Director, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Sweden), Dr. Johan
Sandberg (Department of Informatics, Umeå University, Sweden), Prof. Ian Scott
(IBERS,AberystwythUniversity,UK),Prof.BoStrandberg(SahlgrenskaAcademy
atUniversityofGothenburg),Dr.Jan-OlovWeslien(Skogforsk,Sweden)andProf.
MikeYoung(IBERS,AberystwythUniversity,UK).
Thanks are also due to Joëlle Hoggan, Jon Sayer and Eveline Forrest (Forrest
Text)fortheirhelpatvariousstagesofwritingthisbook.
v
ThisisBlankPageIntegra vi
Contents
1 MaximizingChancesofPublication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 EssentialStepsBeforeWritingaPaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.1 GatherYourNotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.2 FindSomewhereQuiet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2.3 SelectivelyReviewtheLiterature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.4 IdentifyaTargetJournal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2.5 AwarenessofLinguisticLimitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.6 DefiningandDelimiting‘theStudy’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3 DraftingPapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.1 ArrangingtheInformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.2 TheTitleandAbstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2.1 HypotheticalCaseStudy1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.2.2 HypotheticalCaseStudy2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 TheIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.3.1 HypotheticalCaseStudy1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.3.2 HypotheticalCaseStudy2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.4 TheMaterials&MethodsSection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.4.1 HypotheticalCaseStudy1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.4.2 HypotheticalCaseStudy2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.5 TheResultsSection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.5.1 HypotheticalCaseStudy1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.5.2 HypotheticalCaseStudy2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.6 TheDiscussionandConclusion(s). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.6.1 CombinedResults&DiscussionSections . . . . . . . . . 34
3.6.2 FurtherRemindersofNovelty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.7 Anomalies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.8 AStrategyforDealingwithMajorLimitations . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.9 FiguresandTables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.10 ReferenceFormattingSystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
vii
viii Contents
4 ComplexStudies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1 HypotheticalCaseStudy3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.1.1 TheRationale,ObjectivesandFindings . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.1.2 TitleandAbstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1.3 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.1.4 Materials&Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.1.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.1.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.2 HypotheticalCaseStudy4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2.1 TheRationale,ObjectivesandFindings . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.2.2 TitleandAbstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.3 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.2.4 Materials&Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2.5 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.2.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
4.2.7 Conclusion(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.2.8 IncorporatedSub-headings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5 LinguisticPoints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1 Jargon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.2 Tenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.3 ActiveandPassiveVoices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.3.1 PracticalConsiderations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.4 Unnecessary‘Weak’Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.5 NarrativeFlowandCoherentArguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.5.1 TheOverallPaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.5.2 SectionsofPapers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.5.3 ParagraphsandSentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.6 PlagiarismandAcceptableUsesofOtherAuthors’Works . . . . 75
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
6 CoveringLettersandReferees’Objections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.1 TheCoveringLetter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.1.1 HypotheticalCaseStudy1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.1.2 HypotheticalCaseStudy2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.2 TheReviewProcess . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
6.3 AnticipatingObjections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
6.3.1 AnticipatingObjectionsWhilePlanningaStudy . . . . . 81
6.3.2 AnticipatingObjectionsWhileExecutingaStudy . . . . 81
6.3.3 Anticipating Objections While Preparing
andWritingaPaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6.3.4 AnticipatingObjectionsAfterSubmittingaPaper . . . . 83
6.4 AfterReceivingtheEditor’sDecision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.4.1 AcceptanceWithoutRevision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
6.4.2 AcceptancewithMinorRevisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Contents ix
6.4.3 AcceptancewithMajorRevisions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.4.4 OutrightRejection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7 OtherKindsofWrittenScientificCommunication . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.1 ElectronicCommunications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.2 OtherCommunications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
7.3 Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
8 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
SubjectIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107