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There are many reasons why the world’s most cited papers appear in Nature and Science. For sure some of this has to do with reputation. You can trust that the papers published here describe important research. But also, because they are short. Quick to read, short papers have broad appeal. Scientific brevity is very difficult to achieve but can improve your changes of getting manuscripts accepted and your paper cited. The essential steps to writing a short, accurate and impactful scientific paper are to create, kill and humiliate.
Writing is the obvious first step. This is the creative stage after your research is done where you should feel free to write down everything you have learned and how important it is. Don’t hold back at this stage. If it takes you 10,000 words, 8 figures and a dozen tables to describe your fantastic research, then do it. You should feel good about this stage. So, fill your boots and put it all on the page.
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An editor friend of mine says that the toughest part of science is the editing stage. Here you have to kill your favourites. Pause after your writing stage, take a very critical view of your work. Then cut, cut, cut. And cut some more. What you are aiming for is the essential information that describes your work, its context, the findings and your interpretation. Of course, the principle of replicability cannot be violated, so you have to completely describe what you’ve done. But not more than that. A common mistake is to leave in data that you clearly spent a lot of effort to collect but is not essential to your paper. Take a deep breath and cut it out. This hurts.
It is humiliating to hand your best ideas over to someone who you know will cut it to pieces. But this is an inevitable step in science. Before you send your paper to the journal, your supervisor or graduate committee, have someone proofread it. You’ll be surprised how much this will improve your work. Try to find someone who is not scared to give honest feedback and identify the paper’s essential bits. You’ll feel hurt when you get your paper back, covered in red. But your science will be better.
Writing, editing, proofreading. The final, essential steps in the scientific process. Master these steps and your research will make that leap from a great idea to a high impact contribution to your field.
John @ ProofreadCanada