The Art of Writing

Over the years, we have presented the “Scientific Writing and Publishing” course at a number of analytical science conferences across the world.The origins of the course lie in discussions between the editors of several major journals in the field about the common mistakes made by authors, especially young scientists. Here, we distill the course into a straightforward guide to creating journal articles and posters that are clear and concise – but that also catch the reader’s attention.

The Write Stuff

How to prepare a manuscript for publication.

Before you type a single syllable, ask yourself: are my results suitable for publication?

Publications are one of the important outputs of any scientific researcher. Results that stay “in the drawer” and are not shared with the community are of little value to you or others. Publishing papers and presenting at scientific meetings serves not only the outside community, but your own career, especially when you are starting out. Defending a PhD thesis with no published papers is exceedingly difficult at best, and your publication record is scrutinized by granting agencies when reviewing project proposals.