WRITING AND PUBLISHING

SCIENTIFIC PAPERS
Dr Julia Niemeyer
Dr Michiel Daam

Module 1
Introduction

CURSOS VIRTUAIS DE EXTENSÃO

PROGRAMA DE MOBILIDADE VIRTUAL - UFSC
Team

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA Professor

Reitor Julia Niemeyer

Ubaldo Cesar Balthazar Michiel Daam

Pró-Reitor de Extensão Monitores

Rogério Cid Bastos Nathalia S. Bonato

Enzo Gonçalves Luciano

Secretário de Relações Internacionais

Lincoln Paulo Fernandes Bolsistas

Design Gráfico

Secretário de Educação a Distância Giovanna Aranda dos Santos

Luciano Patrício Souza de Castro Josué Maia Frena

Lais Tomaselli Krause

Secretário de Planejamento e Orçamento Mariane Ronsani Patricio

Fernando Richartz Octávio Barcelos Della Barba

Vídeo

Erika Silva

Franchêscolli Gohlke

Marlon Cardoso Batista

Robner Domenici Esprocati

Moodle

Rebecca Fiala Kothe

Libras
BY NC ND
Vitória Tassara Costa Silva

All materials of the Course Writing and Publishing

Scientific Paper, from the Programa de Mobilidade
Virtual da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
– 2021, is protected by the Creative Commons
Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivations 4.0
International Public License

To view a copy of this license, go to:

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.pt_BR
Summary

Lesson 1: What is scientific writing and what are its objectives?.......4

Lesson 2: Planning your manuscript.......................................................7

Organizing your data................................................................................. 9

Time management.................................................................................... 11

Lesson 3: What is scientific writing and what are its objectives?.... 13

Lesson 1:
What is scientific writing and what
are its objectives?

In science, as in every other field of life, communication

is crucial. The advancement of Science depends on
the sharing of knowledge and the critical exchange
of complex ideas through congresses and publications.
Contributions of ideas and findings must be expressed
clearly so that others can evaluate their validity
and importance.

The success of a scientist or a team depends on

communication skills. In any form of communication,
the message is paramount. Making it as easy as
possible for your readers to grasp your message
is what good writing is all about.

Although you need to have a fairly clear idea about

what your message is before you sit down to write,
the process of elaborating a manuscript can you
help clarify your ideas and hone your message. Clear
writing reflects clear thinking, yet this clarity of thought
is actually achieved through writing and especially
through rewriting.

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 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Many people think that good writers have innate

gifts that enable them to put thoughts on paper
effortlessly. But the truth is, even the most talented and
experienced writers need to work hard to write well,
and several drafts are nearly always necessary
to ensure that a text is well organized, coherent,
and easily understood.

Write well is hard for everyone, but all scientists

can learn to write competently.

On the other hand, all scientists can learn to

write competently. Writing is a skill; it can be
learned, improved, and refined. Skills are based
on knowledge. Figure 1 summarizes how you can
acquire knowledge about scientific writing.

Figure 1: How to
improve your skills
in scientific writing.
Source: authors.

In the end, the only way to learn to write is by

writing and rewriting. Let´s start?

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 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

In this course, we will present some

recommendations and a variety of exercises to help
you assimilate knowledge about the principles
of good writing through controlled practice.

We hope that this short experience help you to

improve your skills in writing scientific English,
and that you become a competent and confident
communicator of your ideas.

The only way to learn to write is by writing and

rewriting.

Learn more
Read more about English Communication for Scientists in:
<https://www.nature.com/scitable/ebooks/english-
communication-for-scientists-14053993/writing-scientific-
papers-14239285/>

6 Module 1 – Introduction
Lesson 2:
Planning your manuscript

Planning and organization are crucial for efficient

writing work and robust paper construction. After
all, what makes a strong manuscript? It must have
a clear and useful message, written in a logical
manner, allowing the readers grasp the research.

First, you must decide what type of manuscript prepare:

- Full articles, report a complete or comprehensive

part of original research;
- Letters or short communication, quick and
early communications;
- Review papers, summarizing recent advances of
a research field, and often submitted by invitation.

In this course, we focused in full articles

structure and preparation.

Some of the most important decisions involve what

to include and what to leave out. Therefore, it is
essential to think about the audience for which

7 Module 1 – Introduction
 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

you are writing. For this purpose, you should

select a journal and read about its objectives and
audience. Journal scope will give you a picture
of its readership and help you to decide what
to include in your paper and how to focus your
message. Each journal has a “guide for authors”,
which must be taken into account since the
beginning of your writing work.

Most papers reporting original research follow the

IMRaD structure: Introduction, Methods, Results,
and Discussion. Each section contributes in a
logical way to tell the story of your research by
answering one or more questions:

1) Introduction: What problem, question, or hypothesis

did you study? Why should it interest readers?

2) Methods: What did you do to answer the question?

3) Results: What did you find?

4) Discussion: What is the meaning and value

of your results?

In the Module II, we will present the description

of each section in details. In the present lesson,
we will think about effective ways to start
our writing task (Spoiler: it does not start by
Introduction section…).

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Organizing your data

First, you must keep on mind what research

question your paper will answer. Organize your
data, run the statistical analysis and write down the
main findings you can visualize.

An interesting point is that the steps in prewriting,

i.e., planning tasks, take more time than writing
your first draft. We could say that prewriting
takes about 70% of the writing process. Actually,
outline a paper is a worth time investment. You
will win back far more time in the long run than
you spend in outlining, and your paper will be
clearer and more streamlined. You must have the
“whole picture” of your manuscript before starting
the writing. The steps in the writing process are
presented on Fig. 1.

What is an outline? This is the road-map of your

paper, containing your research question, main
findings, list of methods, key facts, important
citations, arguments and counter-arguments,
rebuttals. It can be constructed as a brainstorm or
a conceptual map of your paper.

After planning, you can write the first draft.

At this stage, get the ideas down in complete
sentences. After that, organize the text in a logical
sequence. The most important advice is be quick
and efficient! Minimize the pain by writing!
Write a first draft, even if the text is not perfect. You

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 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

have a next step of revision to improve it. We will

talk about the recommended order to write your
draft in Module II.

In the revision phase, you should do a verb

and grammar check, cut clutter, and do an
organizational review. Send the draft to co-authors
and get their feedback.

Figure 1: Steps
in the Scientific
Writing Process.

Clear and organized thoughts will help you write

with great efficiency and less anxiety.

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 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Time management

To be a successful researcher, it is imperative

that you make optimum use of the time.
Effective time-management helps avoid the
last-minute stress and delays, and also ensure
that your writing journey can be happier.

Writing is hard for everyone. One tip to avoid

procrastination and anxiety, it to break your
writing task into small and realistic goals. Create
daily to-do lists: for example, to write 400 words
every day, or two paragraphs a day. Probably,
you will achieve it in some hours, and perhaps
you can be on track because you met your goal
and stay motivated to advance.

Divide the writing task and set reasonable

goals for each day.

Furthermore, do not wait to complete your

research and analysis for starting to write. For
example, you can write the Methods section as
you conduct your experiments, as the details of
the procedures will still be fresh in your mind.
Deciding in advance which goals you can tackle
simultaneously will increase your productivity.

Organizing your ideas and sections of the paper

are the most important things before you start

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 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

writing. It can be done outside the computer, for

example, using a notebook and a pencil.

Avoid distractions: turn off notifications on your

phone and computer for not be interrupted in
your creative process. Concentration is crucial to
the task of writing.

Remember to take a break and make time for

meals. Stress and exhaustion lead to errors and it
costs an extra time, being unproductive. Deficiency
of essential nutrients can have a deleterious effect
on memory and cognitive potential.

Furthermore, you must be efficient in reading

and taking notes of the scientific literature that
will support your paper. First, you must carry out a
complete literature search focused on your research
field. Second, you have to organize the selected
articles and notes in your computer. In Lesson 3, we
present a reference manager program, Mendeley,
as a suggestion for help in this task.

Learn more
Being efficient in reading the papers you selected is important
to optimize your time. How should we approach reading a
paper? Let´s take a look in the article How to (seriously) read a
scientific paper by Elisabeth Pain, Science Magazine, March 21,
2016, doi:10.1126/science.caredit.a1600047
< https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-
seriously-read-scientific-paper>

12 Module 1 – Introduction
Lesson 3:
Managing your references

Organizing your references is a very important

task to be accomplished from the beginning.
Reference managers programs can help you
in this process. Using a reference manager,
you can: mark sentences in the papers, take
organized notes as you read papers, automate
your citations in word processing programs,
and share files with your team. Furthermore,
they can make your entire bibliography
accessible anywhere in the world through web
and mobile apps.

Mendeley is considered by many researchers

as the best option for managing the
references (Fig.1). You can free download it
from https://www.mendeley.com/download-
desktop-new/

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 WRITING AND PUBLISHING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS

Figure 1: General
aspect of Mendeley
Reference Manager,
Version 2.48.0.

Several videos about using Mendeley are available

elsewhere (e.g., YouTube). We also prepared a
quick tutorial for this course.

Link: <https://drive.google.com/file/d/18WhnfW6H_
qb7dfxyxScIQQ9k0lV9S3KG/view?usp=sharing>

Learn more
In Elsevier system is available a webinar with Daniel Christe,
Innovation Advisor at Elsevier, and Jorge Sinval, researcher and
reference manager advisor, about how reference managers
like Mendeley can be used to help you get your references
organized, and answer the top questions of Mendeley users.
https://researcheracademy.elsevier.com/writing-research/
fundamentals-manuscript-preparation/guide-reference-
managers-effectively-manage

14 Module 1 – Introduction
References
Barcelona, Spain, 2014. 201 p. Available in <http://esteve.org/wp-content/
uploads/2018/01/13066.pdf>

Giba, J. Developing skills in scientific writing. Esteve Foundation

Notebooks, n.29. Barcelona, Spain, 2014. 201 p. Available in <http://esteve.
org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/13066.pdf>.

Sainani, K. Writing in the Sciences. University of Standford. Coursera.

Available in: <https://online.stanford.edu/courses/som-y0010-writing-sciences>.

Zeiger, M. Essentials of Writing Biomedical Research Papers. Second

Edition. McGraw Hill Professional, 2000. 440 p.

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