Module 3 - Writing for Journals

Know your target journal. Download its style guide and understand its requirements. Create an outline/structure to ensure you are staying focused. Write technically correct and clear prose so that the peer reviewers engage with your ideas, not your writing errors. Writing problems may hold up publication, so try to aim for clear and correct prose before submission.

• Clarity relies upon a robust understanding of the rules and conventions of English expression. Clear, grammatical and well-punctuated sentences transmit thought to the audience without confusion. Clarity needs strong writing and editing skills, and you should consciously build these skills during your HDR candidature.
• Another consequence of the iron rule of clarity is that you have to be exactly clear what you want to say. Ensure this inner understanding by beginning writing earlier rather than later in the process. Clarity comes from moving words around on the page. You will need to allow plenty of time to experiment with your words to ensure that you can exactly capture your intended meaning.
• Question lazy but pervasive habits, such as overuse of jargon and “hackneyed” (clichéd) expressions. Readers respond to fresh expression. New ideas demand fresh writing, and fresh writing aids clarity.

The scientific method requires smooth transfer of information from researcher to audience. Non-scientific academic writing also requires this. Opaque, convoluted, ambiguous, poorly argued and inaccurate writing or technically incorrect usage interferes with transfer of knowledge. Research therefore has a strong language component.

Not just about data

Bad writing can slow down or prevent the publication of good research. Researchers can gather excellent data but unless the new knowledge emerging from that data can be turned into good writing, its importance can be lost

Your results must be in a form that others will be able to comprehend and use what you have found. Academic writing must therefore:

• Be durable
• Be correctly positioned within your discipline
• Describe activities able to be replicated.

Begin writing while your research is still in progress. Everything is fresh in your mind, and colleagues and apparatus are still available. The writing process shows up problems with your data or experiments. Write a little bit each day during your data gathering phase.

The best known formula for organising an academic paper is known as IMRAD:

• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• And
• Discussion

While used primarily in the hard sciences, like physics and biology, IMRAD is also widely used in the social and behavioural sciences.

Logic of IMRAD

• What question (problem) was studied and why? The answer is in the Introduction.
• How was the problem studied?  The answer is in the Methods.
• What were the findings?  The answer is in the Results.
• What do these findings mean?  The answer is in the Discussion.

Think about the overall argument, and the logical way to describe the results. The best way is not necessarily chronological, just describing the data gathering process in sequence. Instead, detach yourself from your data and find interesting patterns. Apply the techniques of critical thinking to your data to ensure that you probe your results fruitfully and can see underlying meanings.

The way you organise your paper is driven by your results: by the small number of “take-home messages” you wish to convey. Imagine your paper being discussed at a journal club meeting. What are most important things you would want the participants to focus on? Prepare clear statements of these first before proceeding with the paper itself.

See if you can also write a concise statement about the exact meaning of your research to the field you are working in. Statements like this can help you to focus.

Prepare a detailed outline before attempting to write the paper.

Your outline should show exactly what evidence you are using and where and show inter-relationships between data. Use a table structure so that you can step back from it to check that all parts fit naturally together. The most useful outline involves working out how many paragraphs you need and what each one will be about. Write the theme sentence for each para and note the backing evidence you will present.

The introduction creates an effective context for the paper. Place your work into the continuum of research in your discipline and make its connections to this continuum explicit. Introductions tend to begin with general statements before moving to specific statements. In general terms, you will include:

• A statement of the problem you are addressing;
• Background of the problem, possibly in the form of a brief literature review (which reveals a knowledge gap);
• The research objective and how you achieve it in this work; and
• A brief description of the conclusions you have reached and the implications of your conclusions.

The Discussion concludes the process begun in the Intro by identifying and discussing patterns. This part of your paper interprets results but does not rehash them. The overall flow is from the particular to the general, the opposite of the Introduction.