The fundamental idea behind writing a scientific paper is to communicate your results to other scientists and society at large as directly, accurately and clearly as possible. In other words KISS: Keep it simple, Stupid.
Suggested reading material before starting to write:
- How to write a paper in a weekend link
- Short but clear guidelines Angel Borja,PhD in the link
- You can find a set of videos by ACS “PYR101: Publishing your research”
- Weitz lab guide to writing a good paper Download
The fundamental idea is to follow an outline where you explain your work in plain and grammatically correct English. Most conventional outline involves the following sections: abstract, introduction, materials and methods, results, discussion and conclusions.
I recommend the following steps:
1)Write a two line elevator pitch where you concentrate the hypothesis of your research and how you checked it. The first line should be broad bringing your audience to your field of research with trigger keywords. The second one should go deeper into describing the research. This two sentences will form the first version of the abstract which you will extend by adding quantitative details.
2) Design figures and perfect them by discussing with your supervisor and colleagues before starting to write.
3) Write materials and methods section according to guidelines of your target journal. This is the most easy part to write as it can be written almost independently from other parts.
4) Write the results part by simply explaining the figures in order.
5) Discuss the potential deviations and interesting features of your results referring to figures and graphs as well as how your hypothesis holds.
6) Summarize the results in your conclusions.
7) Write the introduction: first placing your work in perspective with respect to work of others and answer the questions “Why people should care?” in plain english and as direct as possible. The last paragraph of your introduction should clearly state what your research is and how it connects to builds upon/improves existing body of work.
8) Check your manuscript for common mistakes. If you are an experienced writer check the following book by Strunk and White.
9) When you are done writing & correcting, you are ready to go though the internal reviewing process where you discuss your article with supervisor, colleagues and others in several revision rounds (app. 5-10 rounds of talks) . The aim of this process is to improve the impact of your work by improving its understandability and readability.
10) Plan for data storage and accessibility. Talk to 3ME data steward and plan so that your data is accessible to others after it is published.