11/5/2023 0 Comments Manuscript writing helpHowever, be careful not to fall into the trap of making this section a comprehensive overview of anything remotely related to your subject. This background may inform conclusions you wish to discuss later in the paper. The process can help you shore up gaps in your knowledge by forcing you to review the relevant literature. I recommend drafting the Introduction before the bulk of the paper, especially for a new project. For this reason, you have the most flexibility with the timing for writing this section. It is also the only one you may be able to write fully before the last of the experimental work is done. The Introduction is unique in that it is possibly the section of the paper that stands alone the best. Getting it out of the way at the beginning of the writing process can clear the way for focusing on the bulk of the paper. Particularly for synthetic work, where you must include characterization data for many compounds and intermediates, Methods can also be one of the longest and most tedious sections for you to write. For example, you may be missing characterization data for a novel compound. Writing the Methods section may also reveal gaps that require more time or further experiments to fill. Conceptually, this is often one of the easiest sections to write, because it describes the details of what you and your co-authors have already done, which should be very familiar to you. Once you’ve outlined the paper (which may even be easier after you have familiarized yourself with the author guidelines mentioned above in Step 2), I recommend that you start with writing up the experimental methods. As much as possible, avoid spending time working on things that you know won’t make the final cut. For example, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions can range from one to three sections each, depending on the outlet. Although the same information will probably be present in every set of author guidelines within your subfield, the organization of that information can vary widely. This can be an arduous process, but starting here may save you a great deal of time and effort later on. Once you’ve chosen a journal, take a look at their requirements for publication, especially if you have never submitted a manuscript there before. Step 2: Read the author guidelines for your chosen journal How you tell the story and who you tell it to should influence each other. How you choose to tell the story (how much background is needed, which results are emphasized, what order the information is presented in, etc.) should depend on your audience. Considering your audience is crucial for any form of communication, and scientific manuscripts are no exception. In practice, the journal where you choose to submit your paper may change for many reasons, but I still recommend having one in mind when you begin crafting your paper. Then carefully consider who would care most about that story and choose your submission outlet appropriately. I suggest first selecting the data, experiments, or compounds that work together to tell a complete and interesting story. For these reasons and more, this first step may well prove to be an iterative process. The project’s narrative may or may not seem clear to you after some or all of the data has been collected. The project itself may or may not go in the direction you initially expected. You may or may not have a journal in mind when you begin a project. Seven Steps To Follow When Writing Your Manuscript Step 1: Find your story and select an appropriate journal. The method laid out here is simply one chemist-and-writer’s opinion, described both as broadly and concretely as possible, in hopes that it may be of use to both first-time and seasoned manuscript authors. It is worth acknowledging here that there are many ways to go about this process, depending both on the content of the paper and the style of the writer. My hope is that this article will be for you what that pink index card was for me-a guide for getting words on paper. Whether you’ve done it many times before or this is your first go-round, preparing a manuscript for submission can be a daunting task. I retrieved the pink index card from my top desk drawer and immediately felt my anxiety levels drop. To combat this helplessness, I had kept a detailed list of tasks, in roughly chronological order, when I wrote my first academic manuscript. Where do I even start? It took me only a moment to realize that I had felt this way before. I sat down at my desk to begin work on my second paper as the first author.
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