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Sanes 2019 Tell Me A Story
Sanes 2019 Tell Me A Story
POINT OF VIEW
Tell me a story
Many authors start with the figures when writing a scientific paper, but
it is easier to tell a good story if you start with the Introduction and the
Results, and leave the figures to later.
JOSHUA R SANES
T
hink back to when you were a little girl or is usually written before the score. That said, I
boy, going on a long drive or getting do understand why it has become common prac-
ready for bed. From time to time, you tice to prepare figures before writing the text. It
probably asked a parent to tell you a story or is easier and more fun to make figures than to
read you a storybook. I know I did and so did think or write. After a day of cropping micro-
my children. Well, we’re big boys and girls now, graphs, adjusting font sizes, and arranging the
but we still love stories. Scientists can take panels in perfect rectangles, you feel like you’ve
advantage of this basic human desire by incor- gotten something done. But all this is a displace-
porating elements of storytelling when they pre-
ment activity (definition: an unnecessary activity
pare articles for submission to scientific journals:
that you do because you are trying to delay
articles that tell a story will be better understood
doing a more difficult or unpleasant activity).
by and have a greater impact on readers.
This is not to say that you should ignore your
Of course, scientific story telling is not easy.
data at this stage: you absolutely need to know
Aside from the fact that few scientists are
what you have and don’t have before you write.
trained in writing, there are two major problems.
A simple expedient is to collect rough versions
First, we have to tell the truth, a restriction
story-tellers do not face. Second, we have to of panels with minimal editing on a digital bulle-
deal with restrictive formats, such as length lim- tin board – PowerPoint slides work well. Then
its, figure limits, and mandated order of sec- write the text and revise it a few times before
tions. Nonetheless, it can be done and done arranging and polishing the figures. In my lab,
well. and despite my pleas, people often bring me
I think that the key is to prepare your paper excellent figures along with fragments of text or
in the sequence that a storyteller would. The no text at all. As we go through draft after draft,
three most important parts of a paper are the panels are often added, removed or altered –
figures, the Results and the Introduction, proba- and always rearranged. It makes me feel bad to
bly in that order. It is therefore no surprise that think about the wasted time and effort.
authors often begin by preparing the figures, Don’t think I’m trying to overturn long-held
then move on to Results, and save the Introduc- dogma. The ’figure first’ strategy is a product of
tion for near the end. In this article I will explain Photoshop and Illustrator. Back in the day, when
Copyright Sanes. This article is why I think it is better to reverse this sequence. micrographs were generated with an enlarger
distributed under the terms of and graphs with Letraset, it was necessary to
the Creative Commons
Maybe the histogram could go have a definitive plan before starting to print
Attribution License, which
permits unrestricted use and under the micrograph and draw. I have no nostalgia for those cumber-
redistribution provided that the Starting with the text is not as strange as it some methods – but they did help make sure
original author and source are might seem. Take operas for example: even that thought preceded action.
credited. though they are all about the music, the libretto
The key is to prepare your paper in will likely find some holes that you need to fill. If
you’re lucky, you’ll also find some datasets that
the sequence that a storyteller seemed worrisomely incomplete but don’t mat-
would ter now, because they are not essential to the
story you are going to tell. Revise the outline to
take account of these realizations.
Next, write a draft of the Results section.
Then read it over and reconsider whether you’ve
Our aim was to test. . . made it easy for the reader to understand how
So if not with the figures, where should you the results lead to the conclusions you want to
start? With the plot. You likely began your study draw. If they don’t, you can rearrange sections,
with a question in mind. What does gene w do? consider changing the plot, or even come to
How does cell x develop? Can method y help us grips with the possibility that you’re not as close
understand disease z? At some point, you feel to finished as you had hoped to be.
that you have gained enough insight to begin
writing a paper – but more often than not, the
data don’t provide an answer to the precise The whole truth
question you began with. If you try to fit the In presenting your results, you have to tell the
answer to the question, you risk ending up with truth and nothing but the truth. What you don’t
a compendium of results that is less cohesive have to do is tell the whole truth. In other words,
than it could be. Instead, start with the answer, you can select the results you present, as well as
figure out what the question should have been, the order in which you present them, to shape
and build on that. This seems counterintuitive, your narrative. There is one crucial caveat: if you
but it works. It is the first step in crafting a story. have results that call your conclusions into ques-
Once you have the question and answer in tion, you need to present them, and explain why
mind, write a rough draft of the Introduction, your (possibly modified) conclusions are still jus-
treating it as what is now called an elevator-pitch tified. My point is that you don’t need to
– a succinct statement meant to convince the lis- describe everything you did. Think about
tener/reader of your product’s value. What was whether each group of results makes the story
the gap in knowledge you wanted to fill? What more compelling or serves as a distraction. If it is
is the question to which you will provide an the latter, be ruthless in omitting it. On occasion,
answer? Why is it important? What was your you may have spent so much time on a set of
strategy? What did you find out? What conclu- experiments that you just can’t bear to cut it out
sions did you draw? Why did they matter? completely. Try to resist temptation, but if you
can’t, make it short.
Even when describing the most relevant
Next we asked. . . results, work on being concise. This is difficult,
Using the introduction as a guide, move on to as noted long ago by Blaise Pascal in an apho-
the results. Think hard about the best order in rism generally credited to Mark Twain: “I would
which to present them, feeling free to take have written a shorter letter but I didn’t have the
advantage of what is, to my knowledge, the only time.” Just as it takes effort to omit distracting
fiction that is fully allowable in a scientific paper: results, it takes effort to edit out needless detail.
you don’t need to present experiments in the A few weeks ago, I tried to read an article in my
sequence in which they were done or explain field that seemed like a lightly edited lab note-
why they were actually done. Put another way, a book. I bet it was full of useful information, but
scientific paper is not an autobiography; the I’ll never know. There was no story there so I
story you tell should be about the science, not quickly put it aside.
about you. The order of presentation can be,
and often should be, quite different from the
order of execution. Our main conclusions are. . .
To organize the results, begin with a detailed Next comes the Discussion, which provides an
outline in which you take account of the data opportunity for you to highlight what you want
you have. Your PowerPoint repository will be the reader to remember – the key results and
valuable here. As the outline takes shape, you principal conclusions. This is conventionally done