Tips for Writing and Submitting Papers

Overview: general to detailed

Two fundamental components to every paper:
1) conveying the information concisely and accurately
2) packaging it so it is of interest to the broad audience of journal
- packaging and presentation can make or break a paper.
- same study written up by different authors will differ markedly in
success (i.e. journal and attention)

I. Strategy / approach

A. Identify the appropriate journal. Journals vary as a function of:

- topic interest (general ecology, marine ecology, marine fish ecology)
- expectation of research quality and general interest
(Ecology vs. Botswanian Naturalist)
- degree of emphasis on conceptual vs. empirical
(e.g., The American Naturalist vs. Ecology)
- defines organization and length of the paper (e.g., results and discussion
intermingled or separate, methods in Science and Nature)

Identifies appropriateness of your submission AND influences how you write

the paper!

B. Read some recent papers published in the target journal

- get a feel for the characteristics mentioned above and assess how your
study would fit
C. Discuss your ideas for packaging the paper with experienced colleagues
before you begin to write.

D. Order of writing sections

1. methods: easiest to start and lays out the order of the Results section.
2. results: follows order laid out by methods
3. discussion: expand on implications in results
4. introduction: packages and identifies broad question(s) that you know the
results and discussion addresses
5. abstract: summarizes all four sections above

E. Organization: Start entire paper and each section with outline that can set up
subheadings
- start with outline than develop: outline should provide topic sentence for
each paragraph. Topic sentence should summarize point of the paragraph.

F. Presentation: Be neat and organized with subheadings, etc. A paper that is

well prepared and easy to read will help to win over the reviewer and reader.
A paper that is sloppy implies that the investigator has low standards
- use your software’s spell-checking function (okay, okay!).
- “Write with precision, clarity, and economy (eliminate unnecessary words).”
- this is primary reason why papers are written in first person.
- in general, avoid “these” and “their” because of vagueness

-“The radiocarbon dates define isochrones along the transect that establish a series of
stratigraphic profiles. These provided the geomorphic basis for all subsequent
 analyses.” Does “These” refer to the radiocarbon dates, the isochrones, or the
profiles?

- Improper word choice also creates ambiguities.

- The incorrect use of “which” and “that”. “which” should only be used for non-
defining, nonrestrictive clauses or phrases, “which” adds some
nonessential information about the subject of the sentence; “The lawn
mower, which is broken, is in the garage” adds a fact about the lawn
mower. “That” introduces restrictive clauses or phrases in which the
information answers the question “which one?-that one.”; “the lawn mower
that is broken in the garage” (tells which lawn mower).
- Use “while” to mean “during the time of” and not as a substitute for
“although,” “whereas,” “as,” “but,” or “and” (Hart 1976).
- An author using a phrase with no single, fixed meaning, such as “spatial and
temporal pattern” should define it clearly; pattern of what?
- Avoid NUA’s: nouns used as adjectives. (e.g., cat population dynamics vs.
dynamics of cat populations). Wordy, but right!

G. Have at least two colleagues critique the final draft. Your intimate familiarity with
your study tends to enhance the gap between what you intend to convey and
what the reader perceives. Experienced colleagues may help you avoid
pitfalls (e.g., poorly defined jargon) and gain clarity.

II. Organization
Always specified by the journal, but general components include:

Abstract
 - Critical: the first (and maybe ONLY) thing most readers read.
- This is where you draw a reader into the importance of the paper and what
you found.
- Last section to write, summarizes all the other sections.
- Very, very terse

Introduction
- Introduce the big question, how important it is, and how your study relates to
the big question.
- Indicate, when possible, that others have pointed out the importance of the
question.
- Importantly, indicate what sets your study apart from any previous study.
Readers don’t know the field as well as you. They need to be told how your
study is unique and contributes.
- Introduce your specific questions / hypotheses and how they relate to the
big question
- summarize appropriateness of “model system”
- note the format of citations for the target journal, never have more than 4-5
per sentence.
- Define terminology (e.g., “recruitment”, “population structure”, “succession”)

Methods
- Structure: system, hypotheses, exper. / sampling design, statistical design,
details (sampling and analysis)
- Introduce and summarize the system (organism, environment, where and
when work was done)
 - State your hypotheses clearly. What are the explicit predictions of your
alternative hypotheses?
- Link methods to tests of hypotheses!! State why before you ever state what
or how!!!
- Describe the exper./sampling design and how your design tests predictions
of your hypothesis. (like a proposal, use figures when necessary)

Details:
- As Hurlbert suggested, provide sufficient detail such that someone can
repeat your study (location, timing, methods).
- Justify your methods. A critical aspect of a paper concerns the methods you
employed to test your hypotheses.
- always use metric
- space or no space between integer and unit appears to be up to author or
journal (i.e. 6cm vs. 6 cm), space between “by” (6 x 4cm, or gender x age
design).
- use common or scientific depending on which is easier to read, and be
consistent, don’t use both other than first mention of species. Common
names are not capitalized.

Results
- Link results directly to methods and hypotheses with subheadings.
- Don’t refer to tables or figures within sentence. Refer to them
parenthetically at end of sentence.
- Don’t interpret results, leave that for Discussion section.
- Don’t use “effect” (infers causation) to describe relationships based on
correlative data.
 Tables and Figures
- Journals include figures and tables as part of the page limits, so try to strike an
appropriate balance between words and data. (don’t waste figure on two data
points!)
- If you use figures or tables, provide a legend that will allow the reader to
understand what the data are all about (means, transformations, sample size).
Legend starts by summarizing the result it is presenting. Should be
understandable without referring to text, if possible.
Example:
Don’t - “Mean arcsine transformed percent mortality (individuals per day)
plotted against mean +/- 1 s.e. (g) body weight for all sites”
Do – “The positive relationship between percent mortality and body weight”
- SHOW CAUSALITY
- We think causality and visually, so exploit that.
- Convey change over time within eye span.
- Avoid codes and legends and identify symbols directly in figure
- Dependent variable on Y axis, independent variable on X axis.
- Units on axis, not in legend text.
- Define error bars (std. error, std. dev., 95% CI)
- Maximize data ink, minimize non-data ink (e.g., don’t use 3-D unless
necessary); eliminate non-necessary information or complexity.
- Coordinate line style with symbol style.

Literature Cited
- defined by journal and highly variable (EndNote)
Key Words
- Don’t be redundant with title

Key Phrases
- essentially summarize title