How to Write a Scientific Paper: An Academic Self-Help Guide for PhD Students

This book is straightforward, engaging, and often humorous. The outlining and drafting tips are insightful, and the writing tips are concrete, with lots of solid advice on verb use. The general advice on being a student who needs to manage writers block and frustration has certainly been borne out in my previous experience. I feel inspired to write again. Thank you!

Over the course of my PhD, I had picked up on a lot of the structure of scientific papers from just having read a bunch of them. But having that structure explicitly laid out in front of you provides invaluable clarity during the writing process. I've been sitting with this book on my desk referencing it as I work through each paragraph of my first draft. You'll probably have to adapt this book's practices to however you and your advisor work best. For example: in this book Jari suggests starting with defining the key results of the paper (sounds reasonable). However, my advisor prefers to define key results via iteration on paper figures. So that's what has to come first in my writing process. Nonetheless, this a great book and totally worth its low cost for the amount of time it saves!

This book really broke down the writing process for graduate students. It is a easy read with a lot of great tips and instructions. It made the writing process less vague and more achievable to me. I purchased one for myself and for a friend. Thank you for such a wonderful helpful tool!

As a Ph.D. student, little time is spent in our training, delving into the nuances of scientific/academic writing. The same goes for editing. I have been looking for additional resources to address this gap. This is a brief, witty, and smart guide to writing a paper. The book focuses on how to write your manuscript once you have garnered enough data. The target audience is graduate students. His perspective about writing from a reader’s point of view continues to resonate in my head even after weeks of finishing the book. I will reread it once I start writing my first-author publication. Memorable quotes: - “Well-written papers are often about a single thing.” - “Clutter reduces clarity.” - “Keep your title short. Research has shown that shorter titles attract more citations.” - “Always tell the reader what she should see in the figure: how should the plot be interpreted? What is the message of the figure?” - “Use white space properly.” - “Always label your axes.” - “Again, remember that most readers just skim.” - “When your supervisor asks you for the first draft, give her your second draft instead (by all means, call it the first!).” - “Endings have power. Do not waste this power.”

Helped me finish a few projects while reading!

"I wish I had read this book when I started my Ph.D.," said one of the students when we read How To Write a Scientific Paper in our book club. In a shorter time than other books on science writing, it gives you the essential ingredients and recipes for distilling complex ideas into well-written papers. Therefore, I have already recommended the book to dozens of Master's students, Ph.D. students, and postdocs. Even if I have written many papers, I use it myself too, because it helps me to focus on the right things in each step of the writing process. Once I have a solid draft, I revise with the help of Schimel's Writing Science, which goes deeper into real editing.

This book is easy and enjoyable to read. I recommended it to my entire lab.

Great guide! Thank you for helping us navigate manuscript writing! I definitely recommend this book to scientists at all phases.