Writing, Publishing and Presenting

Of all the words you write to prepare a manuscript, too often the most important ten or so are left as an afterthought. You’ve slaved for weeks to finish your manuscript. Through draft and re-draft, you managed to shoehorn hundreds of man-hours of careful lab work into the word limit designed to be precisely 300…

It is a truth universally acknowledged that free cheese exists only in a mousetrap, and even there it’s free only to the end user. So it’s no wonder that the traditional system of most scientific publications through publishing houses seems to be fair. A publishing house (PH) employs editors as well as technical personnel to…

Every once in a while a big case of scientific fraud reaches public attention. Does that mean these well-known cases are exceptions, a few rotten apples…or might the rest of the fruit bowl also be affected? A major part of a scientist’s work is to secure funding for future research. Obtaining funding is strongly connected…

Most scientists I know approach the publication process with fear and trembling: the endless discussions about what journal to submit to, the agonized consideration of impact factors, comparing the all-important “time to first decision”, etc. Now that I’ve been working for a scientific publisher for a few months, I’m surprised at how many manuscripts still…

The very idea of standing up and giving an oral presentation at a conference gives even the most confident of us butterflies. Additionally, I don’t know many scientists who find the thought of spending hours working on a powerpoint presentation exactly thrilling. However, there are many benefits to presenting your work at a conference. First…

It’s pretty likely you’ll have heard of impact factors, either through colleagues talking about them in the lab, or from a journal homepage advertising its latest score. Whilst impact factor is a relatively artificial value, it is something that journal editors, scientists and some funding agencies take seriously. It’s therefore important to understand what it…

Poster sessions can be your best friend, or your worst nightmare; it all comes down to how well you’ve prepared.  In this article, I’ll discuss how to present your data in poster form, what to look out for at a poster session, and how to make the most out of a poster session…in short, how…

There are six little words that can instill both excitement and trepidation in the heart of a graduate student: “No one’s ever done this before.” What those words really mean, of course, is “No one’s ever published this before,” and you are either standing at the edge of a great discovery or a chasm of…

In today’s technology-driven world, we leave so many things to our electronic gadgets. Surprisingly, many life scientists try manically to control the appearance of their documents by hand with programs like MS Word. LaTeX takes this task off your hands by providing highly efficient algorithms to properly format your texts. The results are almost always…

You’ve spent a few years optimising your experiments and gathering data, and with good planning “The easier way to write a PhD thesis” it’s all come together and you’re ready to start writing it up. This is the last big challenge in getting your PhD finished, but it’s the part which can feel the most…

Thanks to the power of digital imaging software, faking data is a lot easier than doing real science. Clearly the honest majority of us would never deliberately distort the scientific record, but is it possible to stumble into trouble through sheer ignorance? Quite possibly. The line between innocent enhancement and deliberate fraud can be blurry…

We scientists are all so focused on getting our work published that many of us seem to forget something very important; that publication is just the beginning. After publication is when our manuscripts really have to do their essential work of communicating our science to our peers. If no-one reads the manuscript, we might as…

There’s no author who can’t benefit from an editor, or two, or ten.  But first, an author needs to do everything they can to make the manuscript as good as they possibly can.  You want your editor(s) to concentrate on what you’ve written, without the distraction of stupid stuff that you were just too lazy…

So my PhD hasn’t been easy but whose has? And if it wasn’t for some supportive colleagues and some great advice I wouldn’t be where I am today, or where I was last year!  I found out about a great conference from a colleague, and their enthusiasm got me really interested when all I wanted…

This is part three of a four part series on writing your first paper. For the first part in the series, click here, for the second part, click here. Once you have written the first draft and handed it off to your mentor, the editing process begins. Depending on the personalities involved, this could be a…

This is part two of a four part series on writing your first paper. For the first part in the series, click here. You have been pounding away at your project, probably for a year… or two… or three… Anyhow, you now have a collection of figures that seem to tell quite a nice story,…

Presenting your work is a fantastic opportunity to get feedback on your project, demonstrate the significance of your results, and make the connections that will enhance your future career. And yet, how many incomprehensible lab meetings have we all sat through? How many seminars have you attended that left you feeling more confused than inspired?…

No-one would disagree with the goals of open access publishing: free access to scientific literature for all. If you work in an institution or small company that can’t afford to pay journal subscription fees you’ll know the problems that lack of access can cause. But publishing costs money, and someone has to pay those costs.…

Powerpoint is a double-edged sword. There’s no doubt it makes putting together a presentation easier. Those who worked with slides, overhead projector films and the like in the years B.P. (Before Powerpoint) will testify to that. But Powerpoint’s ease of use also makes it easy to abuse, and bullet points are the most abused feature…