NCFDD - Writing science: How to Write papers that get cited and proposals that get funded

04-12-2017 11:00 AM

Communicating in science is not just to tell us what you did and found, but to use that information to create new understanding—to tell a story about nature works. Writing science is about distilling the key messages and giving them to your readers so that the critical pieces are in the right places and are clear and compelling. In this workshop we will discuss how we adapt different “story structures” to different types of science writing—for example why the essence of a paper is the conclusions and so uses a structure that builds to the conclusions, while the essence of a proposal is the questions and so “if you haven’t told them in first two pages, you haven’t told them." We will work though examples illustrating how to frame the key pieces of a story: the opening, challenge, action, and resolution. I use concepts on writing and on being a writer from the best writers on writing, but adapt them to the unique challenges we face as working scientists trying to get our messages across in a world that is saturated with publications—how to write proposals that get funded and papers that get cited.

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