How To Write a Scientific Paper and Format it Using L
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X
Jennifer E. Hoffman
1, 2, ∗
1
Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
2
School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
(Dated: June 7, 2024)
The goal of this document is to demonstrate how to write a scientific paper. We walk through the
process of outlining, writing, formatting in L
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X, making figures, referencing, and checking style and
content. Source files are available at: http://hoffman.physics.harvard.edu/example-paper/.
I. GETTING STARTED
1 You should start writing your paper
while you are
working on your experiment. Prof. George Whitesides
says: “A paper is not just an archival device for stor-
ing a completed research program; it is also a structure
for planning your research in progress. If you clearly
understand the purpose and form of a paper, it can be
immensely useful to you in organizing and conducting
your research. A good outline for the paper is also a
good plan for the research program. You should write
and rewrite these plans/outlines throughout the course
of the research. At the beginning, you will have mostly
plan; at the end, mostly outline. The continuous effort
to understand, analyze, summarize, and reformulate hy-
potheses on paper will be immensely more efficient for
you than a process in which you collect data and start to
organize them only when their collection is ‘complete’ .”
Here are some concrete steps to get started.
1. Read George Whitesides’ “How to Write a Paper” [1].
2. Read through at least one full paper in your target
journal, to get a sense of the content and writing style.
3. To clarify in your own head the purpose of your paper,
start by drafting your abstract [2].
4. Before you tackle the body of the paper, sketch block
outlines of the figures. Decide what images and plots
you will put in the paper, and how the panels will
be arranged. An excellent example of an outline with
sketched figures is shown in Ref. [3], and can be com-
pared to the final published paper in Ref. [4].
5. Outline at the paragraph level before you write. Look
at how many paragraphs there will be in the style of
paper you are trying to write. For example, for a
standard 4-page scientific letter, aim for 13 paragraphs
(generally, you can estimate about 200 words per para-
graph). Figure out how to tell your entire story (not
numbers, just story!) in 13 stand-alone sentences.
6. Make each of those sentences into the first sentence
of a paragraph, and fill into each paragraph only de-
tails that are relevant to that first sentence. If you
find yourself writing details about the figures, cut and
paste them into the captions.
7. If you think of references as you go, you can include the
∗
minimal identifying information in parentheses to trig-
ger your memory later, e.g. “(WhitesidesAdvMat)”, so
all of the information is compact.
8. Dig into the existing literature to write the intro para-
graphs. A thorough literature search may take a full
focused week for each intro paragraph. Use an or-
ganized, three-pass approach to keep a good balance
between depth and breadth of your search [5].
9. Rewrite your abstract, taking into account what you
have learned from the process of writing the paper. As
you fine-tune your abstract, refer again to Nature’s
instructions for writing an abstract [2] and for clear
communication more generally [6].
2 As you contemplate the paper you have just writ-
ten, put yourself in the shoes of the reviewers (includ-
ing your collaborators). You already work many, many
hours/week, and you don’t really want to spend more
time reading this paper. So you’re going to be very happy
if the figures are pretty, the text flows logically, the ref-
erences are hyperlinked for easy access, and you can un-
derstand the paper quickly. But you’re going to be very
grumpy if you can’t get the main points of the paper from
scanning through the figures & captions. You’re going to
be even grumpier if you invest time in reading the pa-
per but you still can’t get it. Your evaluation of this
paper is likely to be swayed by your ease of understand-
ing, regardless of the scientific merits of the work. (See
Ref. 7 for more information on how formatting, even as
simple as font choice, will influence the reader’s “cogni-
tive ease” and ultimately their judgment of the report.)
Down the road, consider a reader who might cite the
paper and launch you to fame and glory: the potential
citer’s decision will be influenced by their ability to easily
understand your paper.
3 Your paper should be fractal. Somebody with
one minute to look at it should be able to get the main
idea just from reading the abstract. Somebody with 5
minutes should be able to look at the figures and get
more out of it. Somebody with 10 minutes should be
able to get the story from the introduction, first sentence
of each paragraph, and conclusion.
II. L
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4 L
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X is a formatting language that allows profes-