Workshop Summary

Workshop summary: “How to write Journal Articles in the Sciences”

This workshop was the first of two sessions of the GREAT-INSPIRE workshop program on “How to write Journal Article in Sciences” held at Murdoch University in March 2016. The presenters were Dr Angus Morrison Saunders and Mike Hughes.

This first session was design for HDR students to understand what makes a good journal paper and what factors will increase the rate of publishing success. This workshop focused on writing effectively for journal audiences.

The session provided participants with valuable information on how to write effectively. It also gave participants a chance to work on their own piece of writing by bringing their introduction of a paper/draft. Participants practiced in a practical slot in the workshop.

The following points are the summary of the session presentation:

1. Research is not completed unless it has been communicated and scientific publication form a prominent means of scientific communication. We can also say that research or experiments that are not reported simply did not happen. Nowadays there are high demands on publishing, for academics and researchers and we often hear the phrase “publish or perish” in the academia world.
2. Writing research papers involves disciplined thinking and is one of hardest writing activities that one will ever do. Therefore, learning how to write effectively is a lifelong apprenticeship. There are three stages of writing namely:
   • Brainstorming and drafting,
   • Crafting and
   • Polishing.

Good writing according to the presenter, is a combination of free speech of spoken language with good grammar. When polishing a paper it is a good idea to first listen to our writing. We can do this by reading out loud which helps us to understand our writing.

1. Before starting a paper, we also need to carefully choose a journal audience for our research story. When selecting our target journal(s) we need to consider the following:
   • Who will be our audiences,
   • Geographic relevance of the study and its message(s),
   • Speed and/or ease of publication, and
   • Impact factors or other metrics.
2. In short, there are four elements to keep in mind when writing a paper namely:
• Be creative (tell a story),
• Have one clear aim/main message,
• Provide engaging title,
• Write for your identified audiences and provide concluding messages or lessons learnt for the readers

Also appears in SOAR Blog: http://www.soarcentreblog.info/#!Workshop-summary-“How-to-write-Journal-Articles-in-the-Sciences”/cjds/56fb86eb0cf2c25af4c7a525

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