Starting a paper

[stunna8]

Hi, I just completed a summer of research after my M1 year. I spent most of the summer doing an animal project and towards the end of my time there I started a basic science project. The lab will continue working on the project while I am in school (in different cities) and I will get first authorship if I write it up. This is my first project write-up and I wonder what kind of process you research veterans use when starting a paper. I want to complete as much as I can before school starts even though I will not get the data for about a month or so. Thanks for all of your help!

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[Pinkertinkle]

First I think of a working title. Then I work on the real meat of the paper, the results and discussion. Then I fill in the fluff, being the intro and methods. Last I add the references, and then its proof read over and over.

 

[RxnMan]

You'd want to look through here since most journals either are owned by Elsevier or have similar formats. Papers are the general 4-part format: Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion. Sometimes there's Conclusions. Intro and Methods you can write before you have results.

Intro is sort of your selling point - why should we care about your research? Start from some broad scope - X cancer affects 100,000 people per year (ref. from CDC).

Then take it down a notch and get more specific - 10,000 of these cases would be averted/reduced morbidity/etc if they were detected 6 months earlier (ref. from Nature).

Then narrow the focus more to highlight the problem you're studying - Cells involved in cancer X show a change in surface protein Y 8 months before becoming malignant (ref. Here).

Lastly, sell the reader on how the hypothesis of this paper solves/helps the problem you're studying - Our method Z may be able to detect change Y and lead to early detection of cancer X.

Then the Methods is an easy walkthrough of how you tested samples. Probably the easiest part to write.

 

[DropkickMurphy]

since most journals either are owned by Elsevier or have similar formats

Sadly, you're right......I'm dealing with Elsevier now over an article. *pulls hair out*