8/14/2019 Writing-a-paper-Nature-Physics-elements-of-style.pdf

1/1

EDITORIAL

nature physics|VOL 3 | SEPTEMBER 2007 |www.nature.com/naturephysics 581

Vol.3 No.9 September 2007 www.nature.com/naturephysics

Elements of style

It is intended, first, to place beore thegeneral public the grand results o scientificwork and scientific discovery; and to urge

the claims o science to a more generalrecognition in education and in daily lie....So reads the opening o Natures missionstatement, published originally in 1869 andstill a maxim or the modern journal. It isa tradition also embraced by Natures sistertitles, Nature Physicsamong them.

And so we consider it a prioritythat the material we publish is clear andaccessible which is why all o the papersaccepted or publication are copy-edited,and why, during the process o peer reviewand manuscript revision, editors alsorecommend appropriate stylistic changes

to the text. So many papers deserve to bebetter written than they are. Te prosaicdetails o ormat or Nature Physics(textlength, number o figures, and so on) arespelled out in our Guide to Authors, atwww.nature.com/nphys/authors, but it iswell worth considering, on a more creativelevel, how best to compose a research paper.I the research is worth writing up, its worthwriting up well.

Beore you even begin, ask yourselthe question, Why should anyone care toread past the title o my paper? A succinct,inormative but also tempting title is

essential, and is the first o the key eaturesin a manuscript to come under editorialscrutiny. Next comes the most importantparagraph o the whole paper: the first one.Even i it is a work o expositional genius,ew among a broad audience are likelyto read beyond it. So it is vital that thisparagraph tells the central story o the paper,and makes clear why this story deserves tobe told. Dont launch into technical details,or merely list what you did. Set the scene,explain the background that will give thenon-specialist reader a context in which tounderstand the significance o the work, butellow specialists will also appreciate your

telling them what you consider to be therelevant questions in the field.

Story is the concept that should

underlie the structure o the entirepaper. Te clearer and simpler, the moreengrossing it is. On that basis, think aboutrelegating technical details essentialto the science but not the narrative toa Methods section or to SupplementaryInormation (the latter published online).Similarly, figures should be designedto enhance the telling o the story, andeach accompanied by a caption that is asshort as possible; to an expert reader, theinormation conveyed in a figure shouldbe clear without needing to consult themain text.

Explain, dont hype. Te object is not tofind fine words or turns o phrase that willconvince the reader to care i normally theywouldnt; nor is it to push the boundarieso what is clearly supported by the evidencepresented. I claims matter, they will bescrutinized, and i theyre not robustlysupported by the results, no amount ohyperbole will convince anyone editor,

reeree or reader otherwise.Avoid clichs like the plague. Unlessyou are an archaeologist, it is unlikely thatyouve ound the Holy Grail. Similarly, avoidhollow generalities. It may be that your workwill open up new avenues o explorationin your field but surely that is the pointo most novel research? Instead, you mightwant to offer specific problems that could beaddressed or new capabilities that might beenabled by yourwork.

Adjectives are best used sparingly andonly when justified. Avoid using the wordvery it doesnt add inormation, onlysyllables. Similarly, it is better to be specific

about the scales reached than to invokevague superlative prefixes, such as ultra:with the duration o laser pulses increasingly

measured in attoseconds, its less andless meaningul to describe hundreds oemtoseconds as ultrashort. Neither doesthe use o quantum, nano or bio scorepoints: perhaps the paper does discussphenomena that involve quantized energylevels, happen at the nanoscale or are seenin molecules that are also ound in livingorganisms, but unless these aspects areat the heart o the reported research suchprefixes should not be emphasized.

Finally, a word about concludingparagraphs. It is commonly advised thata paper should begin by stating what will

be said, continue by saying what is to besaid, and then conclude by summarizingwhat has been said. Tis is bad advicethat recommends lazy composition.Conclusions are not mandatory, and thosethat merely summarize the precedingresults and discussion are unnecessary(and, or publication in Nature Physics,will be edited out). Rather, the concludingparagraphs should offer something newto the reader. Te point is well put bycomputer scientist Jonathan Shewchuk(http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jrs/sins.html):

Heres a simple test: i somebody reads

your conclusions beore reading the resto your paper, will they ully understandthem? I the answer is yes, theres probablysomething wrong. A good conclusion saysthings that become significant afer thepaper has been read. A good conclusiongives perspective to sights that havent yetbeen seen at the introduction. A conclusionis about the implications o what the readerhas learned.

And so to conclude... good writing notonly serves your audience but improves thechances o the research being noticed andread, and o it stimulating urther progress.And neither will it hurt your citations.

We regularly get queries about the minutiae of Nature Physicsformat, but what we really care

about is that the papers are clear and accessibly written.

So many papers deserve to bebetter written than they are.

http://www.nature.com/naturephysicshttp://www.nature.com/nphys/authorshttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jrs/sins.htmlhttp://www.cs.cmu.edu/~jrs/sins.htmlhttp://www.nature.com/nphys/authorshttp://www.nature.com/naturephysics