How to write a professional paper

1. Developing a concept of the paper 2. Preparing an outline 3. Writing the first draft 4. Topping and tailing 5. Publishing the paper

1. Developing a concept of the paper Before starting to write, you will find it helpful to clarify for yourself: –why you want to publish; – what specific topic you want to write about; – what is the most important message you want to convey; – who you are writing for; – which journal you plan to submit your paper to.

why you want to publish Promotions and career Publication enables other researchers to reflect upon your findings. Publication enables others to evaluate and test the reproducibility or validity of your work. Publication is a formal means of adding to the ‘sum of human knowledge’. add credibility to viewpoints expressed in policy discussions

WHAT TO PUBLISH We can broadly divide publications into two types: –Papers whose main purpose is develop ideas or theories. This type also includes ‘review papers’ where the existing literature is re-examined from a fresh (or different) perspective. The most important thing is Creating a message and Organizing your ideas. The structure of such papers is largely determined by the content of the arguments presented.

–Papers whose main purpose is to report on empirical findings from original research or experiments. tend to have a standardized structure: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion. The purpose of these paper allows other experts in your field to: _ assess your observations; _ repeat your experiment (or judge its validity); _ evaluate the intellectual processes.

The Main Message The message is the most important idea in your document. Everything else in the document depends on it. The message dictates: –the other ideas in the document; – how you organize and express those ideas; – the information you use to support them.

YOUR READERSHIP Primary secondary and tertiary Your primary reader is the reader who must read the document. will not use the whole document but may need to use part of it or simply know that you’ve written it. Tertiary readers are readers that you can only guess about. They may be people you will never meet but who may use the document in some unforeseen way – perhaps in the future.

The primary readership of all journal articles is always the readership of that specific journal.

PREPARING AN OUTLINE The outline usually to be made on the following: –main message; –the principal objectives or hypotheses; –materials and methods (how you carried out your investigation); –principal findings; –the main conclusions; –key points of introduction

DEEPENING THE OUTLINE INTRODUCTION –Situation –Problem –Question –Response –Summarizing The introduction takes the reader from what they already know to what author want to tell them. By the end of the introduction, the reader will be persuaded that there is an important problem to be addressed and will understand the context of author’s main message.

Situation describe the current situation (before author did the study) in a way that will be familiar to the reader. It’s important that the story begins with a statement that the reader already knows. A child will immediately accept as true any statement beginning with the words ‘Once upon a time…’ Similarly, your reader should be able to read your situation statement and accept it as true.

–Problem What is the key problem that this paper seeks to address? The problem arises within the situation. 1. Presented problems happen to the situation and make something go wrong. The defining feature of a presented problem is a gap between what is and what should be. 2. Constructed problems, by contrast, are problems we create within the situation. Such as challenges, wishes, possibilities, opportunities or goals. The Feature is a gap between what is and what could be.

–Question What questions are raised in the reader’s mind by the statement of the problem? Which are the most important questions? The problem triggers a question. That question may be in the reader’s mind or in your own mind.

–Response State the objective (or the hypothesis) of your study. It should be a logical response to the question The response or answer to the question should be the same as author's main message.

SPQR: some examples

Variants on SPQR

–Summarizing summarize how the study was conducted and conclude with author’s main findings (the main message sentence

MATERIALS AND METHODS Population Sampling main purpose in the materials and methods section is to describe how the author carried out the study. To tell the reader what the extent to which your data are representative of the population studied. usually Explain how the author obtained his sample Explain where and when the samples were obtained What criteria were used for sampling How was sample size determined What were the relevant characteristics of the sample

Materials Methods List the technical materials used in the study. described the methods used

Data analysis If you used unusual data analysis techniques, briefly describe them. If these techniques have been described in the literature, cite the reference instead. Did you use any special methods (e.g. weighting of data) that an expert would need to know in order to repeat the analysis? If so, have you provided sufficient information and provided a justification?

RESULTS The purpose of the results section is to present only those results that are strictly necessary in order to justify author’s conclusions – main message.

DISCUSSION describe author’s principal conclusions; assess or evaluate them in the light of existing knowledge; highlight the main implications of author’s findings; indicate where further work is necessary; summarize author’s main conclusions. The main purpose of the discussion is to: