Teaching Writing to Students and Postdocs

Often, the main obstacle to academics’ dissemination of their research is that they lack the skills to write an effective manuscript. The importance of good writing is not to be underestimated: no matter the quality of the research, convoluted writing can prevent new ideas from being properly understood by other academics and from being accepted into journals. Therefore, it is crucial that students and postdocs in all academic fields receive training in writing so that they may effectively make their discoveries known to the world.

Warm-up exercises:

Writing an academic manuscript can feel intimidating, especially when the bulk of your students’ work is dedicated to scientific research and experimentation. It is important to encourage your students to acclimate to writing through simple exercises. Though it may seem juvenile, I advise that teachers start classes or workshops with a brief writing exercise (no longer than ten minutes). You might ask your students to write about their weekend, a favorite memory of theirs, a recipe they frequently make, or a problem they had to solve once. Much of scientific writing presents the methods of an experiment in a way that it can be easily replicated by their reader, so any small piece of writing that students can write in which steps are followed is great practice. Students can then exchange their short writing pieces with a fellow student, who can then offer feedback or ask for clarification. This teaches students to keep their reader in mind while writing and to anticipate what points those readers may get stuck on in their writing. It is also a way to build confidence. Tell your students that the more they read and write in English, even casually, the easier it will be for them to write and publish a manuscript.

Outlining according to templates:

Writing a manuscript takes time and patience; to ensure that your students are less intimidated, show them how to outline and divide their writing up into parts. A good rule of thumb is to start with templates provided by the journals your students are submitting to. These templates will vary from journal to journal, but, in general, make sure that your students include an abstract, introduction, the main body of the text (which may include a literature review, methods, results, and a discussion), and a conclusion. Ask your students to write the headings for each section, then have them provide three to five bullet points of information that they intend to include in each section. If your students can do this, then they have all the information necessary to start writing their paper. If not, then they will know exactly which gaps in their research they need to address before beginning to write. Both are constructive outcomes!

Peer editing:

Pair your students up and have them exchange manuscripts. Each student will read their partner’s manuscript as homework and come to the next class with notes and questions on each section. Encourage these students to mark up their partner’s manuscript with corrections or suggestions. Often, researchers can be so engrossed in their own work that it is difficult for them to recognize where the gaps are that others may not understand. Providing a safe space where students can offer each other constructive criticism and feedback on a manuscript can help researchers understand how the average reader will perceive their work and how they can enhance their manuscript’s readability.

Revise:

Encourage your students to view writing as an ongoing process: academic manuscripts are never written in one sitting (or at least, the good ones aren’t!) Effective writing requires patience on the part of your students who are anxious to publish quickly, but remind them to continue to revisit the page in small time intervals each day until they feel it cannot improve any more. A good trick when revising is to read full sections of the manuscript to yourself out loud. This forces the brain to slow down and listen to the flow of the manuscript, which allows students to catch errors that their eyes might normally skip over. Remind them as well that, although getting rejected from a target journal is frustrating, negative journal feedback can be used as another opportunity to continue to revise and improve the manuscript before submitting it to another journal.

Happy writing!