UDS Writing Club Guidelines

Written By Katherine Rogers

By Katherine Rogers

Image credit: Mary Griggs Burke Collection, Gift of the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation, 2015, Wikimedia Commons

Writing and editing are constant and important aspects of scientific careers. Clear writing is required to:

  • Publish papers

  • Obtain fellowships and grants

  • Apply for talks, programs (e.g., grad/med school), workshops, and jobs!

 

Writing clubs are a good way to:

  • Practice concisely communicating complex information to peers in writing

    • Note that most writing applications in science have word limits

    • Note that many readers (e.g., fellowship application reviewers...) are busy and tired and will favor concise, clear writing

  • Practice giving/recieving constructive feedback on writing

    • Note that writing a paper is a collaborative, iterative process

  • Practice logistically planning for a writing project that requires several rounds of feedback

    • Again, this will be a realistic scenario throughout your career!

    • When should you start working on it?

    • How do you make sure you're on track to submit on time?

    • How much time do you need to give people to submit their feedback? How do you make sure you get their feedback?

    • How much time do you need to incorporate feedback?

  • Keep up with literature of all kinds (something easily neglected!)

  • Discover a method, result, or person that could be important for your research

 

 

Writers & editors

Writers

  • Select a publication or topic (see "Selecting publications/topics" below)

    • If you have selected a publication:

      • Send a link to the paper in our #general Slack channel ~1 week before you plan to seek feedback

      • Add your selected paper to the "presented papers" google doc

        • This ensures we don't write about or present the same paper at journal club twice; please check the doc prior to selecting a paper

  • Summarize the publication/topic in 300 - 500 words (see "Writing guidelines" below). Do not exceed 500 words.

  • Email your summary as a Word document to the UDS (but not to me). Budget ~1 week for feedback.

  • Revise your summary based on your labmates' feedback.

  • Email me the revised summary. I will give you feedback in ~1 week.

  • Revise the summary again (yep!) after receiving my feedback.

  • Put your revised summary on our server share and post to our Slack #general channel

  • A note about due dates: Once we have agreed on your WC's due date, you will only have ONE opportunity to move it if necessary.

Editors

  • If the writer has selected a publication, read the publication.

  • Use "Track Changes" in Word to edit and provide comments on the writer's summary (see "Editing guidelines" below).

    • I will check in with authors regarding their experience with feedback

    • Be constructive and clear with your colleagues. RUDE COMMENTS ARE NEVER ACCEPTABLE.

  • Rename the edited document "Original_name_Your_initials.docx" and send it back to the writer within 1 week.

 

In addition: If you come across a paper you think would be interesting to write about, add it to the "IDEAS" table at the end of this linked page.

 

 

Selecting publications/topics

Publication or topic?

  • Select a "publication" if you would like to focus on one specific paper

  • Select "topic" if you would like to write a "mini-review"

    • For example, perhaps you are currently writing a fellowship application and need to explain relevant background for your scientific question

    • You will need to read and consolidate the relevant literature for the application, WC is a good opportunity to do that!

  • Is there some other way you would like to structure your write up? Talk to me!

 

How to find interesting publications?

  • Attend seminars and conferences to hear about the latest research (lots of free online options now!)

    • NIH Interest Groups: https://oir.nih.gov/sigs

    • VGZT: https://twitter.com/vgzt2020_21

  • Talk to colleagues

  • Follow your favorite scientists on Twitter

  • Check our "Ideas for papers to present" list

 

Paper choice suggestions

  • Biological insight that impacts how we think about the processes we study

  • Method / technique / technology that we might want to try out

  • Surprising or controversial findings that we might want to examine for ourselves

  • Findings that might impact how we run or interpret experiments (e.g., the studies about genetic compensation initially described by the Stainier lab)

  • Something (seemingly) unrelated to our lab but so cool that you want to talk to other scientists about it

  • Pro tip: Try to at least skim the paper before selecting it since abstracts don't always reflect the quality of the contents

 

Writer guidelines

Writing

  • Model your summary after the "eLife Digests" found in some papers published in the journal eLife

    • Read several of these before embarking on your writing journey

    • See examples attached to this note

  • Summaries should be 300-500 words

    • Pro tip: Word will display the word count in the lower left corner of the document. You can also highlight subsets and instantly see the word count:

  • Bonus points: Use EndNote to insert references

    • Experiment with different citation styles

    • No limit on reference number

    • References do NOT count toward the word limit

  • Your audience determines your writing style

    • Here the audience is fellow scientists at all career stages

  • Do not send your summary to the lab until it is as good as you can possibly make it on your own

    • If you anticipate that people will comment on something-- that's a good indication that you need to tweak it!

    • Be prepared to make extensive changes if warranted by feedback

      • I realize this decreases the drive to make it as good as you can on your own, but it's a realistic scenario...

  • Try to budget writing over a few days. This allows you to write, put it down, then view your writing again with a fresh brain.

    • Protip: First draft just write a terrible "blah" version of all the ideas in your head; then refine, refine, refine

  • Things to consider discussing

    • What were they trying to test? How would knowing the answer impact our understanding of biology?

    • How did they test it?

    • How did they interpret their results?

    • What future experiments would meaningfully expand these results? Any caveats to their experiments / methods / interpretation?

    • How might these findings impact science? The advancement of humankind??

  • Clarity above all!

 

Revising

  • Budget enough time for revisions upon receiving feedback

  • If multiple people comment on the same thing, definitely address it! That's a good indication that something needs to be adjusted.

  • It can be difficult to receive constructive criticism. Consider it "growing pains" and take comfort in the fact that we all feel it :)

    • Utilize your resources here to become a better writer! In my experience it's really hard to improve alone.

    • Extensive constructive comments are a sign that the editor cares about your development

      • It is a significant time investment to provide many good, constructive comments; it would be much easier to just quickly give superficial comments

    • In the unlikely event that an editor provides rude feedback, please notify me

      • I will independently clarify feedback guidelines with that individual

 

 

Editor guidelines

  • I REITERATE: RUDE COMMENTS ARE NEVER ACCEPTABLE

    • I will routinely talk to authors about their feedback experiences and will clarify expectations with editors if needed

    • Avoid this outside of Writing Club as well, even on documents that you don't expect "outsiders" or original authors to view

      • There have been instances where the wrong document with rude comments was accidentally sent to original authors...

  • Be CONSTRUCTIVE. It can be helpful to point out a problem; it can be even better to suggest how to fix it

    • e.g., "I got a little lost here when the topic of the paragraph changed. I would suggest to move the sentence about kinase domains to the end of the paragraph and insert a brief explanation of activation kinetics at the beginning of the paragraph." is better than "I am confused."

    • BUT, don't just re-write the entire thing for them. Goal here is to help the writer clarify their writing, not to do it for them :)

  • Try to avoid using the word "you" when giving feedback

    • e.g., "Consider narrowing the focus of this sentence" is better than "The sentence you wrote is too broad"

    • Focuses comments on the writing, not the person

  • Keep feedback focused and actionable

  • Edit independently-- i.e., I generally would not recommend consulting with labmates. The writer will then get useful feedback from multiple, independent perspectives.

Katherine Rogers
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