How to Write a Paper

By: George M. Whitesides

研究目标：制定和测试假设，从这些测试中得出结论，并将这些结论传授给他人。你的目标不是收集数据。

Write Outlines

问你自己一个显而易见的问题：我为什么要做这项工作？这是什么意思？我想检验什么假设？我到底测试了哪些呢？结果如何？ 这项工作产生了一种新的合成方法吗？我测量了什么？它们的特征是什么？画出可能的方程式、图形和方案。弄清主要思想是很重要的。
如果你开始研究是为了测试一个假设，当你看到你所拥有的数据时，你会觉得这些数据似乎能更好地测试其他假设，不要担心。把它们都写下来，选择假设、目标和数据的最佳组合。通常，当一篇论文完成时，它的目标与那些用来证明开始工作的目标不同。许多好的科学都是机会主义和修正主义的。
当你写下了你能写的，从另一张纸开始，试着整理第一张纸上的杂乱。把你所有的想法分成三大类。

1. Introduction
   Why did I do the work? What were the central motivations and hypotheses? 动机、假设
2. Results and Discussion
   What were the results? How were compounds made and characterized? What was measured? 结果、产品、测量量
3. Conclusions
   What does it all mean? What hypotheses were proved or disproved? What did I learn? Why does it make a difference? 意义、证明、收获

接下来，把这些部分中的每一部分，以更精细的规模组织起来。集中精力组织数据。构建图表、表格和方案，尽可能清晰、紧凑地呈现数据。这个过程可以慢，你可以用不同的方法画5到10次图，试图决定如何使它最清晰（看起来最美观）。
最后，把所有东西 - 每部分的大纲、表格、速写图、方程 - 整理好顺序。
当你满意地认为你已经包括了所有的数据（或者你知道你打算收集哪些额外的数据），并且有一个合理的组织，把大纲给我。简单地指出丢失的数据会去哪里，你认为（假设）它们会是什么样子，如果你的假设是正确的，你将如何解释它们。我会拿着这个提纲，加上我的意见，提出修改的建议，然后反馈给你。通常需要四到五次迭代（通常还有额外的实验）来达成一个大纲。当我们达成一致意见后，数据通常是（或接近）最终形式（即表格、图表等）。
有效利用你和我的时间的关键是我们在项目的早期就开始交换大纲和建议。在任何情况下，都不要等到数据收集完成后才开始写提纲。 没有一个项目是彻底完成的，一旦你看到一个项目的基本结构，就提出一个合理的论文和大纲，这节省了大量的精力和时间。即使我们决定在认真组织一篇论文之前做大量的额外工作，写大纲的努力也将有助于指导研究。
然后你就可以开始写作了，确信你的大部分文章都会被用到。

The Outline

1. Title

2. Author

3. Abstract (leave it until everything’s done)

4. Introduction
   Write out the first or two paras, pay attention to the opening sentence. State concisely the objective of the work, and indicate why it’s so important.

   • the objectives of the work
   • justification: why the work is so important
   • background: Who else has done what? How? What have we done previously?
   • Guidance to the reader: What should the readers watch for the paper? What are the interesting high points? What strategy we used?
   • Summary/Conclusion: What should the reader expect for conclusion?

5. Results and Discussions
   Organize according to the topics, write with section subheadings. Make them as specific and information-rich as possible. Try to cover the major common points:

   • materials (objects)
   • meathods of characterization
   • meathods of measurement
   • results

   just show what will go in this section, for example: section headings, figures (with captions), schemes(with captions and foot notes), equations, tables(correctly formatted). Remember that figures, schemes, equations and tables are the most important and the text is secondary. Use visual repersentations to be Clear and Economic.

6. Conclusions
   Summarize the conclusions as a list of short phrases or sentences. Do not repeat what is in the Results section, unless special emphasis is needed. The Conclusions section should be just that, and not a summary. It should add a new, higher level of analysis, and should indicate explicitly the significance of the work.

7. Experimental (what’s this?)
   Include, in the correct order to correspond to the order in the Results section, all of the paragraph subheadings of the experimental section.

Summary

• 在一个项目的早期开始写可能的论文大纲。不要等到最后一刻。结局可能永远不会到来。

• 通常，当一篇论文完成时，它的目标与那些用来证明开始工作的目标不同。许多好的科学都是机会主义和修正主义的。

• 围绕容易理解的数据 - 表格、方程式、数字、方案 - 组织大纲和论文，而不是围绕文本。

• 按照重要性排序，而不是时间顺序。写论文的一个重要细节是考虑到主题的权重。新手们经常按照时间顺序来组织一篇论文:也就是说，他们对他们的实验计划进行复述，从他们珍视的最初的失败开始，直到高潮的成功结束。这种做法是完全错误的。从最重要的结果开始，把次要的结果放在后面，如果有的话。读者通常并不关心你是如何得到大结果的，他们只关心结果是什么。较短的论文比较长的论文更易读。

Some Point of Style

• Do not use nouns as adjectives
  Not: ATP formation; reaction product
  But: formation of ATP; product of the reaction
• The word “this” must always be followed by a noun, so that its reference is explicit.
  Not: This is a fast reaction; This leads us to conclude
  But: This reaction is fast; This observation leads us to conclude
• Describe experimental results uniformly in the past tense.
  Not: Addition of water gives product.
  But: Addition of water gave product.
• Use the active voice whenever possible.
  Not: It was observed that the solution turned red.
  But: The solution turned red. or We observed that the solution turned red.
• Complete all comparisons.
  Not: The yield was higher using bromine.
  But: The yield was higher using bromine than chlorine.
  -Type all papers double-spaced (not single- or one-and-a-half-spaced), and leave two spaces after colons, and after periods at the end of sentences. Leave generous margins.

You can get a good idea of writing style from three sources:

• The journals. Simply look at articles in the journals and copy the organization you see there.
• Previous papers from the group. By looking at previous papers, you can see exactly how a paper should “look”. If what you wrote looks different, it probably is not what we want.
• The ACS Handbook for Authors. Useful, detailed, especially the section on references, pp. 173-229.
  I also suggest you read Strunk and White, The Elements of Style (Macmillan: New York, 1979, 3rd ed.) to get a sense for usage. A number of other books on scientific writing are in the group library; these books all contain useful advice, but are not lively reading. There are also several excellent books on the design of graphs and figures.