You must have already mastered the art of writing a scientific journal if you are a researcher. But for independent scientists, writing research papers is a trying experience. Remember, even for experienced people the first draft will be far from perfect. So don’t think about making every sentence perfect when you start writing. Here are a few tips to write a scientific journal.
Do some research
You must do some background research before you start writing. To acquaint yourself with all the papers connected to your research topic you can refer journal articles that have already been published.
Set goals and objectives
Your research should have a well-defined research goal and series of objectives, as this forms the foundation of your research paper.
Keep notes
To answer your research question you must have used a lot of materials as well as applied several methods. Maintain excellent notes of everything you used and applied for your research.
Follow a proper structure
Scientific journals follow a typical structure. They will have a title, conceptual notes, foreword, equipment & methods, and results. Discussion, conclusion, acknowledgements, and references form the final part of a scientific journal.
Title & Abstract
Only after completing the paper you should write the title and abstract. Make the title as catchy as possible for the maximum impact. The abstract is a mini paper in itself. Most scientists read the title and abstract to decide whether or not they should go through the entire paper. So these two aspects are very important.
Introduction
Give a gist of what you plan to do in the paper in your introduction. This should include your goals and objectives.
Materials & Methods
From the beginning to the end of your experiment you must give step by step details so that someone else can repeat the study if they wish so. Don’t write and edit at the same time. Include as much information as possible. Editing can be done after completing the scientific journal.
Results
The facts made known by your work should be included in this section.
Discussion
You have to bring all your results collectively into a logical story in the discussion. Also, based on your own results as well as other peoples’ research you must put the findings in framework. By the end of the discussion you should address the goals and objectives summarised in your introduction.
Conclusion
What binds the paper is the conclusion. In this section you need to repeat the research question and restate the major results.
Acknowledgements & References
The contributions of others must be included in this section.
Points to remember
There is no hard and fast rule that you must write your scientific journal in a specific order. The results section, which will have tables and figures, is easy to start with. And you will find most scientists starting their work on the scientific journal with this section. There are also others who find the methods section easier and they start with it. You can also start with whichever section you find easier to begin with.