Workshop Outline
Day 1. 9.30am–11.00am. Science publishing culture
Introductions and icebreaker; establishing working groups Exercise 1 Scientific journals and peer review Excercise 2 Appraisal of journals: journal metrics; choosing the right journal for your work Exercise 3 Day 1. 11.30am–1.00pm. Writing as part of your research project
How to ensure you have something worth publishing Your outline: identifying the gap, anomaly or other reason for embarking on your research project; constructing an hypothesis and defining the aim of the study Exercise 4 Remembering the reader Making your writing reader friendly: strategies for writing simply and clearly; sentence and paragraph construction Exercise 5 Day 1. 2.00pm–3.30pm. Writing your paper (part 1)
Getting started – working with coauthors; planning the process; time management Sections of a scientific paper – order for writing Telling a story Introduction – using your aim/hypothesis to set the framework for your paper; structure; managing and using literature Exercise 6 Day 1. 4.00pm–5.00pm. Writing your paper (part 2)
Materials and Methods – structure and subheadings; repeatability; acronyms Exercise 7 Results – choosing and presenting your data; effective use of text, tables and figures; structure and subheadings; avoiding the pitfalls Exercises 8 & 9 Day 2. 9.30am–11.30am. Getting your message across
Review of Day 1 and agenda for Day 2 Discussion – interpretation in context of the literature; using your hypothesis and the Introduction; characteristics of strong and weak Discussions; assessing structure; conclusions Exercise 10 Abstract – purpose and importance; elements of a good abstract; keywords Exercise 11 Title – creating and evaluating your title; characteristics of good and bad titles Exercise 12 Day 2. 12.00pm–1.00pm. Protocols and ethics of scientific publication
Authorship and acknowledgements References: styles; management systems; effective use Internal reviews; managing feedback Permissions: to reproduce figures or quotations; ethics and experimentation permits Declaring conflicts of interest Prior publication, plagiarism, dual submission Substandard work Exercise 13 Day 2. 2.00pm–3.30pm. Getting your paper published
Pre-submission checklist Submitting the paper Journal processes: an Editor’s perspective Exercise 14 Responding to editors’ and referees’ reports; options if rejected Exercise 15 Acceptance and pre-publication process Getting your paper cited Day 2. 4.00pm–5.00pm. Summary and end of workshop
Summary of key points and useful references Feedback survey Next steps: using what you have learned
General Information
The workshop is interactive, with participants encouraged to think and discuss why, where, when and how to publish and who their readers are. Each workshop is tailored as far as possible to the needs of the group and the outline above may be altered accordingly.
The facilitator will contact participants before the course to gain an understanding of their levels of experience in writing scientific publications, to discover if they have experienced any particular barriers to writing, and if they have any specific needs or skill gaps they wish to address.
Each participant will be asked to bring a current writing project to develop during the workshop. If this is not possible, the facilitator will make alternative arrangements with the participant to ensure s/he gains practical experience during the workshop.
Each participant will receive a copy of the new book ‘Science Writing = Thinking in Words’ by David Lindsay (CSIRO Publishing 2011), as well as the course notes.
