Be conscious that when first looking at your paper, most readers will go straight to looking at your figures.Your results should aim to convince the reader of your key message.Further on in this post is a section about choosing figures and results to include in your paper, and most of these will appear in your results section. The exception is where the journal specifically allows results and discussion sections to be combined.
Therefore there shouldn’t really be any suggesting why the results are a certain way. Remember, you shouldn’t be discussing findings in your results section, simply presenting them. Not only is it good practice to give credit where it is due but you’ll have an easier time with peer review demonstrating you’re following the convention. In all instances where you followed a method developed in another paper, include a reference to that paper.
See what other papers in the journal do.Īlways include enough detail for someone else to be able to repeat your experiments, including:
Oftentimes there may even be a template you can download including section titles and advice for structuring your text. It’s a good idea to check their Author Instructions page which should include a “Guide for Authors”: a walkthrough of each section of the paper. If you already have a certain journal in mind to submit your paper to, how you structure your draft may slightly depend upon the format that the journal asks for.
Let’s now discuss how to structure your first draft. You want to use the first draft to form the rough structure and be a starting point for discussion with co-authors.
It may help to look at your favourite papers from the literature to get an idea what papers in your field typically include.įor now, don’t worry the quality of the written text, or finalising your figures. Throughout the drafting process you want to aiming to make your key message as clear and robust as possible but for now it’s fine to not be sure on the finer details. Therefore for example you can include extra figures you’re not sure about to be able to discuss with your co-authors whether or not they should be included. It is absolutely fine for your first draft to be a rough cut, it should simply serve as a starting point. Simply try to ensure your first draft roughly tells the story of what you want your main message to be. We discussed this further in the separate post: Deciding what to publish from your PhD work. Instead of perfecting your first draft, just work to form the rough structure of your paper around whatever you want your key message to be. Let me start by saying that no one should be expecting for your first draft to be perfect! I wasted months of time on my first paper because I wanted to perfect everything, down to the wording, before sharing it with my supervisor. What to include in your first draft of an academic research paper My top tips for putting together your first draft of the paper.In which order should you write the sections of the first draft?.What to include in your first draft of an academic research paper.