Career Catalyst Series: How to Write a Scientific Paper

One of the most important aspects of being a scientist is disseminating your research; therefore, scientists should continuously refine and hone their scientific writing skills. On Friday, December 2nd, the CRS hosted Dr. Stacey Tobin, principal at the Tobin Touch Inc., to share her expertise in best practices in writing and editing a manuscript to effectively communicate life sciences, biomedical sciences, medicine, and healthcare data and ideas. With 19 years of experience in scientific and medical writing and editing, Dr. Tobin provided valuable insight into the strategies of writing an effective scientific paper. 

In her workshop, “How to Write a Scientific Paper,” Dr. Tobin systematically broke down each aspect of a scientific manuscript, provided guidance on the essential information required in sections, and provided a template to ensure a researcher scientific story communicated clearly and efficiently. Additionally, she shared tips and tricks gained over her years of experience on strategies she uses herself, including: the order in which each section is tackled as well as the “Rule of Three” – identifying three key findings (significant, compelling, interesting) from the results and further developing them in the discussion section and incorporating other work in the field. 

Lastly, Dr. Tobin lead us though putting these skills and techniques to the test with a practice portion of the workshop. Small groups dissected different manuscripts with redacted introductions and discussions to discuss what information should be included. This exercise put into focus crafting the narrative around the data and in turn helped the writer easier develop the story to be told.

As science and medicine progress, Dr. Tobin reminded the CRS community of the importance of keeping our audience’s viewpoint in mind. As scientists, we strive to research and analyze the complexities of our field in hopes of improving human welfare. For this purpose, our goal should ensure the research is spread widely in an accessible and replicable manner. With the expert guidance of Dr. Stacey Tobin during this last Career Catalyst of 2022, our community’s communication practices were further optimized and set goals for the next year to practice and continue to hone our science communication skills.