Tips for writing a great manuscript

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be speaking with you today. Today we are talking about tips for writing a great manuscript. Tips for writing a great manuscript. And I invite you, if you are looking for coaching, to join Academic Negotiation Academy, where we help clinician researchers negotiate their academic careers so that they can lead research programs that help them thrive and also create lasting impact.

1:37 Our next cohort is enrolling soon. Sign up for the waitlist on our website, clinicianresearcherpodcast.com. All right, today we're talking about tips to write a great manuscript. And I will tell you that some of the tips I've learned in manuscript writing over the years has come from my accountability coaching peer group that I've had for the last few years. And we are a group of three to four faculty members. We meet every week and we meet for writing accountability. And so, you know, you have these grand ideas about writing every day and you have a group of faculty who hold you accountable and say, hey, this is what you said you were going to write last week.

2:24 What did you do and what happened? And so in that group, in addition to the accountability, I've learned a lot about differences in scientific writing. For example, one of our faculty members is in the Department of Theater and in her field, writing is a solo activity. And so it's not common to have more than one author on a paper. The second piece of that is that their field is really a book field. And so books are more the focus rather than articles. But even when they write articles, articles are really the work of a solo author.

3:06 And so when it comes to authorship disputes, it's not really something that she experiences much in her field because you're writing work by yourself anyway. One of our other faculty members is in education. And in this field, authorship order depends on how much work was done. So the first person did the most work. The second person, the next amount of work, third person and vice versa. And so when you get to the end of the authorship byline, that's just the person who did the least work. So there isn't necessarily like a senior person being stuck on the end as a person who's shepherding this work.

3:46 If you are a senior person and you did a lot of the work, you will be author number one or two. And so that's interesting because in my field, the first author is a person who's done the bulk of the work of the writing and the senior person is a person who supported the first author in that writing and also is the person who's conceptually moving the work forward. So it tends to be a senior person. And if it's a research program, it tends to be the leader of the research program because theoretically they're doing the work, at least we hope that they are. So that's an interesting thing that I found about the differences between disciplines. And so now when I go to give people tips about writing manuscript, I want them to be clear on what their discipline specific instructions are, what are the norms within the discipline.

4:35 And it's important to ask that question because these are some of the things that I think exist in what is called the hidden curriculum, the things that everybody knows, but the people who are new to the field have no idea about, and then they're blindsided. And this is important information to have. So if you are new to writing manuscripts or you've been writing manuscripts for a while and it's not something you've engaged, definitely talk with someone who is a little further ahead in the field to ask about what are the writing conventions in our field. And it'd be interesting what answer you get. So today we're talking about tips for writing a great manuscript. And I am excited to share with you some of the things that I've learned over the years of writing.

5:19 I really enjoy writing manuscripts. They're my favorite thing to write and I love to tell a great story. And I think scientific manuscripts are an opportunity to tell a great story with data. Now I'll share some tips with you. I'm speaking as if you are the first author, as the person who's leading the writing of the manuscript. These are my tips for the first author. So number one, start with a title page. And the reason to start with a title page is because the title page has the title and it has the list of authors. And one of the biggest challenges, especially for first authors who are new and just launching their career, is authorship disputes.

6:00 Authorship disputes are a big deal and they really can derail manuscript writing. And at the end of it, the person who suffers is usually the young person who started out, put a lot of effort into writing the manuscript and somebody showed up out of the blue and said, hey, I should be the first author. And one of the ways to circumvent that is just to start up front. Do not passcode, do not collect 200, do not do any work until you start with the title page. And the title page, you have your idea for what the title of the manuscript is going to be. You have the list of authors in order and you have their affiliations.

6:41 Start with that. And then once you have outlined all of that, your next step is to send it to the senior author and say, hey, here's my idea for the title, here's the list of authors, here's the authorship order. And next you want to ask three questions of the senior author. Number one, who else should be on this list? Who are we missing? So you want to make sure that you ask them who is missing from this list? Who should I include? That is not already here. Question number two is how should the authorship order be adjusted? So you're asking now not just about the completeness of the list, but the order of the list.

7:26 And number three, what edits do you have? Okay, three questions. Who needs to be on the list? Who are we missing? How should the order be adjusted? And what edits do you have? And that's between first author, senior author, figure all that out. It's on a piece of paper that is your title page. Okay, you figured out the title page. Number two is now to create the outline. Okay, I learned from one of my faculty colleagues in our weekly accountability coaching group that there are three strategies in writing. You outline and then you draft and then you edit. And that really helps me. It helped me because I was a person who just started off writing a draft right away and invariably I would be drafting and then thinking about edits at the same time.

8:15 So I would start with a full page and I would turn around. I have to delete the page. And sometimes at the end of my writing, I would end up with less writing than I started with because I was always editing and deleting things. And so the moment she told me, well, first outline, then draft, then edit, it just helps me. It separated all three components. Outlining is easy. I'm not really thinking about sentence structure. I'm really thinking about content. And then drafting, it follows easily from a good outline. And then editing. Editing is easy once there's already a draft in place. So these are the three things that I recommend as well. But I'm talking right now about number two, creating the outline.

8:57 And you create the outline so that you are able to order all your thoughts and write a compelling logic of how things should show up. And you get to the introduction, outline the introduction. Paragraph one, paragraph two, maybe paragraph three. You get to the methods, outline the methods. You get to the results, outline the results. You can get to the discussion, outline the discussion. And one of the real great things about outlining is that you're not really focused on sentence structure. You're not focused on whether the grammar, the style of writing is right. You're just really focused on content.

9:37 And initially, your goal is really to make sure all the content is on the table. You want to make sure you have everything that needs to be there first. And outlining allows you to do that without getting caught in the web of details. But number three, as you're creating the outline, is really making sure you're developing a great story. Now the thing about data is that data is neutral. Data is just data. The meaning we bring to the data is our interpretation of the data. And that's why I think over the years the scientific reading public may not understand is that data is neutral, but the scientists who interpret the data are not neutral.

10:21 They've got ideas, they've got thoughts, they've got biases that they bring to the table. And so when you go to write your manuscript, you're asking what story is this data telling? And ideally, this is a story that the data is telling in light of the literature, so other stories that are in the literature, and also the story that the data is telling in light of how your findings may be different from what the general story is. So you're telling a great story with your data. And that's why number three is develop your story. And every great story has a great cast of characters, there's a problem, there's a conflict, there's kind of the big reveal or the resolution of the conflict, and then there's post resolution of the conflict, the wrap up.

11:12 So your introduction is you introducing the problem, and as you're introducing the problem, you're also invariably introducing the cast of characters. And you get to the end of your introduction, and in a sense, you've kind of demonstrated the problem and the climax. It's like, well, this is the problem, and this is what we want to do about it. And then when you get to the methods, it's just the methods are the methods. You can't get too exciting about that. Well, you lay out, this is how we went about trying to solve this big problem. And then your results are like the big reveal, and your discussion is the wrap up.

11:54 It's a great story. And over time, the more manuscripts you write, the more you read, you learn that great storytellers write great scientific manuscripts, and they are fun to read, they are joy to read. And I hope you'll be one of those authors writing manuscripts that are a joy to read. So number three is to develop the story. Okay, you've just done the outline. You haven't done much else. You've just done the outline. Now you have title page and you have outline. It is time to circulate it to all the co-authors. So that's number four, circulate it to all the co-authors. You're only circulating the title page, and you're asking, hey, here's the title page.

12:36 Can everybody check their affiliations and make sure their names are spelled correctly and the affiliations are correct? Okay, you're not necessarily asking, does anybody have a problem with the author order? Does anybody have a problem with the authors on the list? That is implied when you send it out to everybody. They see the paper, they see the title, they see their names, they see where the position of their names are, and they see their affiliation. So you don't have to get into the uncomfortable space of now trying to ask everybody, are you okay with your name? Are you okay with where things are? You're just saying, look at the paper, here it is. I'm sending you the outline. I want you to correct any misspellings of your name.

13:16 Let me know your ORCID ID. Let me know if the affiliation is correct. That's all you're telling them. And they can decide if they have any questions about the authorship order, and they can reach out and say, hey, I thought I was going to be first author. What's going on? One of the things you've done for yourself too as a first author is that you've kind of established that, hey, I've outlined this paper. I've done work here. I'm the rightful person to be writing this manuscript because, hey, I'm the one writing it. But what's important is that you haven't done too much work. So if at this point in time somebody is like, no, no, no, hold your horses, everybody stop. You are not so invested that you can't say, okay, well, you take and run with it, if that's what you are so inclined to do.

14:02 But it's not the thing where you finished everything and spent months and months and months of time writing only for someone to take over and say, no, I'm the rightful first author. So the outline with the title page does a couple of things for you. Number one, it just helps you announce the paper is about to be written. Everybody check out your authorship information. Let's just figure out what's going on with authorship. If you have any questions, ask right away. And it gives the co-authors a chance to have seen the paper the first time and to give feedback. Now, the outline I told you is really about content. And it's easy at the outline stage to make drastic revisions that don't hurt because you're just really just moving sentences around.

14:46 That's all you're doing. You're not taking a lot of time to really craft a beautiful paper. You're just moving sentences around in an outline. So you're giving the authors a chance to bring up any disputes if needed. And you're also giving them a chance to see the paper for the first time and give their input as to the direction in which the paper is going because, again, it's not a final draft. And what you hate is to get to the end of the paper, you're almost ready to submit, and an author is like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I think we should x, y, z. So the outline just allows everyone to give their two cents early. So you want to give your co-authors about two to three weeks. I hear people say, two to three weeks?

15:26 I don't have that kind of time. And I would tell you that you do. Scientific writing takes time. And if you are in a hurry to get a manuscript out the door, you may be in too much of a hurry and you want to pause and make sure you have at least a six-week period to write a manuscript. And some of that time, you do need to dedicate to giving people time because you want people to actually do the review. You don't want anybody to feel rushed. You don't want anybody to get to the point of submission and then have a question or have a concern. That really should have come up very early on. So you circulated it to all the co-authors.

16:07 And the next step, number five, is that you're going to give them two to three weeks. Give them time. I mean, it really is just the title page of the outline. But give them time. And definitely bug them after two weeks and say, hey, have you looked at the outline? All right, send it back to me. And hopefully by the end of those two or three weeks, every author has given you their feedback, has acknowledged that they've seen the authorship byline, have given you the affiliations. Everybody's name should be correct and the affiliations should be correct. All right, now you're ready for the next step. Number six, you're going to incorporate their edits because now they've told you how they want you to reshape the paper. And you're going to write the first draft.

16:50 And it's going to be an easier first draft to write because in outlining, you've already given yourself a first draft of the paper. And so drafting the paper will be an easy thing to do because a lot of the work was done in creating the outline. You draft the paper. And this is going to be the paper that you're going to send out for the second and hopefully the last time. And so you draft the paper, work with your senior author to draft the paper. Or at least they can see the paper after the draft. For me, I don't necessarily need to see it. Once the draft is done, it can go back out to the co-authors. But perhaps you check in with your senior author again and say, here's the first manuscript draft. And if you've done the work in developing a good outline, incorporating feedback from all the co-authors, the draft actually should not need that much editing because it really is just refining the outline that was previously created.

17:42 So hopefully that doesn't take as much time. And then you send it out to the co-authors. And now they've seen the manuscript for the second time. They've incorporated edits as far as content and structure. And now all they're doing, hopefully at this point, is really just saying, OK, well, I think this sentence should be here. Have you considered including this? And it's more kind of just refining a manuscript that they've already seen rather than them trying to seriously edit a manuscript and change things at the last minute. If you've written enough manuscripts, you know that there is the author that wakes up two days before the manuscript is supposed to be submitted and says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's change everything.

18:25 And so hopefully, because they've already seen the manuscript the first time, this doesn't happen at this point. So you sent out the draft. Everyone hopefully is now going to put in their final edits. And then number seven is that you're going to finalize the draft based on any final edits and you're going to work with a senior author to submit. So hopefully, in this strategy, you give the co-authors at least two opportunities to give feedback for the manuscript. And then you can refine and submit. So those are my tips for writing a great manuscript.

19:05 And clearly, there's a lot more. This is just kind of like a general framework for how to think about manuscripts and avoid some of the pitfalls that come with authorship disputes very early on by clarifying how the title page should be with a senior author and then giving the co-authors a chance to take a look at that. So those are my tips for writing a manuscript. Everyone is in different phases of their career as far as how often they do this and how well they do this. And so I know somebody needs to hear about this episode, at least to stimulate thoughts, because we all do things differently. And no one's idea is better than the next person's idea. I'm just sharing with you what has worked for me in my research program.

19:46 And I hope you'll find it interesting and helpful. And if you do, please share it with someone else, especially if you're a mentor and a mentee needs to hear this, or your mentee and your peer mentors need to hear this. Definitely share with your team of peer mentors. And if you don't have a team of peer mentors, well, you should. And we should talk about it. Yeah, send me a DM and say, hey, what are you talking about with this team of peer mentors? And another thing you can do is to leave a voicemail on our podcast website. So that's clinicianresearcherpodcast.com. Leave a voicemail and share your insight. And we'll play a voicemail if it's selected on a future episode and use it to create an episode.

20:27 All right. It's been a pleasure talking with you today. Thank you for taking the time to listen. I look forward to talking with you again next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it.

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