Writing an Article that has Impact

Imagine you are sitting down with a colleague and discussing your research. Having a face-to-face conversation makes it easy to explain your ideas clearly and easy for your colleague to ask questions for clarification. Unfortunately, explaining your research in a manuscript is much more challenging. You cannot be sure if your readers understand your ideas as you are not there with them. Therefore, you need to guide your readers through your complex study as logically and carefully as possible.

Always keep your readers in mind. When people download your article, they have four key questions they are hoping you will answer for them.

1.????Why did your study need to be done?

2.????What did you do?

3.????What did you find?

4.????How does your study contribute to the field?

Be sure to answer each of these questions in your paper. Luckily, manuscripts are structured in a way to directly answers each of these questions. The Introduction answers the first question, the Methods section answers the second, the Results answers the third, and the Discussion answers the last question. So, as you write each of these sections, be sure you are answering your readers’ questions.

Introduction – What does this study need to be done?

In this section of the paper, you need to address the motivation and the relevance of your study. Begin with a paragraph that introduces the topic and why it is currently important for the field. Be sure to write this paragraph so that is appropriate for your target audience based on your target journal. Therefore, keep in mind if you are writing for an international vs. regional audience or a broad vs. specialized readership.

The next 1–3 paragraphs should then discuss what is currently known about the topic. This is your chance to show your expertise and establish credibility. Start each paragraph with an important claim about the topic, and then discuss the published research that supports this claim. These studies should be up-to-date and broadly reflect what has been done worldwide. In addition to describing what has been done, you should also discuss any limitations of those studies. In this way, your expertise on the topic will be clear, helping to establish your credibility before you discuss your study. After you finish analyzing what has been done on your topic, you should state the important problem that still needs to be addressed — this is your motivation.

For example, in a recent article in Nature (1), the authors stated, “Despite the important linkage of cell extrusion to developmental, homeostatic and pathological processes such as cancer metastasis, its underlying mechanism and connections to the intrinsic mechanics of the epithelium are largely unexplored.” It becomes very clear to the reader, then, what the authors hope to achieve in their study.

The last paragraph should then discuss your aims and how you planned to achieve these aims. This is usually a short paragraph comprising only two or three sentences. For example, the aim to address the above question may be, “In this study, we analyzed topological and biochemical changes in confluent MDCK cells associated with extrusion events to identify the mechanisms that underlie apoptotic cell extrusion.”

Methods – What did you do?

If I could use one word to describe the methods section, it would be transparency. You need to ensure that readers clearly know how you conducted your study, which will be essential during peer review. But you also need to ensure that readers can replicate your work as well, which is essential for reproducibility.

Generally, you will begin by discussing who or what was used in your study. This could be related to participants, animals or cells, samples or sites, as well as which materials were used or synthesized.

Next, you need to discuss how you conducted the experiments or analyses. Each subsection should be dedicated to one technique. Discuss what equipment or materials were used, the conditions and parameters, and how data were collected.

Lastly, you should explain how your data were analyzed. This could be related to software and its versions, quantification methodology, or statistics. If you use statistics, I strongly encourage you to consult with a statistician to avoid making errors. There are also free online resources that can help as well (2).

Results – What did you find?

I like to see the Results section as the main text support for your display items (figures and tables). Your display items should take the spotlight as that is what readers will look at most when reading your article. Your Results, then, should be there to help guide the readers as to what is important in those figures, not to duplicate them in the text.

Guide your readers one figure at a time. First, explain what you did, then highlight the important trends and relationships among the data that are displayed in the display item. Conclude each figure with a takeaway message — what do you want your readers to remember about that figure before you guide them to the next one?

Some journals have a combined Results–Discussion section. In this case, the structure is similar to that described above. However, after you highlight the trends or relationships, you should then interpret them for the reader. Why do you think you see these trends? And what evidence, usually in the form of published research, supports your interpretations? Lastly, based on these interpretations, what is the next logical step in the study that needed to be done? This should then lead your readers to your next figure.

Discussion – How does your study contribute to the field?

It is useful to begin the Discussion with a short paragraph that re-introduces your motivation for the study (i.e., the research question) and then summarize the key findings you obtained to address this question. In this way, readers can immediately see how your study fits into the big picture.

You then should discuss the important findings shown in the main text. First state what your observed result was, followed by your interpretation as to why you think you obtained this result. You then should synthesize this new information with what is already known in the field. Is it similar to or different from what has been published previously? If different, you should then describe why you think this happened. Again, this is your chance to show your expertise and establish credibility. Lastly, based on what you have shown and what was previously published, what does this mean for the reader? What are the next steps? One of the key goals of a manuscript is not only to discuss new ideas, but to help generate new hypotheses to stimulate further research.

After you discuss your key findings, you should introduce any negative results or limitations. First, state what the negative result or limitation is. For negative results, then discuss why you think you obtained them. Again, establish your expertise. Next, what does this mean for the field? How can your readers learn from this negative result or limitation to better address this issue? Anything that stimulates new hypotheses has a positive effect on the field. Lastly, do these negative results or limitations affect the study’s validity? For example, in this study that was unable to obtain a quantitative agreement in their model for skyrmion behavior (3), the authors stated, “Nevertheless, the introduced theoretical model offers a new approach to describe skyrmion dynamical behaviours that elude existing models, and provide concepts that are qualitatively in line with our observations.” Always conclude on a positive note.

Finally, the end of your Discussion should conclude with a…conclusion. Remember that this is the last part of the paper people will read, and what most people will remember most. So, what do you want your readers to remember? Begin with your main conclusion, which is not a summary of your key findings, but rather an answer to the problem you identified in the Introduction. For the example given above regarding cell extrusion from epithelial layers, you may wish to state, “We conclude that topological defects are a previously unidentified cause of cell apoptosis and underlie apoptotic cell extrusion from epithelial tissues.” This is a clear answer to the identified problem.

After stating the conclusion, you should then identify the most important one or two key findings that support this conclusion. Your readers will not remember all the findings in your paper, there are too many! You should highlight the most important one (or two) they should remember. And lastly, identify the key implications your study has for the field. Avoid empty implications like, “This study provides new insights…” or “This study improves our understanding…” Be specific to establish your expertise. Which insights are gained? How does this study improve our understanding? What are the next logical steps in the field to build off your work? Step back and see the bigger picture of how your study contributes to the advancement of the field.

In the end, think of your manuscript as an hourglass. You begin broadly by introducing the topic and the motivation of your research, helping to answer the readers’ first question — Why did the study need to be done? You then narrowly discuss the specific methodology and results you obtained in your study, addressing the next two questions — What did you do and what did you find? Lastly, you should guide your readers back out to the broad implications your study has for the field, answering their final question — How does your study contribute to the field?

If you follow these guidelines, you can ensure that the importance and relevance of your study will be clear as well as establish confidence and trust in the reader regarding your expertise. In this way, your manuscript will have a much greater impact in the field and help you to develop your reputation worldwide.

This article was originally published in Japanese in Nature Digest. Robens J. Nature Digest. 2019; 16: 27-29.

References

1.????Saw et al. Topological defects in epithelia govern cell death and extrusion. Nature. 2017; 544: 212–216.

2.????Statistics for Biologists. https://www.nature.com/collections/qghhqm

3.????Litzius et al. Skyrimion Hall effect revealed by direct time-resolved X-ray microscopy. Nature Physics. 2016; 13: 170–175.