How to write a good paper

1. How to write a good paper Ivo Klik Department of Physics, National Taiwan University

2. Aim of the paper • Persuade the referee to let it pass • Persuade the reader the remember it and cite it What the paper does for you: • Forces you to be clear and focused • Crystallizes new ideas • Invites response and collaboration Select an appropriate journal – impact factor!

3. Prerequisites • Have something to write – Publish or perish • English • Organize your material to present it in an interesting way

4. How to improve your English Cultivate a feeling for the language: • Girlfriend/boyfriend • Watch movies without Chinese subtitles • Pay attention when you read articles • Read books: W. Churchill, History of the English Speaking People B. Russell, History of Western Philosophy R. Feynman, Lecture Notes in Physics

5. 1. Abstract • Written last • State your problem and results. Don’t be modest, this can be quite bold. • Problems with English in too compact sentences. Don’t be afraid of longer abstracts (even one Revtex preprint page) • Active/Passive voice

6. 2. Introduction • Introduce the concepts you will be using in the paper. • Must be complete, and remember, you must give credit for work done by others. • Can be short (one page), or a long review. Such reviews are typically greatly appreciated. • Abbreviations. • How to begin.

7. 2. End of Introduction • Present your idea within the context of your introductory material. • Say it’s an interesting unsolved problem whose solution you are now presenting. • Make sure the reader knows what is your work. • Outline your paper (I am usually grateful for it): My model is described in Section II, the detailed discussion and results are given in Sections III and IV, and there is a Summary where I compare my results with the work of previous researches.

8. 3. The model • Exact definition of all basic equations and variables • Exact description of the lab set up and procedures

9. 4. Details of my work • Make sure that one part follows from another. Make a story out of it. • You must provide the details, but first you must convey the idea to make the reader interested. • Explain intermediate results. • If you don’t understand something say it clearly. • If you use some non-standard procedure give a detailed explanation in an Appendix. The reader will appreciate it.

10. 5. Comparison with other work • Give a brief summary of your paper. • Work of others was listed in the Introduction, now you refer back to it and say where your work is an advance on published results. • Sometimes your result cannot be compared to anything, it is quite new, and not an advance on existing research. You may use the phrase “To the best of my knowledge this is an all new result.”

11. Remember: Don’t write your paper hastily.