Planning Your Research: A Laser Focus on Manuscripts

Publishing manuscripts is the main way scientists communicate their findings to each other, as well as to policymakers, companies, the media, and the general public. It also helps scientists to build their reputation, thereby increasing their standing in their field of expertise. Designing, writing, and submitting manuscripts should therefore be one of your main priorities. If you are a graduate student, publishing manuscripts makes it much easier to write your final thesis. Graduate students are recommended to write a review article on their research topic that can be used as an introductory chapter in their thesis, as well as to write one or more original research articles that can be used as research chapters. In this chapter, we present a manuscript-focused approach for designing scientific studies, which we have found to be extremely effective in our own work. A checklist is used that asks the researcher to provide the title, objective, relevance, novelty, and hypothesis of their proposed manuscript before starting most of their experiments. Moreover, the checklist asks the researcher to design the different sections and subsections of the manuscript, as well as to draw the expected figures and tables that will appear in the final article. This approach helps to establish whether a manuscript based on the research would be suitable for publication if all the experiments went to plan. Of course, the results of any research study may not be as expected, especially if you are working in a cutting-edge area. Consequently, it is always important to be objective and have an open mind that does not ignore unexpected results – as these may be the most interesting and impactful ones. Writing scientific manuscripts is a critical part of research that can help you build a strong reputation in your field of study. You should therefore prioritize publishing strong scientific manuscripts in well-respected academic journals throughout your research career.