| Author: | Nathaniel Beaver |
|---|---|
| Date: | 2014-08-14 (Thursday, 14 August 2014) |
| Copyright: | This document is released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). |
When writing a scientific paper, it is easy to fall into bad habits. Based on my experience when reading the scientific literature, I have begun compiling some recurring bad habits, that I might have a better chance of escaping them myself.
- I will not write anything like "It is easy to see that..." or "obviously..." or "it follows trivially...". If the result is obvious, that will be apparent to the reader. If it is not, I will have alienated the reader without cause.
- I will not make a log-log plot of my data, perform a least-squares linear fit, and then conclude the data obey a power law. This makes statisticians sad.
- I will not cite a result in another paper without quoting the relevant sentence or paragraph, either in the body of my paper or in the citation itself. I will do this to avoid ambiguity and provide context even if it would hide weaknesses in my arguments to do otherwise.
- I will not cite an equation or figure in another paper without including the figure/equation number and the page number it is on. This will make it easier to link my work to the work I am building on and assist the reader in consulting further literature.
- When I cite a prior result, I will cite the first paper or papers to report a result, not a more recent paper which cites the original papers. I will do this even when I could cite my own papers and make their citation counts higher.
- If there is disagreement in the literature about a result, I will cite papers representative of the literature, not only the one which supports my thesis.
- I will not use weasel words like 'most', 'fairly', 'quite', or 'very'. In everyday speech they are harmless, but in a scientific paper they indicate a lack of diligence or clarity.
- I will not use an acronym without first defining it and displaying the definition prominently in a list of acronyms. This will aid readers who are unfamiliar with my field's jargon, and will help avoid misinterpretation of my work if the same word is used in another field with a different meaning, and when the meaning of a word changes or acquires additional connotations.
- When I cite calculations or numeric results from another paper, I will either cite them verbatim or show my calculations starting with the verbatim results. I will not perform calculations without showing the work, show the result, and then cite the other paper as if it contained that result. This will prevent anyone reading my paper from having to guess how I calculated my result, and will make it more apparent whether or not I made a mistake.
- When I use an equation from another paper, I will not silently change the notation. I will either: use the original equation unaltered; or: alter the notation but quote the original equation in the footnote or endnote containing the citation.
- When writing and revising a paper, I will only discuss figures which are actually contained in the paper. If figures or tables must be pushed into supporting material (a.k.a supplementary/supplemental/electronic-only/miscellaneous material), I will not draw conclusions based on supporting material or directly refer to it in the body of the paper. Instead, I will only discuss the implications of the supporting material in the supporting material of my paper. I will do this even when the journal's rules are draconian and inflexible, because the verifiability of the scientific literature is worth it. Regardless of quality or importance, scientific data are unique and non-fungible, and a paper lacking a crucial figure may become work permanently lost to the scientific record.