This blog post on my time-efficient scientific paper writing process is based on a podcast episode I recorded. To listen or watch the podcast, click play on the YouTube video above or listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
I’m excited to be sharing about one of my favorite topics today: writing scientific papers time-efficiently. I see a lot of researchers struggling with the writing process of a scientific research paper. That is, in fact, the most common reason why Assistant professors, Postdocs and also PhD students join our academic writing program, the Researchers’ Writing Academy.
What do researchers commonly struggle with in the scientific paper writing process?
Let’s take a closer look at what researchers commonly struggle with regarding the process of writing a scientific research paper time-efficiently. If writing scientific papers is difficult for you, then likely at least one of these points will resonate with you. I can guarantee you: You are not alone in your struggle!
Struggle #1: Not knowing where to start
One big problem academics often have in terms of writing a research paper is not knowing where to start. It’s such a huge project. Many don’t know: What is the best first step in the scientific paper writing process?
Unfortunately, there is some common wisdom out there that complicates things – because I don’t think it’s accurate – such as the recommendation to start by writing the abstract, making the figures or writing the Methods section.
Don’t worry if you are currently doing any of this. I’ll explain how you can start the scientific paper writing process more effectively in a little bit.
Struggle #2: Procrastination
Another big struggle is procrastination. It’s something that all of us experience at one point when we have a bigger project ahead of us. We can’t quite get ourselves to start or continue working on it and instead do other tasks, work-relate or not, that feel more straightforward to accomplish. Hands up who didn’t have a very clean bathroom when you were writing your dissertation! 🙋🏽♀️
When it comes to writing a scientific paper, we procrastinate when we are unsure about the exact steps of the process of writing said research paper.
When you don’t know what the first step of the writing process is, what the next step is, and the step after that, you keep second-guessing yourself. And when you are not confident that you have structured your scientific paper writing process in the most efficient way, you tend to procrastinate.
In that situation, you might think, ‘Oh, that feels really uncomfortable because I feel like I’m not investing my time right.’ Instead of writing our scientific paper inefficiently, we often opt for not doing it at all and doing something else instead we feel more sure about. This process is often not conscious, but I’ve observed it in myself many times. I’ve often found that whenever there’s ambiguity about what the next step in a process is, I become prone to procrastinating.
Procrastination also happens when you have low confidence in what you’re writing. Maybe you aren’t sure whether your data is very interesting. You may not feel very confident in yourself as a researcher and/or as a writer. Or you may have negative emotions attached to a manuscript.
All of these things mean, we’d rather not touch it. What I’ve found through working with Assistant Professors, Postdocs and PhD students inside the Researchers’ Writing Academy that using a structured process to write the scientific research paper helps! Seeing that you can produce a research paper fast, that you can tell a story in that article and getting your work published in the journals you are aiming for will build your confidence. Once you use the Scientific Storytelling Framework, your data won’t seem so boring anymore either – promise!
Struggle #3: Slow and energy-draining co-authoring
Another big struggle in the process of writing a scientific paper is that it takes very long to complete when the process requires a lot of back and forth with co-authors on already completed drafts. How often have you experienced complete manuscript drafts being edited and rewritten in several rounds? Yes, that’s exactly as crazy as it sounds – unless you like wasting your time.
Dr Jia Ng, who is an alumna of the Researchers’ Writing Academy, described this as having an “editing nightmare” with her co-authors. If you have ever been through this, it’s incredibly frustrating: It’s time-consuming, drains your energy and it makes papers slow to get out.
I hear from a lot of PhD students how this approach to co-writing scientific research papers really demotivates them: seeing a draft being completely ripped apart throughout the process, and eventually feeling like that it isn’t even their paper anymore. When it’s time to submit, they often don’t even care about their research paper anymore, they just want it out. So, if you are mentoring PhD students, keep this in mind!
Even though this long-winded and inefficient co-authoring process has been normalised, it’s not an ideal situation. In my opinion, a lot of time is wasted when writing research papers. Yes, writing scientific research papers is hard and requires a lot of work and effort, but it doesn’t have to be quite as time-consuming and draining as some academics are making it look like.
There is better way: The structured process to writing scientific papers time-efficiently
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way. Let me show you a better, more systematic process to write scientific research papers time-efficiently. This is the process I teach in my academic writing program, the Researchers’ Writing Academy. I call this writing process: the Journal Publication Formula.
Now, some people have a problem with the word “formula” and say ‘How can you say there’s a formula? Surely there isn’t one secret formula for this that miraculously works for every research field.’
Funnily enough, it kind of does work inthis way! But there’s no magic and once you know you the Journal Publication Formula, you’ll likely go ‘duh! Why didn’t I always structure my writing process like this?!’
It all boils down to five steps that I want to walk you through now:
The five steps of the time-efficient scientific paper writing process
Okay, let’s dive into the process to write a scientific paper fast. Let’s start with an overview of the steps that are part of this time-efficient scientific paper writing process:
- Develop the story you want to tell in your scientific research paper
- Outline every section of your scientific paper for flow
- Produce a clear and concise draft of your scientific paper (and finalise your figures)
- Self-edit your scientific paper
- Package your scientific paper for publication
The biggest difference between this process and how papers are normally written is that here a lot of the work happens before we actually write the paper. And with write here, I mean typing full sentences.
Alright. Let’s go through each part:
Step 1: Develop the story you want to tell in your scientific paper
If you want your research paper to tell a story (and I highly recommend that you do), then you should absolutely start your writing process with the step of crafting that story. Because if you only think about the story that you want your research paper to tell in a later stage of the writing process, your story will be incoherent.
I read scientific papers all the time that don’t tell one coherent story. Many research papers try to tell more than one story or they aren’t even clear about what the story of the paper is. Before you start writing, you need to know what the main thing is that you want your reader to take away from your scientific paper.
If you have ever had a peer-reviewer being confused about the take-away of your scientific paper, either being unsure about or mistaking something else for the take-away, then that’s a huge indicator that you haven’t been telling one coherent story throughout your research paper.
So why do need to develop the story as the first step of the scientific paper writing process?
Well, a lot of academic writers don’t realise this but the story you tell in your paper affects every paragraph, every sentence, honestly, almost every word of your research article. When you only develop the story after you have already written parts of your article, you are guaranteed having to spend time rewriting. So, not defining your story as the very first step is simply inefficient.
Okay, what’s part of developing your story then?
Well, firstly it involves defining your audience, and your audience is your readership, aka your target journal. This is the time where you want to think about which paper you want to submit to. Yes, you have to do this now.
What we also need to do as part of step 1 is storyboarding. You need to ask yourself: How do I want to construct my argument? What’s the order in which I need to present my results? Which visual elements do I want to be part of this research paper, i.e., which figures, tables, other graphics do I want to include? And also: What’s the biggest take-away of my paper?
Defining your story also means to think about how you are going to introduce tension into your manuscript (if this sounds puzzling, I highly recommend checking out my blog post on how to tell a story in a scientific paper.). In other words: what is the specific problem you’re solving with your research?
Inside the Researchers’ Writing Academy, I’ll teach you how to define each element of the story of your scientific article. I’ll show you how to really nail each single story element and I promise this will make THE biggest difference to your scientific paper writing process. Many of our members are even using our key story elements instructions and worksheets before they write grant proposals, conference abstracts, presentations – you name it, it works!
What is really important is that once the story you want to tell in your research article is defined, you should make sure that all co-authors sign off on it. Do not proceed to the next step until you have every co-author on board and agreeing what the story you tell in your research paper should be – unless you want to end up with an editing nightmare.
Step 2: Outline every section of your scientific paper for flow
One of the best ways to overcome “blank page syndrome” is by outlining your paper before you start writing. Once you have an outline, writing becomes much easier because you’re not trying to perfect your sentences while also figuring out the structure of your research paper.
What I see happen a lot is that researchers spend time editing and rewriting sentences, only to later realise that the whole paragraph may not be needed after all. That’s a huge waste of time! By outlining first, you avoid getting stuck in this endless cycle of writing and rewriting.
Once you have your story in mind, I highly recommend making a detailed outline for each section of your research paper. This includes:
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Any other relevant sections for your specific field
Within these sections, consider whether you need subsections. For example, Results sections often have multiple subsections, and some fields include a separate literature review and/or theoretical framework section in a research paper.
Now, outlining may not sound like the most ground-breaking idea you have ever heard. I admit, it’s a pretty common writing tip. BUT a lot of writing advice doesn’t go beyond ‘you should create an outline before you write’. If you really want to harness the full power of an outline for a scientific research paper, you need to know how to outline effectively.
Here is what you want the outline of your scientific paper to contain:
- The titles of each subsection
- How many paragraphs each section will include
- What the central message of each paragraph is
- Which points you want to make in each paragraph
- Which studies, if any, you will cite in each paragraph
I know this might sound like a lot of work upfront, but the beauty of it is that the actual writing step (which comes next) will be smooth and fast. Now, you’re not actually writing full sentences yet. You’re only thinking about structure and content, not at all about phrasing, punctuation or sentence structure.
In the Researchers’ Writing Academy, we have lessons and worksheets for outlining each sections of your research article and what to include and look out for. As a member of the program, you also learn how to effectively use the key story elements defined in step 1 to scaffold your section outlines.
If you’re working with co-authors, I highly recommend agreeing on the outlines of each section before moving on to the writing stage. Sometimes, different members of the co-author team are responsible for writing different sections/subsections/paragraphs. Before they start writing, ask them to create an outline for their part first – you might want to show them how you have done it for your section. By doing this, you ensure that everyone is on the same page, which will save time and reduce the need for major revisions later on.
I’ll be honest though: if you’re not used to outlining before you write, this approach will likely feel uncomfortable at first. If you’re someone who tracks their writing progress by counting words written per day, you may feel like you’re not making much progress. But trust me, this method will allow you to craft a solid structure for your scientific article and make the actual writing SO fast and effortless.
The first time you try outlining will be the hardest, but as you see how much time you’ve saved thanks to this approach, it will get easier and feel more and more normal. So give it a try, trust the process, and watch how much easier writing your scientific paper becomes.
Step 3: Produce a clear and concise draft of your scientific paper (and finalise your figures)
Yay, we’ve made it, we are finally writing aka typing full sentences. The third step in the scientific writing process is all about writing clearly and concisely. The beauty of reaching this stage is that you no longer need to think about structure – you’ve done that work already! Now, your sole focus is on transforming your outline into a well-written manuscript.
If you have followed my recommended scientific paper writing process, at this point, writing becomes relatively straightforward. You’re simply filling in the gaps by turning the bullet points of your outline into full sentences – much easier than starting the process with writing and having to figure out structure, content and style (language, grammar etc.) simultaneously!
A highly effective habit during this third phase of your scientific paper writing process is to start each writing session by reading through what you wrote in your last writing session. This quick review serves as an excellent warm-up, eases you into writing mode and builds momentum. As you do this, you’ll likely notice areas in your draft that need quick edits. Make small adjustments, but don’t overthink them. The goal is to refine your writing slightly as you go, not perfect it. Proper editing will come later.
This is also the stage where you finalise figures and tables and other visual elements. Earlier, I recommended against creating final figures at the start of the scientific paper writing process because spending too much time perfecting figures/tables too early can be inefficient when the structure of your manuscript is not finalised yet.
In the initial phase, rough sketches – even hand-drawn ones – are enough. Now, with the paper mostly written and your co-authors aligned on what should be included, it’s the perfect time to create the final versions of your figures, tables and other visual elements.
Inside the Researchers’ Writing Academy, we provide in-depth instructions on how to create clear, concise and compelling figures! I find that scientific writers tend to underestimate the importance of the figures – all visual elements in your paper are as important as the text! Just observe what you are drawn to first as you read a scientific article.
Step 4: Self-edit your scientific research paper (and know when to stop!)
You’re done writing? Congrats! Once you’ve written every section of your paper, I highly recommend letting your draft sit for at least a few days – ideally a full week – without looking at it. This break allows you to return with fresh eyes, making it easier to spot weaknesses and inconsistencies.
If a week isn’t possible, even a weekend away from the manuscript can help. The key is to allow your brain to temporarily ‘forget’ the text so that when you revisit it, you can judge it more objectively.
When you’re ready to edit, I, of course, recommend following a structured approach. I’ll let you in on my proven 4-Step Self-Editing Process:
- Check for Story Coherence: In the first self-editing round, ensure that the entire paper aligns with your main story arc. Remove any paragraphs or sentences that are only tangential to your narrative.
- Assess Paragraph Structure and Flow: In self-editing round #2, focus on your paragraphs. Are they of appropriate length? Does the information within each paragraph logically connect? Do paragraphs flow well from one to the next? If necessary, reorganise sections to improve readability.
- Refine at the Sentence Level: In the third run through your manuscript, look for wordiness, unclear phrasing and spelling and grammar mistakes. Can any sentences be condensed? Are there unnecessary words or redundant sentences? Aim for clarity and concision.
- Finalise Formatting: In the fourth and final round, check that your manuscript adheres to journal guidelines. Verify word count limits, figure and table specifications, and formatting rules.
By following this structured self-editing approach, you avoid getting bogged down in refining sentences or correcting spelling mistakes of words you may end up deleting later. Four rounds may seem like a lot but, trust me, it will be faster and lead to better results than what you are currently doing.
Plus, you’ll know exactly when it’s time perfecting those sentences and move on to the last stage: Getting your manuscript ready for submission!
Step 5: Packaging for Publication – the quickest step of the scientific paper writing process
The good news is that this last step is super quick! In this step of the scientific paper writing process, we write the title, abstract, and cover letter.
And the best part? These are incredibly easy and fast to write because we’ve already developed the story that is the basis of all three in step 1 of the scientific paper writing process.
Here’s what you should communicate in each:
- Title: The title of your scientific paper should communicate your main takeaway
- Abstract: Your abstract should tell the full story of your research paper in a condensed format
- Cover letter: The cover letter accompanying your scientific paper is your direct channel to the journal editor, where you can re-tell the story of your research paper with some additional context or from a different angle. The cover letter is particularly valuable because it allows you to convey things that might not be as easily communicated within the paper itself.
If you’ve done the story development before, this step is just a matter of plugging your story into the right format. In the Researchers Writing Academy, we provide templates for each part so that this step can be done in as little as one hour! That’s the beauty of front-loading the work—the later steps become much easier.
Now you may be asking yourself what to do when you are not writing your research paper solo but as a co-author team. Let’s talk about this next:
How to implement the structured paper writing process when you write with co-authors
Ideally, you implement this scientific paper writing process with your whole co-author team. That way, it will be most efficient. But even if just you as the lead author know and apply the scientific paper writing process, you can really win a lot of time by actually leading the process.
In that scenario, you as the lead author let your co-authors know what the steps of the process are, get them onboard with it (– side note: once co-authors have experienced how well it works or seen you have success with it, they won’t need much convincing) and direct them through every step of the process so everyone knows what they are supposed to do when.
Someone who has implemented this really well is Dr Katia Canenguez who is in alumna of the Researchers’ Writing Academy whose interview you can watch and read here. What Katia experienced was that her co-authors thanked her for leading the scientific paper writing process. They were relieved that somebody took charge and that they were guided through the writing process. And they felt that this was way more efficient than how they had done things before.
Of course, taking charge is always easiest when you are the PI – it’s also the most powerful way to avoid time wasting and to boost morale. Take for example, Researchers’ Writing Academy member Dr Toyosi Onwuemene who as PI changed the scientific paper writing process for her whole lab. She told me how game-changing it is having a more efficient process for co-writing research papers with her PhD students and Postdocs.
If you want to introduce this process to your co-authors, I highly recommend scheduling a meeting before you start writing. Walk them through the process (you could even refer them to this blog post or my podcast episode!).
Then, as the lead author, take the initiative to guide them through the process. Keep everyone on track, and be patient – it might not go as smoothly as you hoped the first time, but it will get easier with practice!
Recapping the scientific paper writing process
I have now walked you through all five steps of the scientific paper writing process. We went through:
- Developing the story,
- Outlining for flow,
- Writing for clarity and concision,
- Effective self-editing, and
- Packaging for publication.
Needless to say, I love this process to write scientific research papers. It has worked incredibly well for our members throughout the many years we’ve been running the Researchers’ Writing Academy. Those who follow this process have written research papers in eight weeks or less (!) aaaaand actually started to enjoy the writing process.
And this is key. Writing research papers is often associated with stress and overwhelm, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Writing can be a calming and rewarding deep work experience if you know how to do it right – and you do know now!
If this scientific paper writing process intrigued you and you want an in-depth walk-through of each step, all templates, as well as receiving detailed feedback, community and accountability support, then I highly recommend checking out my 60-minute free writing training. It’s the perfect first step if you’re considering joining the Researchers Writing Academy. Maybe this is exactly what you need to make writing papers easier and faster for you!
