From the idea to the proposal, the grant application, the lab bench work, field/clinical work, collaboration, and writing your notes, your scientific research has traveled a long road to get to your destination: getting published. Dissemination of your findings and ideas to your colleagues and the public is your crucial end goal.

Choose the journal BEFORE writing the manuscript. Your choice will help you to tailor the manuscript to the scope and audience of the journal, as well as journal requirements of formatting, space limitations, allowed abbreviations, etc. Knowing the rules ahead of time will save you time and work, and improve the likelihood that your work will be selected for peer review and publication.

Giving a presentation before a live audience is one of life’s greatest stressors. Public speaking is a top fear for almost everyone, including scientists who are often called upon to present their research findings to colleagues, at conferences, and to the public. Scientists who are non-native English speakers have the added difficulty of language to overcome. With proper preparation, practice, knowledge, and enthusiasm, however, both fear and language difficulties can be conquered and mastered.

Letters make words, words make sentences, and sentences make paragraphs. Like one building block after another, words come together to convey ideas and support arguments –sometimes better than others. Proper paragraph construction sets good writing apart from bad.

Clearly communicating the timeline of your research to the reader is extremely important, and depends on your using the proper verb tense in writing your manuscripts. Verb tense indicates whether the action of a sentence occurred in the past, present, or future, and helps to organize the flow of your writing and outline the sequence of events to emphasize your point.