Scientific writing workshopEric Weeks, Emory University

• Overall ideas• writing introduction, conclusion, etc

• Writing an abstract• Bibliography software (www.citeulike.org)• How to get yourself to write

Basic ideas

• Start with figures

• Consider your audience

• Tell a story

Parts of the paper

• Start with figures – it’s still good advice

• Introduction• Explain background / prior work. Identify major unsolved problem. Then state that you solve it.

prior work

whatwe

knowother prior work

Oh no! A big hole in science! Don’t worry,

we fill this hole.

Parts of the paper

• Start with figures – it’s still good advice

• Introduction• Explain background / prior work. Identify major unsolved problem. Then state that you solve it.• I like to include one pretty figure in introduction, examples on next slides

Parts of the paper

• Introduction• Methods:

• Need to be reproducible• Can put boring details online or in appendix• Or, write a ‘methods’ paper

• Results: based on figures• Results from one figure can suggest a question. Next figure answers question…. which leads to next question

• Conclusion: significance, summary.

• Most people write introduction, conclusions last

General advice

• “There are often details that are true and interesting, that nonetheless do not belong in your paper” – Harry Swinney

• Use simple language• : “This is more germane to the critical aspects of building and sustaining traditional, and nurturing nascent, sub-programs within the department.”• : “This is more relevant to sustaining our department’s current programs and building new ones.”

• Read other people’s papers. What did they do well? What did they do poorly? (What parts are confusing, for example?)

• Spell-check

• Overall ideas• writing introduction, conclusion, etc

• Writing an abstract• Bibliography software (www.citeulike.org)• How to get yourself to write

Writing an abstract

• We’re going to discuss this with a specific example• You are going to work on an abstract for this example• Would you like to hear about the example?

– Yes, you would.

You’re also going to think about titles, so this is not a title.

• Ph.D. work of Dandan Chen, Emory University

Emulsion: oil droplets in water, added soap

Emulsion pumped through chamber

Note! Chamber is thin, so droplets are flat. Like pizzas.

Chamber is a ‘hopper’

flow

Droplets rearrange: “T1 event”

Neighbor exchange:two apart,two together.

Time

~1 mm

t ~1s

Stress related to shape of droplet(“deformation” D)

r

Deformation fluctuates as sample flows(data from red-shaded region)

X0.033s

t

Larger fluctuations = when more T1 events happen

1.Stress rises before T1 event, falls after2.Bigger effect closer to T1 event

distance to center of T1 event (center of 4 droplets)

Length scale 3 droplet diameters (from analysis of below data)

distance to center of T1 event (center of 4 droplets)

Your task:

• Skim paper– I suggest introduction, conclusions, figures

• Write a title for this paper

• Make list of five most important things to mention in abstract, about this paper specifically

• If time, write a good first sentence for abstract

• This is not a test of your internet skills

Let’s discuss

Next slide has answer for the title

“Topological rearrangements and stress fluctuations in quasi-two-dimensional

hopper flow of emulsions”

• Not my best title• But paper did get published

Next slide has answer for abstract

We experimentally study the shear flow of oil-in-water emulsion droplets in a thin sample chamber with a hopper shape. In this thin chamber, the droplets are quasi-2D in shape. The sample is at an area fraction above jamming and forced to flow with a constant flux rate. Stresses applied to a droplet from its neighbors deform the droplet outline, and this deformation is quantified to provide an ad hoc measure of the stress. As the sample flows through the hopper we see large fluctuations of the stress, similar in character to what has been seen in other flows of complex fluids. Periods of time with large decreases in stress are correlated with bursts of elementary rearrangement events (‘‘T1 events’’ where four droplets rearrange). More specifically, we see a local relationship between these observations: a T1 event decreases the inter-droplet forces up to 3 droplet diameters away from the event. This directly connects microscopic structural changes to macroscopic fluctuations, and confirms theoretical pictures of local rearrangements influencing nearby regions. These local rearrangements are an important means of reducing and redistributing stresses within a flowing material.

• Overall ideas• writing introduction, conclusion, etc

• Writing an abstract• Bibliography software (www.citeulike.org)• How to get yourself to write

• Overall ideas• writing introduction, conclusion, etc

• Writing an abstract• Bibliography software (www.citeulike.org)• How to get yourself to write

• Let’s look at this website• Others exist (Mendeley is popular)

• Overall ideas• writing introduction, conclusion, etc

• Writing an abstract• Bibliography software (www.citeulike.org)• How to get yourself to write

Strategies for getting it done

• Editing/revising easier than writing from scratch

• How much outline to do?

• How to get work done

• How to get feedback