Writing a Research Paper › Module 1: Before writing

One paper, one message

Lesson 1 of 3 · 2 min

Before you write anything, finish this sentence: "This paper shows that..." If you can't, you're not ready to write; you're still thinking.

Why one message

Readers remember very little of what they read. If a paper makes five points with equal weight, they remember none. If it makes one point, supported by everything else, they remember that one. Mensh and Kording put it first in their "Ten simple rules for structuring papers": focus your paper on a central contribution, and say it in the title.

How to find it

  1. List everything you found.
  2. Ask which one finding changes what readers should believe or do.
  3. Write it as a single sentence a smart non-expert could follow.
  4. Everything else either supports that message, or goes in another paper, an appendix or the bin.

Example"We tried three augmentation methods, two architectures and four datasets, and some combinations helped." No message. "Simple colour augmentation closes most of the gap between small and large training sets for leaf-disease detection." One message.

Test it

Tell a friend your message in 30 seconds. If they can say it back to you, it's clear. If they ask "so what?", add why it matters.

RememberWrite "This paper shows that..." before anything else. Everything in the paper should serve that one sentence.