Scientific writing 3.0: A reader and writer's guide - Jean-Luc Lebrun, Justin Lebrun 2021

Epilogue: Your future work

Our work ends here, and yours starts now. Writing a book is not easy. Sometimes, only after rewriting and rereading a chapter for the nth time does its structure finally appear. Sometimes, the structure of a chapter is in place even before its contents, and the hard work consists in finding examples and metaphors to make things clear. But one thing is constant: the more you rewrite, the clearer your paper becomes. The memorable words of Marc H. Raibert, President of Boston Dynamics, ex-head of the Leg lab at CMU and MIT still ring in my ears: ’Good writing is bad writing that was rewritten’. How true!

Writing is hard. To avoid making it harder than it already is, start writing your paper as soon as you can. It will be less painful, and even pleasant at times. At the beginning, write shorter papers (e.g. extended abstracts or letters to journals). You can write more of them, and chances are, a few will be accepted. On the way, a few good reviewers will encourage you and pinpoint the shortcomings in your writing, while a few good readers will tell you where you lack clarity.

Each chapter in this book contains exercises that involve readers. Value your reader friends. The time they spend reading your paper is their gift to you. Accept their remarks without reservation and with a grateful heart. Thank them for their help and return the favor (being French, we recommend giving them a bottle of red Bordeaux for their services, but feel free to offer other vintages). Do not take negative remarks personally; instead, consider them as golden opportunities to improve your writing. It is pointless to try to justify yourself because, in the end, the reader is always right, and in particular, the reviewers. Just take note of their remarks and questions, and work to remove whatever caused them to stumble. Do not argue.

Let your introduction convey research that is exciting, and let that excitement become your readers’ excitement as they look forward to the future your research has opened. Show the world that scientific papers are interesting to read. Create expectations, drive reading forward, sustain the attention, and decrease the demands on your readers’ memory. To make reading as smooth as silk, iron out the quirks in your drafts with the steam of your efforts.

Let us end with a parting gift. Once upon a time, in a country where the swan is the national bird, rich in lakes and birch trees, a talented researcher who had attended our class decided to convince some Master’s degree candidates in IT that this book contained principles that could be coded inside a free Java application. That application, fittingly for the country, was called SWAN — the “Scientific Writing AssistaNt”. Ok, the acronym isn’t perfect, but we weren’t going to settle on SWA when the the alternative was just so great.

Today, in 2021, 11 years after it became available on the Joensuu university website, amazingly, SWAN still works on Macs, PCs, and UNIX computers. It covers the metrics you find at the end of the chapters in part 2 of this book. Although the interface may look a bit dated, this little app has proven itself fairly resilient to the passage of time. We still use SWAN in the writing classes we, at Scientific Reach, conduct worldwide. SWAN’s user interface is not perfect, but its website (http://cs.joensuu.fi/swan/index.html) provides links to help videos on how to use it. A 64-bit version of Java must be installed on your computer for it to run.

Although SWAN is no longer supported, you can contact us through our scientific reach website and, time allowing, we may be able to help you.

May you have a long and prosperous career in research, and may the fun of writing be with you!