Nautilus: Editors' advice on writing scientific papers

Nautilus: Editors' advice on writing scientific papers
Tell a story. We all love listening to a good story. And we all tell stories, but some are better at it than others, and those who tell the best stories are most able to get their points across. How you got your data is not that important—we don't need a chronology (first we did this, then we did that, etc.). Instead, now that you have the data and have interpreted them a certain way, think about how best to tell a story in light of all the previous work in the field, the question(s) you are addressing and why that question is important. How do your results advance our understanding of the question(s)? Have you discovered something new or unexpected? Consider how your findings fit into the broader context of the field, whether they are likely to change the way people in the field will think about the topic and how they will drive further experiments in the future.