Somewhat to my surprise, my grad advisor has given the green light for me to write up some of our data for submission to a pal-reviewed journal. I am excited to give this a shot, although I am not particularly confident we will succeed.
Today I checked out the journal website and found that the abstract is limited to 150 words. 150 words?!? I can't write a Post-It note that short. My first draft (i.e. the thesis write-up of these data) used >250. And I've gotten more data since then.
This evening I have been slowly and painfully whittling it down. Some observations:
1) You can only use two sentences to set up the problem your data address. For a long time I was stuck on three sentences, but then decided gaily that the time for hand-holding my reader was over. You'd better have some basic background knowledge or you are sunk.
2) My default writing style is full of digressions and asides. 150 words puts an end to that.
3) I have had to remove all of my qualifying adverbs. "These data are likely due to blah blah blah" becomes "These data are due to...". "The kinetics of the response were predominantly unaffected by this drug" becomes "This drug did not affect the kinetics of the response." I have heard that women are more prone than men to qualifying their data in this manner, and that this gets us into trouble because we come across as wishy-washy and irresolute. So I guess you could say that I have masculinized my abstract. Predominantly.
3b) As a corollary to (3), my data now sound better because I don't acknowledge that some things are only mostly true. So the abstract, which originally read like it was destined for a trade journal, now sounds like it damn well deserves to be in pal-reviewed journal. And now I know why papers in this journal always sound so unreasonably authoritative. Word limits.
15 years ago
4 comments:
Writing succinctly and directly is an art, that has to be learned. My thesis is an exercise in long-windedness, but now my writing is the envy of the lab.
For what it's worth, I find keeping a weblog helps.
(I also wanted to comment on your story about the drunk grad student and the 3 arsehole PDs, but it has disappeared).
Yes, I do find it gets easier as I work at it, but it's still just stuffing-the-toothpaste-back-in-the-tube painful.
Dr Hyde thought I should remove the story in case said drunk grad student should ever somehow stumble across this and get her feelings hurt. Though I'm not sure that's likely, Dr H has good sense on matters like this so I decided to take his advice. But since you've seen it, feel free to comment....
I think 'arsehole's pretty much sums it up, actually!
"I have masculinized my abstract." I love it! :) Writing succinctly is a challenge for me too... but those tiny abstract word limits don't leave you much choice.
The boss often tells me, if you want the journal to publish your story you have to sell it. That, and believe in your data. Make claims! It opens up discussion...
Good luck with the submission!
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