Writing Scientific Manuscripts

Welcome back to Bloggby! This week we will be discussing scientific manuscripts - what are they, why would you write one, and what are some examples?

Scientific manuscripts are one of the primary ways of communicating results from any studies or experiments one performs. As I have discussed in previous posts, especially in my community (citizen) science project ones, communication is key to effective and impactful scientific work.

If you're wondering what these manuscripts look like, think no further than a paper you might have read for an academic class - where the author starts with an abstract, then dives into talking about previous literature on their subject of study, and then tells you what they found and how those findings could be used. It's like most papers - there's a structure with a beginning, middle, and end; and the goal is to inform your audience about something they might not have considered or learned about before.

Now, if you've gotten this far and are feeling like you still need more specifics on how exactly you could use this, fear not! If you are or have been a student in STEM (or in any other subject that focuses on research and the scientific process), chances are that you will have or will soon write one of these types of papers. Many may fear that there is no way they could write such a lengthy and in-depth paper, or that because they don't have original research, it isn't possible - but that's not the case! Below are a few examples of scientific manuscripts I've written for classes, where I didn't have original research, but was still able to find data and analyze it in a new way.

"(Zombie) fire and ice: the differential and unique impacts of climate-change induced wildfires on Verhojansk Russia, Anchorage Alaska, and Willows California, in terms of present and future"

and

"We (aren’t) the dinosaurs: How human actions have altered drivers of extinction since the Cretaceous-Paleogene event based on the Quaternary megafaunal extinction as a point of transition"

(to read these papers in full, check out my portfolio!)

While these are just titles, what I want to point out here is that just because scientific manuscripts are long and formal doesn't mean you can't have fun with them. If you have choice in your topic, pick something that interests you! Don't be afraid to write funky titles, try things and fail, and most importantly, share your experiences with others!