The goal of the ETC Auditorium "Stylish Academic Writing" professional development webinar series is to help students and trainees improve their scientific writing skills. The 3rd event featured Ruedi Aebersold from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Prof. Ruedi Aebersold is an emeritus Professor at ETH Zurich who is an international leader in proteomics field and mentored many scientists. Ruedi's lab has pioneered several widely-used techniques and tools that have contributed to today's proteomics research. His publications have been cited 196,000 times with an h-factor of 214, according to Google Scholar.
The talk emphasized a number of key ideas on why and how paper writing contributes to a successful scientific career as a significant factor, including:
- A paper only matters if it describes progress in the field
- Publishing your work in a way that supports your career goals
- The reason why prestigious journals have a high IF is that they manage to include a small number of papers that have >100-1000s citations
- Publications that are more cooperative generally have a higher impact, especially those describing research at the interface of disciplines
- Make the text easier and clear: One paper one message
- Before you start writing: define the science story and tell it to the lab and other audiences who are not scientists
- Use a foolproof structure and track through the main topics e.g., the discussion should be focused on putting the new results in context and point out limitations
- Developing writing skills by practicing writing and structured talks and using short clear sentences
- Before you submit: anticipate what reviewers might object to and make sure every co-author agrees with the paper.
- Grow a "thick skin" towards rejections: never take the rejection personally and improve and address the criticism factually.
- Talk to the editors to adjust expectations for additional data and grievances with reviewers.
- Avoid frequent problems: write one paper at a time- but do it.
- Perfection is an elusive goal: freeze the story at the point of saturation and let reviewers define the path to perfection.
- After publishment: increase the paper's visibility and impact through social media and conferences.
Ruedi also addressed some voted live questions from PollEverywhere, such as his views on ChatGPT and how that would affect scientific writing.
The session was hosted by Yansheng Liu (Yale University School of Medicine), Blandine Chazarin (Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute), and Deepti J Kundu (PRIDE and EBI).
A full video recording of the session including the figure clinic and Q&A session is available on the HUPO YouTube channel. An alternative link for those who don’t have access to YouTube can be viewed here.
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