30 June, 2020
Arold, Stefan T.
When it comes to manuscript writing, many students and junior scientists tend to face the same difficulties and make the same mistakes because they lack a structured approach and basic guidelines. This situation leads to a highly inefficient and frustrating process, where students spend much time producing an initial draft that has fundamental structural and stylistic flaws. The mentor then either needs to spend an equally excessive amount of time explaining all the mistakes to help the student correct them; or the mentor resolves to make the corrections him/herself, which is also time-consuming and provides only little learning experience for the student. Therefore, I propose a structured approach that breaks down the writing process in six simple steps. Mentor feedback is integrated into this process to catch structural and fundamental problems before they can propagate through the manuscript. Through the combination of structure and feedback, this approach should allow completing the manuscript swiftly and efficiently, with minimal efforts for both junior scientist and mentor.