NAAS-YUVA hosted a webinar on scientific writing on October 22, 2024, at 7:00 PM IST via Zoom. The session was moderated by Dr. Haritha Bollinedi, Convenor of NAAS-YUVA. She welcomed the participants and introduced the distinguished speaker, Dr. Mary Williams, Features Editor of the renowned peer-reviewed journals Plant Cell and Plant Physiology.
Dr. Mary Williams holds a PhD in Plant Molecular Biology from Rockefeller University (1991) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley. In 1995, she joined Harvey Mudd College, where she taught plant biology and scientific writing for 14 years. In 2009, she moved to Glasgow, Scotland, to become the Features Editor for The Plant Cell and Plant Physiology. Dr. Williams also created the Teaching Tools in Plant Biology series and the Plant Science Research Weekly blog. She mentors early-career scientists, including Assistant Features Editors and Plantae Fellows.
In her lecture entitled “Preparing manuscripts for journal submission”, Dr. Williams stressed the significance of publications in sharing ideas, insights, and data while receiving valuable feedback. She emphasized that writing is often a daunting task that people tend to procrastinate on, and suggested dedicating a fixed time each day for writing. Dr. Williams covered three main aspects of writing: preparing the manuscript, submitting it, and navigating the peer-review process. She highlighted the writer's responsibility to effectively communicate ideas to reviewers, advising against blaming reviewers for misunderstandings.
Dr. Williams also provided helpful writing tips, such as reading journal articles to learn the structure, format, and language of scholarly papers. Before starting to write, she encouraged identifying the key messages from the study and presenting them in the form of a story, using summary figures or drawings to help readers understand the main findings. She advised that papers should follow a solid structure—starting broad in the introduction, narrowing down in the methods and results, and broadening again in the discussion. Additionally, she cautioned against long sentences and unnecessary words, recommending conciseness and clarity. Lastly, Dr. Williams reassured participants that it’s normal to feel frustrated or defensive when receiving negative feedback from reviewers, but advised waiting to respond until after calming down.
During the Q&A session, participants raised thought-provoking questions, including how to maintain research motivation amidst administrative duties, how to allocate time for research and paperwork, how to select the right journal for research, and how to handle various journal formats. Dr. Williams provided insightful answers to each query.
The webinar concluded with a formal vote of thanks from Dr. Susheel, a YUVA member, marking the end of a highly engaging and informative session.
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