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hi I'm Professor Carr University of
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Minnesota Department of Chemistry uh I'd
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like to talk to you this afternoon about
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how to how to go about writing a
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research paper um over the years I and
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my group have uh produced about 400
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papers and uh in working with new
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graduate students I've learned that
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there's a lot of fear and trepidation
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and at the same time excitement about
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writing a research paper especially the
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first one um and I want to see if I can
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make it um an enjoyable and productive
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experience for you
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I believe that it doesn't take that much
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time to produce a first draft and that's
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what I'm going to focus on this
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afternoon is is how to produce a first
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draft which is really important I think
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one of the the biggest problems in
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writing a research paper is certainly
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the first one uh is is suppressing the
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urge to procrastinate and put off
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beginning the work uh and that's that's
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part of my strategy in the way I
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approach uh writing research papers so
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before you get ready to write the paper
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there are some important
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preliminaries number one uh you should
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review your own notes that you've taken
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on papers that you've read that are
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relevant to the work that you're writing
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up and you should renew your literature
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search this is very important to have
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this done before you start uh writing
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your paper the second preliminary issue
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is very important and it goes back to
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high school and that is you need to
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determine who your audience is I'm sure
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sure you were taught this way back when
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and this is important in in writing up a
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research paper you need to know what the
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purpose of the paper is is it a research
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paper is it a review paper is it a
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tutorial paper um what Journal is it
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intended for are the primary readers of
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the paper going to be undergraduates or
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researchers uh but as always with any
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paper the real primary reader is the
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reviewer these are The Gatekeepers and
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it is very important that you address
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their concerns and the more you can uh
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get get them addressed in the first
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draft the better off you you are in and
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and finally getting the paper published
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so PR preliminaries don't count for the
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weekend that you're going to write your
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paper you've got to have your
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preliminaries
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done okay now before getting into the
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details I want you to understand what I
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consider to be the big
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picture first of all create producing
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your initial draft is the creative part
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of the
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job and what I want you to do what I
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think you need to do is resist the
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temptation to correct Stakes as you
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produce this first draft your job now is
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to produce a complete first draft not a
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perfect first
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draft editing is the second stage of the
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work it is the critical thinking
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analytical part of the job and editing
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at this point before you've completed
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your first draft is a waste of time
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fixing a sentence and making it perfect
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if it never appears in the paper
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because it turns out to be irrelevant is
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a waste of
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time okay so over the years
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uh I've developed an algorithm and I've
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I've talked to a number of of my
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colleagues and many of them use the same
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algorithm uh and it runs roughly as
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follows number one just get started
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don't procrastinate get something down
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on paper paper number two you need to
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work from an outline the reason an
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outline is important is you may not
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finish the paper in one sitting you
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probably won't finish the paper in one
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sitting and if you've got an outline you
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can pick the work up back where you you
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finished before you're not going to have
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to read it over uh you're going to know
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where to
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begin uh the the third part of this is
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that the outline is easy to do so it's
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it it's actually fun to write an
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outline before you you have a paper to
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write in your head you've got your data
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you've got your your tables of data
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you've got your
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figures take those and put them in
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order arrange them in some logical
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sequence uh much like you might arrange
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them for a talk and that list of paper
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that list of figures and and tables in
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order is really the outline for the
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paper now the next point is the
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following do not write the introduction
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to the paper at this time the
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introduction is the hardest part of a
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paper to
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write so don't start there because
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you're going to you're the the urge to
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procrastinate is going to kick in
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again um the easiest part of a paper to
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write is the experimental it's the part
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of the paper that you're most familiar
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with uh you've done the experiments you
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know how they were done so write the
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experimental and you will be moving
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forward it's an easy part to write the
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next part of the paper that I would
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focus on would be the results and
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discussion following the outline that
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you created from your list of figures
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and your list of tables
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um and the this this is a little bit
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more difficult to write than the
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experimental but you're really you're
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really getting started
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now okay so so basically you've got a
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draft consisting of the experimental and
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the result results and
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discussion um once that's done the
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really hard part of writing kicks in and
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that's doing the hard critical editing
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but you've got a first draft and that's
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the important thing now the critical
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part is when you convert that uh into
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clear concise and coherent English and
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make sure that the science that you've
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written is
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correct the final part of the algorithm
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is is the the the the cleanup write the
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conclusions personally I like
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conclusions or summaries that that is a
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numbered format conclusion one one
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conclusion two conclusion three where
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these These are quite clearly separated
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from one another and it's it's easy to
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see the contributions of the
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work now we have to do the
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introduction and there are two very
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important things that need to be covered
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in in the introduction number one why
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was the study done what is its purpose
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number two you've got to collect the
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relevant essential background
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information and put that together in the
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introduction you need to be able to give
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the readers a sufficient background to
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understand what you did so the the very
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last step in uh following this Al this
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uh this algorithm is producing the
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references for the paper uh actually I
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think it's a good idea for you to write
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some notes as you as you go through the
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the first draft of manuscript indicating
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what references might be needed what
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they would be about but not to stop and
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collect the references at that time
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because uh it's it's just going to
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interrupt the entire flow of the work
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but when the manuscript is uh just about
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finished you need to get the exact
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references uh so that the the reviewers
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and the readers can really find the
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information uh without trouble it's
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extremely annoying to reviewers uh and
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readers when these are not done properly
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so so basically you've got the job done
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now and I want to want to leave you with
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a few final words um there's there's an
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old saying attributed to uh Sir Francis
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Bacon reading maketh a full man
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conference a ready man and writing an
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exact man and each each of those things
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that we do in doing science we we we
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talk to our other our fellow scientists
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uh we go to
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conferences uh we do a lot of reading
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but in producing a paper for publication
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that's when we want to focus on on our
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critical skills when we want to make
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sure that our scientific arguments are
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are correct and
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logical
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so writing is the most exacting part of
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what we do as a
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scientist um some final points uh always
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review the manuscript requirements for
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the Journal of Interest there's no point
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getting a paper that doesn't follow the
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manuscript requirements it will probably
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be returned
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unreviewed with a semi nasty note from
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the
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editor um and and really finally I want
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to leave you with a few references on
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writing uh there are some classic um
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books here there are some books very
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relevant to writing a paper uh on
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chemistry um and I want to point out a a
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wonderful short paper by uh Professor
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Royce Murray the former editor of the
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journal analytical chemistry skillful
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writing of an awful research paper seven
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rules to follow uh this this little
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little paper is a gem uh it it will it
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in mock style tells you the worst things
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you can do in writing a
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manuscript uh I hope that you'll find
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this this helpful um and uh it was uh a
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pleasure being
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here some reviewers get really bent out
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of
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shape
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especially if it's one of their papers
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