ESSAYWhitesides' Group: Writing a Paper**By George M. Whitesides*
1. What is a Scientific Paper?
A paper is an organized description of hypotheses, data andconclusions, intended to instruct the reader. Papers are a central part of research. If your research does not generate
papers, it might just as well not have been done. ªInterestingand unpublishedº is equivalent to ªnon-existentº.
Realize that your objective in research is to formulate andtest hypotheses, to draw conclusions from these tests, and toteach these conclusions to others. Your objective is not toªcollect dataº.
A paper is not just an archival device for storing a completed research program; it is also a structure for planning
your research in progress. If you clearly understand the purpose and form of a paper, it can be immensely useful to you inorganizing and conducting your research. A good outline forthe paper is also a good plan for the research program. You
should write and rewrite these plans/outlines throughout thecourse of the research. At the beginning, you will have mostlyplan; at the end, mostly outline. The continuous effort to understand, analyze, summarize, and reformulate hypotheses on
paper will be immensely more efficient for you than a process
in which you collect data and only start to organize themwhen their collection is ªcompleteº.

2. Outlines
2.1. The Reason for Outlines
I emphasize the central place of an outline in writing
papers, preparing seminars, and planning research. I especially believe that for you, and for me, it is most efficient towrite papers from outlines. An outline is a written plan of theorganization of a paper, including the data on which it rests.
You should, in fact, think of an outline as a carefully organized and presented set of data, with attendant objectives,
hypotheses, and conclusions, rather than an outline of text.
An outline itself contains little text. If you and I can agree
on the details of the outline (that is, on the data and organization), the supporting text can be assembled fairly easily. If we±[*] Prof. G. M. Whitesides
Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138 (USA)E-mail: gmwhitesides@gmwgroup.harvard.edu[**] The text is based on a handout created on October 4, 1989.

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do not agree on the outline, any text is useless. Much of thetime in writing a paper goes into the text; most of the thoughtgoes into the organization of the data and into the analysis. It
can be relatively efficient in time to go through several (evenmany) cycles of an outline before beginning to write text;
writing many versions of the full text of a paper is slow.
All writing that I doÐpapers, reports, proposals (and, ofcourse, slides for seminars)ÐI do from outlines. I urge you tolearn how to use them as well.

2.2. How Should You Construct an Outline?
The classical approach is to start with a blank piece ofpaper, and write down, in any order, all important ideas that
occur to you concerning the paper. Ask yourself the obvious
questions: ªWhy did I do this work?º; ªWhat does it mean?º;ªWhat hypotheses did I mean to test?º; ªWhat ones did I
actually test?º; ªWhat were the results? Did the work yield anew method of compound? What?º; ªWhat measurements
did I make?º; ªWhat compounds? How were they characterized?º. Sketch possible equations, figures, and schemes. It isessential to try to get the major ideas. If you start the research
to test one hypothesis, and decide, when you see what you
have, that the data really seem to test some other hypothesis
better, don't worry. Write them both down, and pick the best
combinations of hypotheses, objectives, and data. Often theobjectives of a paper when it is finished are different fromthose used to justify starting the work. Much of good scienceis opportunistic and revisionist.
When you have written down what you can, start with another piece of paper and try to organize the jumble of the firstone. Sort all of your ideas into three major heaps (1±3).
1. Introduction
Why did I do the work? What were the central motivations
and hypotheses?
2. Results and Discussion
What were the results? How were compounds made andcharacterized? What was measured?
3. Conclusions
What does it all mean? What hypotheses were proved ordisproved? What did I learn? Why does it make a difference?

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ESSAYG. M. Whitesides/Whitesides' Group: Writing a Paper

Next, take each of these sections, and organize it on yetfiner scale. Concentrate on organizing the data. Construct figures, tables, and schemes to present the data as clearly andcompactly as possible. This process can be slowÐI may sketcha figure five to ten times in different ways trying to decide
how it is most clear (and looks best aesthetically).
Finally, put everythingÐoutline of sections, tables, sketchesof figures, equationsÐin good order.
When you are satisfied that you have included all the data(or that you know what additional data you intend to collect),and have a plausible organization, give the outline to me. Simply indicate where missing data will go, how you think(hypothesize) they will look, and how you will interpret them
if your hypothesis is correct. I will take this outline, add myopinions, suggest changes, and return it to you. It usually takes
four to five iterations (often with additional experiments) toagree on an outline. When we have agreed, the data are usually in (or close to) final form (that is, the tables, figures, etc., in
the outline will be the tables, figures,... in the paper).
You can then start writing, with some assurance that muchof your prose will be used.
The key to efficient use of your and my time is that we startexchanging outlines and proposals as early in a project as possible. Do not, under any circumstances, wait until the collectionof data is ªcompleteº before starting to write an outline. No
project is ever complete, and it saves enormous effort andmuch time to propose a plausible paper and outline as soon as
you see the basic structure of a project. Even if we decide to
do significant additional work before seriously organizing apaper, the effort of writing an outline will have helped toguide the research.

2.3. The Outline
What an outline should contain:
1. Title
2. Authors
3. Abstract
Do not write an abstract. That can be done when the paper
is complete.
4. Introduction
The first paragraph or two should be written out completely. Pay particular attention to the opening sentence. Ideally, it
should state concisely the objective of the work, and indicate
why this objective is important.
In general, the Introduction should have these elements:
d The objectives of the work.

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dddd

The justification for these objectives: Why is the work important?
Background: Who else has done what? How? What have
we done previously?
Guidance to the reader: What should the reader watch forin the paper? What are the interesting high points? What
strategy did we use?
Summary/conclusion: What should the reader expect asconclusion? In advanced versions of the outline, you
should also include all the sections that will go in theExperimental section (at the level of paragraph subheadings) and indicate what information will go in the Microfilm section.

5. Results and Discussion
The results and discussion are usually combined. This section should be organized according to major topics. The separate parts should have subheadings in boldface to make thisorganization clear, and to help the reader scan through thefinal text to find the parts of interest. The following list
includes examples of phrases that might plausibly serve assection headings:
d Synthesis of Alkane Thiols
d Characterization of Monolayers
d Absolute Configuration of the Vicinal Diol Unitd Hysteresis Correlates with Roughness of the Surface
d Dependence of the Rate Constant on Temperatured The Rate of Self-Exchange Decreases with the Polarity ofthe Solvent
Try to make these section headings as specific and information-rich as possible. For example, the phrase ªThe Rate of
Self-Exchange Decreases with The Polarity of The Solventº is
obviously longer than ªMeasurement of Ratesº, but much
more useful to the reader. In general, try to cover the majorcommon points:
d Synthesis of starting materials
d Characterization of products
d Methods of characterizationd Methods of measurementd Results (rate constants, contact angles, whatever)In the outline, do not write any significant amount of text,
but get all the data in their proper place: Any text should simply indicate what will go in that section.
d Section Headings
d Figures (with captions)d Schemes (with captions and footnotes)
d Equations
d Tables (correctly formatted)
Remember to think of a paper as a collection of experimental results, summarized as clearly and economically as possible
in figures, tables, equations, and schemes. The text in thepaper serves just to explain the data, and is secondary. The
more information can be compressed into tables, equations,etc., the shorter and more readable the paper will be.

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G. M. Whitesides/Whitesides' Group: Writing a Paper

In the outline, summarize the conclusions of the paper as alist of short phrases or sentences. Do not repeat what is in theResults section, unless special emphasis is needed. The Conclusions section should be just that, and not a summary. Itshould add a new, higher level of analysis, and should indicate
explicitly the significance of the work.
7. Experimental
Include, in the correct order to correspond to the order inthe Results section, all of the paragraph subheadings of theExperimental section.
2.4. In Summary
ddd

The word ªthisº must always be followed by a noun, sothat its reference is explicit.
Not:
This is a fast reaction; This leads us to conclude
But:
This reaction is fast; This observation leads us to conclude
d Describe experimental results uniformly in the past tense.
Not:
Addition of water gives product.
But:
Addition of water gave product.
d Use the active voice whenever possible.
Not:
It was observed that the solution turned red.
But:
The solution turned red. orWe observed that the solution turned red.
d Complete all comparisons.
Not:
The yield was higher using bromine.
But:
The yield was higher using bromine than chlorine.
d Type all papers double-spaced (not single- or one-and-ahalf-spaced), and leave two spaces after colons, and afterperiods at the end of sentences. Leave generous margins.
Assume that we will write all papers using the style of theAmerican Chemical Society. You can get a good idea of thisstyle from three sources:d The journals. Simply look at articles in the journals andcopy the organization you see there.
d Previous papers from the group. By looking at previouspapers, you can see exactly how a paper should ªlookº. If
what you wrote looks different, it probably is not what wewant.
d The ACS Handbook for Authors. Useful, detailed, especially the section on references, pp. 173±229.
I also suggest you read Strunk and White, The Elements ofStyle (Macmillan: New York, 1979, 3rd ed.) to get a sense forusage. A number of other books on scientific writing are in
the group library; these books all contain useful advice, but
are not lively reading. There are also several excellent bookson the design of graphs and figures.
dStart writing possible outlines for papers early in a project.
Do not wait until the ªendº. The end may never come.
Organize the outline and the paper around easily assimilated dataÐtables, equations, figures, schemesÐrather
than around text.
Organize in order of importance, not in chronological order. An important detail in writing papers concerns theweight to be given to topics. Neophytes often organize apaper in terms of chronology: that is, they give a recitationof their experimental program, starting with their cherished initial failures and leading up to a climactic successful finale. This approach is completely wrong. Start withthe most important results, and put the secondary results
later, if at all. The reader usually does not care how you
arrived at your big results, only what they are. Shorter
papers are easier to read than longer ones.

3. Some Points of Styled Do not use nouns as adjectives:
Not:
ATP formation; reaction productBut:formation of ATP; product of the reaction

ESSAY

6. Conclusions______________________

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