‘Moves’ and ‘snazz’: how to write a great scientific paper

Seven Digiscape postdocs and a Master student went on a ‘writing journey’ with Dr Robert Brown this month. Rob’s approach to teaching scientific writing is rather unique: he focuses on the story and what he calls the “moves” or messages you want to bring across. By encouraging you to let go of the information that doesn’t contribute to the “moves”,  he helps you create a short(er) paper with bite.

Participants had to bring a draft of their own manuscript and had the opportunity to apply the freshly-learned techniques to it. The papers covered topics ranging from data provenance, ethics in big data analytics, app development, as well as machine learning and deep learning. They were all rooted in agriculture or climatology.

Rob’s expertise is immense. His precise and sharp comments brought the papers to the next level. As Mandy, a postdoc from Melbourne put it: “I feel that Rob could be a co-author on my paper”.

Stay tuned for more as papers with snazzy titles are coming out soon!

By Dr Franz Waldner and Dr Maria Vilas, Digiscape Postdoctoral Fellows