Thread by @amir_zadpoor

Some summer tips for young academics!
1) Start writing a paper by preparing the figures preferably in their final format!
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2) Use VERY big fonts in your figures (for axes labels, captions, etc). That often allows you to make your figures much smaller and still preserve their readability. Making your lines thicker could help too!

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3) Reduce the number of figures. Multi-panel figures with are usually much more efficient and enable you to meet the space requirements of letter journals. We usually limit the number of our figures to 3-4 for letters and 6-10 for full-length articles. #AcademicTwitter

4) Keep the color of the graphs and the type of the fonts consistent across all the figures appearing in your manuscript!
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5) Double-check to make sure that all photographs have a scale bar! The scale bars should be large and have a lot of contrast with the background colors of the figure!
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6) Use only vector formats for computer-generated graphics (all graphs, charts, CAD drawings, geometries, mesh visualizations, etc). Tip: eps and pdf are vector formats while jpg, tif, and png are bitmap formats!
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7) "Materials and methods" and "Results" sections should be entirely written in the past tense! #AcademicTwitter

8) Double-check to make sure your manuscript has page numbers. #AcademicTwitter

9) Double-check to make sure you have used only one type of font, one font size, one type of line spacing, and one type of before- and after-spacing (preceding and following each paragraph) throughout the entire manuscript. #AcademicTwitter

10) Double-check to make sure all abbreviations are defined at their first use and are used consistently afterward. The same abbreviations should not be defined twice apart from the cases where you have defined the abbreviation first in the Abstract. #AcademicTwitter

11) The name of all equipment and commercial materials/reagents should be followed by the name of the manufacturer and the country to ensure the reproducibility of the results. #AcademicTwitter

12) Double-check to make sure there are no methodological details in the Results, Discussion, Introduction sections. #AcademicTwitter

13) Although some journals prefer a combined "Results and Discussions" section, it is generally better to separate "Results" and "Discussions". #AcademicTwitter

14) Double-check to make sure that there is NO interpretation of the results in the Results section. Only pure observations! Also no methodological details (but I said that already)! #AcademicTwitter

15) There should be no new results presented in the "Discussion" section. Only interpretation of the results, comparison with the literature, putting results in a wider context, mentioning the limitations, suggesting future research, etc! (Also no methodology)! #AcademicTwitter

16) Make sure the source of your funding is acknowledged using the "standard formulation of the relevant funding agency" that usually includes the grant number! Ask your supervisor, if you do not know who should be acknowledged how! #AcademicTwitter

17) Before declaring that you and your co-authors do not have any conflicts of interests, check that with all of your co-authors! Even something as benign as a patent application may count as a conflict of interest! #AcademicTwitter

18) All mathematical symbols (parameters, etc) should be written in Italic expect for vectors and tensors that are usually written in bold type font (no Italic)! #AcademicTwitter

19) Although writing manuals are not consistent on this, I insist that all Latin words/abbreviations are Italicized in our manuscripts. Examples are: i.e., e.g., et. al., in vivo, in vitro, ex vivo, ad hoc, a priori, post hoc, ad libitum, etc.
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20) Limit your introduction to two double-spaced pages! That is more than enough for ANY manuscript!
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21) Use a consistent file (version) numbering system. Increase the version every time you do any change in a file or if you SEND a working version of a file to another co-author! Make sure the same version number corresponds to the EXACT for all co-authors! #AcademicTwitter

22) Do not repeat figure captions in the Results section (or anywhere else). That is redundant! For example: Do not write: 'Figure 1 shows the evolution of the mechanical properties vs. time. ... #AcademicTwitter

... As can be clearly seen in this figure, the mechanical properties of our materials decrease with time'. Instead, write 'The mechanical properties of our material decreases with time (Figure 1)'. That is much more concise and effective! #AcademicTwitter

23) This one is a matter of style but I insist that our manuscripts are written using A4 (not Letter) paper type, have one-inch (25.4 mm) margin on all sides, are double-spaced. ... #AcademicTwitter

... All figures should be at the end of the manuscript with each figure occupying one page. Tables are the same way. Figure and table captions are written separately preceding the figures and tables! ... #AcademicTwitter

... The order of contents will then be: Frontpage (1 p), Abstract (1 p), Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgments, Conflict of Interest Statement, References, Table captions, Figure captions, Tables, Figures #AcademicTwitter

24) Keep the format of your tables simple! Do not use vertical lines. Use the same font type as in the rest of the manuscript! Think twice before including tables! Most tables should be either converted into figures or moved to the supplementary document! #AcademicTwitter

25) The graphs made by the software accompanying (measurement) equipment are not good enough for writing papers! Make sure you retrieve the RAW data as well. You probably have to draw the graphs yourself using a format consistent with the rest of your figures! #AcademicTwitter

26) An abstract is a mini-paper and should have the following sections: introduction (including the knowledge gap), methods, results, and discussion. Make your abstracts as quantitative as possible but only the most important quantities! #AcademicTwitter

27) Give your files a concise but legible name. Do not name your files: manuscript.doc, paper.doc, my paper_ver 5.doc, second paper_ver 10, my second PhD paper_ver 2, etc!

28) Remember that your supplementary document is not typeset and should be provided in the final format! For example, use single spacing in your supplementary document! #AcademicTwitter

29) If you including videos as supplementary files, write captions for all your videos and include them in your supplementary document! #AcademicTwitter

30) Call the figures in your supplementary document using this format: Figure S1, S2, S3, etc and not like Figure 1S, 2S, 3S. The latter could be confused with references to the sub-figures appearing in the main document! #AcademicTwitter

31) Use a reference management software! Download the metadata of your references from a database (Scopus, Google Scholar)! Make sure the names of the journals are consistently written in your references (complete name vs abbreviated, capitalized vs. sentence format, etc)

32) It is a matter of style but a recent trend is to minimize the use of capital letters. Example: when defining an abbreviation in the text of the manuscript, use all small letters, i.e. 'triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS)' and not 'Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces (TPMS)'

33) The same principle of minimizing the use of capital letters also applies to the title of the paper, the names of the sections of the paper, etc! #AcademicTwitter

34) In the Results section, it should be clear what data supports EVERY SINGLE statement. I, therefore, insist that EVERY SINGLE sentence in the Results section ends with '(Figure X)' or 'Table (X)'. #AcademicTwitter

35) Double-check to make sure all quotation marks are correctly used, as explained in the figure below! #AcademicChatter

36) The abstract should not exceed one double-spaced page! #AcademicChatter

I will keep adding to the thread. Also, if I have time, I plan to make a checklist from these tips for the PhD students and their supervisors! I will share the checklist here, if I manage to free up some time to make it!