Thread by @GalelliStefano

📕A thread on #academicWriting

These months are marking the end of my experience as a Section Editor for the @ASCEpublishing @ASCE_EWRI Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management. Here's a list of common issues I found in the papers I handled during the past years:

1. A VERY common issue I found were papers with a poor Introduction. What does that mean?

1.1 Weak or confusing description of the macro problem(s) addressed in the study ➡️ Make your problem statement clear, tangible, and accessible to a broad audience.

1.2 Unstructured literature review, namely a long list of previously-published articles that does not identify any specific issue ➡️ Identify the gaps in the existing literature and map them to the problem statement.

1.3 Unclear description of the specific contributions ➡️ Having identified macro problem(s) and gaps in the state of the art, point the reader to your contributions. What is novel? Why does it matter?

2. A second issue concerns the experimental setup.

2.1 Unclear descriptions of the data used ➡️ This may sound basic, but make an effort to help the reader understand which data you used, and why.

2.2 Lack of a benchmarking exercise. Many papers introduce an algorithm / model to improve the current methodological approach to a given problem .. shouldn't we compare it against the existing approaches? ➡️ Consider a benchmarking exercise!

2.3 Unclear description of modelling assumptions ➡️ Don't be shy here ... describe the assumptions and explain why you adopted them. I found that doing this works much better than avoiding to introduce them. Reviewers will catch them ..

3. Lack of a proper discussion. Often, discussions presented a summary of methods and results ... that's an extended abstract, not a Discussion. So, what should one write?

3.1 ➡️ Summarise your results, but then explain why they matter ... what's their broader impact? What are the implications of your findings?

3.2 ➡️ Openly discuss your findings in light of modelling assumptions and limitations.

3.3 ➡️ Trace back to the opening of your paper--to the big problem(s)--and ask yourself how your work helped tackle it ... and, finally, create a roadmap for what should be done next.

4. This last point is not an issue, just a wish: several papers are not making their data, code, and protocols available. What's the point of proposing a new algorithm if nobody can use it? @WaterModeler initiative on reproducibility for JWRPM will certainly help!

5. I know that the #EnglishLanguage is a great barrier for academic writing; I believe most editors and reviewers understand that. But I also believe that many of the points mentioned above can be addressed without being proficient English writers.

6. Many issues I mentioned are broadly discussed in courses and books on #academicWriting. My favourite book is #WritingScience by Joshua Schimel. I'm super grateful to @sean_turner who first introduced me to it.

I am also very grateful to the JWRPM editors-in-chief (@AviOstfeld, David Watkins, Meghna Babbar-Sebens), Associate Editors, and Reviewers I worked with. It was a wonderful experience and I certainly learned a lot!!