Planning Before Writing: A Discussion with Miranda Vinay

Listen to this interview of Dr. Miranda Vinay, full-time editor at Communications Engineering (a Nature Portfolio journal) and also currently Locum Associate Editor for electronics, photonics, devices, 2D materials, and applied physics at Nature. We talk about planning before writing, because it's the surest way to structure the arguments for the value of your research.

interviewer : "And you know, one of the main things that I think that gets missed in research training is just that, logical argumentation. I mean, one reason is probably that most people focus in on the language. They're thinking, 'Science is in English. These scientists need training in English language.' But it's my experience that pretty much all scientists have the English they need to do their work, but what they often need is a grounded understanding of how they build an argument."

Miranda Vinay : "Absolutely. I mean, the fundamental truth is that no reputable journal is going to reject your paper because of your strength in the English language. Some journals have staff for that, and there's plenty of services online that can help you with that. Oftentimes your coworkers can help you with that. But really what makes the science blurry and muddled is just not having a well-supported conclusion — and I mean well-supported in terms of the argumentation and the rational evidence to support that conclusion, even if all of the necessary data is there."

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