Skip to main content

Astronomy information

The Level5 project at Carengie has a list of older papers on basic astrophysics

How to write a paper

Writing effectively is the most important skill a scientist can have.  Here is a nice summary of how to write a scientific paper.

My summary of the most important steps in writing a paper are:

Start with a good outline.  It is easier to get an outline organized than a pile of words.  The outline will show the sections, the paragraphs, and the contents of each paragraph.

The paragraph is the basic building block of a paper.  It starts with a topic sentence that explains the mission of the paragraph.  There are several sentences that carry out this misssion.  Then there is a concluding sentence that reaches the concluding of the paragraph.

Scientic writing is ver terse.  Avoid extra words or bridge passages.  Fewer words are better.  Remember that  your audience ran out of time last week.