Waste Management 25 (2005) 667668

www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman

Editorial

Advice for rst-time authors

Writing your rst research article can be very dicult, especially if English is not your rst language. If
you have valuable research results, it is crucial that
you communicate them with other researchers, and
publication in journals like Waste Management is still
the best way to help advance knowledge in your specialisation. I imagine that many rst-time authors have
diculty, in spite of a willingness to take the time
needed to write a good paper, and a deep knowledge
of their subject. I can just see authors studying other
journal papers to understand their organisation and
style, and then sitting down with a blank sheet and
struggling to start. The researcher might try to write
an abstract rst, get frustrated, decide to skip the abstract for now, and start to write an introduction,
and then get bogged down writing an introduction because it becomes too long and loses focus. In particular, people who try to assemble a 1520 page
research paper from a lengthy report or thesis by simple editing are likely to be frustrated.
For many rst-time authors, I believe it is a mistake
to try to write a rst draft using the ordering of sections found in a standard research paper. My advice
is to try to change the order around when you develop
your rst draft, and then switch the order back when
you revise your draft. Here is the order that I would
advise, along with what you should look to include in
each section.
1. Conclusions. This should be the rst section that you
consider, not the last. What are the one or two major
advances that have resulted from your research? You
cannot describe all of your research, and instead you
should focus on a small number of related conclusions. The objective in publishing is to show other
researchers new methods or insights that they can
in turn use to solve their problems. The objective is
not to tell them everything youve been working on.
If you have multiple conclusions that have little in
common, pick the most important one, and consider
writing another paper later around the next most
0956-053X/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2005.06.001

important one. Do not worry initially about perfect

English sentences and paragraphs. Start your rst
draft with simple, clear conclusions.
2. Graphics. Next, think about how you will explain to
people how you have reached your conclusions. Do
you have a gure, table, or photo that will support
your conclusion? If you do, think of ways to modify
the graphic so it most clearly communicates the reasoning behind your conclusions. If you do not,
develop appropriate graphics that clearly relate to
your conclusions. Especially if English is not your
rst language, it is crucial to develop graphics that
will help the reader understand the reasons why
you have reached your conclusions develop the
graphics rst, and then write explanations around
them.
3. Materials and methods. This is usually the easiest
section to write. The key is to provide enough
details so that others could duplicate your work
and results. You also need to provide enough detail
to answer those who might be sceptical of your
approach. Information is needed only for the
results shown in the graphics or to support the conclusions. That is why you should write this section
after conclusions and graphics. Look carefully to
see whether you can cut out certain parts of the
materials and methods because you have decided
not to include certain conclusions from your paper.
Additional tables or gures might be needed in this
section to more clearly explain procedures to the
reader.
4. Results and discussion. This can be either one section
or two separate sections depending on the topic and
the authors preference. This section is more dicult
to write than the materials and methods, and that is
why I suggest that rst-time authors write this later.
This section should focus on the results needed to
support the conclusions; other results are not needed
in the paper. Again, additional graphics might be
required to more clearly explain details to the reader.
The discussion should explain clearly how you reach

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Editorial / Waste Management 25 (2005) 667668

your conclusions from your results. Much of the

detail in this section is needed to counter potential
concerns of readers. By explaining why alternative
explanations are not convincing, you help to convince the reader that your explanation is the most
logical one.
5. Introduction. Only now should you write the rst draft
of your introduction. By this stage it should be clear
which background knowledge is relevant to your
paper. Your article should help resolve a technical
concern. The introduction is the place to explain what
the concern is and why it is important. The introduction is also the place to explain what is already known
about the topic through the research of others, and to
highlight what is not known. The objective of the
introduction is to lead the reader from the general
issue to the specics of your approach. The introduction should introduce concerns or concepts that will
be important for the reader later in the paper. Part
of the introduction is a literature review. This is not
simply a listing of previous, related research; it must
be an analysis of that research, highlighting issues that
will become relevant in your discussions, or providing
background information that will help readers agree
with your conclusions.
6. Abstract. The last part to be written is the abstract.
The abstract is a summary that contains a condensed
introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusions. That is why it cannot be written until the
others have been attempted.
7. References.

Someone who drafts an article in this way will end

up with a draft that looks odd to those familiar with
writing and reading research articles, so you will need
to take your completed rst draft and re-organise into
the standard style. Then you will be ready to look
again at similar research articles and nd ways to make
your rst draft clearer. When you have run low on
ideas, it is time to ask someone more experienced with
writing research articles to help you by reading your
draft and providing advice. A few iterations of comments and changes should lead to a clearer article.
You should check the Guide for Authors (the Waste
Management one is at: http://authors.elsevier.com/GuideForAuthors.html?Pub- ID=404) and modify your
work to match the requirements. You should be sure
that your article has been read by an expert English
speaker to clarify the English expression. After these
steps have been taken, you are ready to submit your
manuscript to the journal.
I hope that more solid waste researchers and practitioners will take the trouble to write their rst manuscript and submit it to Waste Management for
consideration. I look forward to reading some of your
submissions in the future.
Associate Editor
Mark Milke
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Canterbury
New Zealand
E-mail address: mark.milke@canterbury.ac.nz