HOW TO WRITE A SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE OR A THESIS?

By Lourens Poorter

What is this document about? This document provides guidelines and tips how to write a
scientific article or an MSc thesis. There are many different writing styles; one is not necessarily
better than the other, and it depends on the scientific field or personal preferences. However,
scientific writing is about communication, and the manuscript should be succinct, interesting and
attractive to read, well-justified, unambiguous, and crisp and clear. Here are some guidelines and
tips that I think are important for writing a good scientific manuscript, and that are, in my
experience, important for journals, editors, reviewers and examiners. I hope the guidelines, tips and
tricks are of help to you as well.

Why are the guidelines relevant for scientific articles and MSc theses? A MSc thesis can be
written in the form of an article, and has the same elements as an article, but can be longer. Hence,
most of the tips that apply to an article can also be applied to a thesis. When a tip applies to a
thesis only, then it is indicated by a “(T)”.

How is this document structured? These guidelines contain different sections. First it explains
how you can structure your manuscript in a clear way. Secondly it provides tips for the different
standard sections of a scientific manuscript (the introduction, questions and hypotheses, methods,
results, discussion, abstract, and title). Third it provides tips for writing style, how to cite, and how
to improve your manuscript in a short time. The tips are numbered, and start with a
recommendation in boldface. It then explains and expands the recommendation, and illustrates this
with some examples how (not) to phrase your text.

Enjoy the writing!

Lourens Poorter
Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Wageningen University & Research (WUR),
Wageningen, The Netherlands.

June 2018

1
STRUCTURE

1. Make an outline before you start to write. Put in the outline the header of each paragraph,
and in 1 sentence the take home message of the paragraph. In this way you can assess
whether the structure is logical, and what your thesis is heading for. This prevents that you
write “into the blue” and that you lose a lot of time. You can make such an outline for your
whole thesis/article, or for a section (e.g., the introduction). Discuss this outline with your
supervisor.

2. Start each chapter with a general introduction. This assures that you clearly define the
topic of interest. It also provides focus. Explain and justify why the topic is important (to
convince the reader that the following text is relevant). Also, provide a reading guide what you
will discuss in the coming chapters or paragraphs. In this way you provide structure to the
reader, so that (s)he knows what you are aiming for, and what the logic is behind the different
steps that you will take to arrive at your final conclusion.

3. Finish each chapter with a concluding paragraph. In this way you summarize the main
conclusion for the reader. You avoid that the reader first has to try to distil the main conclusions
from your story as this takes time and requires insight and overview. It also provides a good
summary, to assure that the reader is on the same page as you, so that (s)he can continue to
read the next chapter.

4. Give each paragraph a header. This ensures that you and your reader get a clear overview of
the structure of your story. It allows you to realize that it is better to move some paragraphs
somewhere else to obtain a clear line of reasoning or a logical flow in your story. It also allows
you to realize that a certain piece of text does not fit the paragraph, but should be moved to
another paragraph. This increases the coherence of your story. You can make these headers
grey in the writing stage, and remove them in the final version of your document.

5. The header should cover the complete contents, and be sufficient extensive, so that the
reader understands right away what you are talking about. For example, the header “Forest
certification” only indicates the topic but is not so informative, whereas the header “Does forest
certification contribute to a better forest management?” is much more clear and informative.

6. Less is more! Be focused, short and to the point, else your message gets lost in wealth of
information. Realize that both readers, editors, and reviewers are under time pressure and that
the journal is under space pressure. What 4 figures, 3 tables, and text do you really need to
make and prove your point? Just delete the rest (ouch!) or put it in an on-line appendix.

7. Assure that you have a complete, round, and coherent story. A manuscript develops
sometimes in an organic way into unexpected and undesired directions. Realize that writing is
an iterative process, and you should go back and forth to the different sections of your
manuscript to check whether they are consistent. Always check whether you provide in the
discussion an explicit answer to you research aims and question(s)? Are the hypotheses you
present in the introduction still the same as the ones that you repeat in the discussion? Does
the conceptual diagram that you present in the introduction really match the tests that you do
in the results?

2
INTRODUCTION

8. In 6 paragraphs the complete story. The introduction of a scientific article is normally 6

paragraphs and ca 800 words. The first paragraph is the problem statement/justification.
Paragraphs 2-4 discuss the 3 research questions. Paragraph 5 indicates the niche and novelty of
your study and what you will do. Paragraph 6 contains the research questions and hypotheses.
For a thesis report you can use more words and space, but the main idea is the same. When you
write the discussion, do it in a funnel-shaped way, by going from general to specific.

9. First paragraph: justification. Explain in the first paragraph why this is such an important
topic (either from a societal or a scientific point of view). This makes it immediately clear to the
reader why (s)he really has to read this article and not another one.

10.First paragraph: the aim. End the first paragraph with the aim of your study. Then it becomes
immediately clear what you are heading for and what the paper is about. Else it becomes a kind
of cliff-hanger, and the reader has to follow you through your maze of thoughts and read to the
end of the introduction before finding out what the paper is about.

11. Paragraph 2-4: mini-review of your research questions. Assure that each research
question has been introduced and treated in the introduction. Else your research questions will
come out of the blue, at the end of the introduction. Moreover, scientifically we are the “dwarfs
on the shoulders of the giants”. Much is already known about the topic, and it would be good to
summarize for the reader the state of the art on this topic, so that you can embark from there
on this scientific journey and add additional knowledge. Moreover, if you do not inform the
reader about what we do know, then the hypotheses will come out of the blue. Hence, for each
research question you need 1-2 corresponding paragraphs in the introduction.

12. Paragraph 5: the knowledge gap. What is exactly the knowledge gap that your study will
address? Make this explicit in this paragraph, else the reader (and more important, the editor
and reviewer) have to find it out for themselves, and if they have to put a lot of effort in finding
it, they prefer not to read or to reject your paper.

13. Paragraph 5: the novelty. Scientific journals can publish a limited number of articles, and
they prefer to publish articles that provide a novel contribution and advance science, rather
than confirm existing knowledge. You have to convince the editor/reviewer/reader (in this
order) why they should accept or read this article. You should stress where for you the novelty
of this article is. Your novelty can be in the contents or in the magnitude. It can be a new idea,
a first test of an idea, or a test at an unprecedented (global) scale, that allows to really
generalize earlier research findings. E.g., "To our knowledge, we test for the first time whether
…”. Or: “Little is known about …., but here we test whether ….”. Or: “here we test at an
unprecedented scale of N plots and N billion trees whether ….”. So if you lack ideas, blow the
readers away with impressive numbers (if that is where your strength is).

14. Paragraph 5: explain what you will do. If you do not explain what you will do, then the
questions will come out of the blue. Hence, explain at the end of paragraph 5 briefly what you
will do. For example: “Here we will analyze the intermediate disturbance hypothesis, by relating
species richness to the intensity of disturbance, using 2000 plots in a Ghanaian tropical
rainforest.”

15. Paragraph 6: questions. See below

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16.The attractive add-on: the conceptual diagram. A conceptual diagram is a brief visual
summary of the problem, its components, and how they are related to each other and affect
each other. A conceptual diagram is 1) visual, and therefore more attractive then text, 2)
relatively simple, and therefore shorter and more concise than text, 3) unambiguous, and
therefore more clear than text, 4) an easier representation of the cause-effect relationships.
Making a conceptual diagram forces you as a writer and researcher to make everything clear and
explicit, and have the cause-effect relationship clear. For example, A and B are associated, is
that because A affects B, B affects A, or because A and B are both affected by another factor C?.
Hence, it is really attractive, but also really scientific if you can explain the cause-effect
relationships in a conceptual diagram. Put your main variables in boxes. Connect the boxes with
arrows. Put a “+” or “-” next to the arrows, to indicate whether the relationship is positive or
negative, and vary the thickness of the arrows to indicate the strength of the relationship. For a
thesis such a conceptual diagram is a must, for a scientific article it is not commonly used (as
diagrams need space, and journals do not like to “waste” space on figures), but it can be very
attractive for the readers, especially when you test the arrows of your conceptual model with a
multiple regression, a pathmodel, or a structural equation model.

4
QUESTIONS & HYPOTHESES

17. Do not formulate (specific) aims, but do formulate questions and hypotheses. When
you write a thesis, it is often thought that you should formulate general objectives or aims, then
specific objectives/aims, questions, and hypotheses. The distinction between these is gradual
and not always clear. They are also paraphrased every time in slightly different ways, so it feels
very repetitive when you read it. Present therefore only questions and hypotheses, especially
when you write an article.

18. Neither make too few- nor too many questions. When you formulate one very long
question with many subquestions, the reader gets lost in the structure. When you formulate too
many questions the reader loses the overview. Moreover, the reader has a limited short-term
memory, and can not remember more than 3 questions. Hence, always formulate 1-3 questions,
and give them numbers (1,2,3), so that the structure is clear for the reader.

19. Always make hypotheses. When you do not make hypotheses it feels like you are on a
“fishing expedition” (“let’s see what we get…”). This feels a bit ignorant and not so scientific.
Hence, make for each question a hypothesis. This creates a clear expectation what to expect
and why, and puts the reader on the same page as you. It also allows you to repeat the
hypotheses in the discussion, with which you create a clear structure for the discussion.

20. A hypothesis includes a prediction and a mechanism. In the hypothesis you indicate the
expectation/prediction (e.g., “Nitrogen fertilization will lead to increased plant growth…”) AND
the mechanism (“…because more nitrogen leads to higher protein concentrations, Rubisco, and
photosynthetic carbon gain”). By stating the mechanism you make it for everybody clear why
you have this prediction and not the prediction the other way around (e.g., fertilization will lead
to decreased plant growth). Note that ideally you may measure some of these mechanisms
(e.g., photosynthetic carbon gain), and test them explicitly (i.e., whether photosynthetic carbon
gain has a positive effect on plant growth). Sometimes this is not possible, and that is fine as
well. Always mention in your hypothesis in what direction the effect will be (e.g., by stating that
“fertilization will increase plant growth”), rather than saying that “fertilization will affect plant
growth” (this is not so informative, and if it does not affect growth then you would have not
carried out this experiment in the first place…).

21. Illustrate your hypotheses with prediction graphs (T). Graphs are always more visual and
more clear than text. It allows you to make it explicit how you want to test your hypothesis
graphically. So If your predict that fertilization has a positive effect on plant growth, make a
graph with fertilization intensity on the X-axis and growth rate on the Y-axis. By making a
graph it also becomes clear how you want to test your hypothesis statistically; when you draw a
line with a scatterplot that means that you want to test it with a regression analysis, when you
make a bargraph with a low and high fertility bar, it means that you want to test it with a t-test.

22. Summarize your hypotheses in a table (T). If you have many hypotheses, you can
summarize them in a table. For example, if you want to know how fertilization affects protein
concentration, rubisco concentration, photosynthetic carbon gain, plant growth, and seed
production, you can make a table with 4 columns; one column with the 7 response variables in
rows, one column with the prediction of the direction (increase, decrease, or no effect), one
column in which you explain why, and one column with references that back up your predictions.

5
METHODS

23. The study site should be presented in the methods. The methods start normally with the
site and species description, followed by the study design (e.g., treatments, nesting and
replicates), measurements and statistical analyses. You hope that others can learn from your
study, in which you use your study site as a case where you illustrate and analyse a general
fundamental or applied problem. As your study site is not the main focus, you should not
present it extensively in the introduction (you can briefly mention it there, so that the reader
knows where your research has been carried out) but in the methods. You should only mention
the study site more extensively in the introduction when your research question is very context
dependent and nearly only locally relevant. When describing the study site in the methods, go
from general to specific. Hence, first start with the location (as it determines the climate and
soils, that will be found there), then climate (as it co-determines soil and vegetation), then soil
(as it determines vegetation), then vegetation type.

24. Justify your methodological choices. In the methods, authors often write in a chronological
order what they did. However, research can be done in many different ways. Justify why you do
something, so that the reader can first understand why you did what did, and second can judge
whether you did the most appropriate thing to address your questions. So do not say: “I
established plots, and measured tree growth and light conditions”. But say: “To evaluate
whether logging increases canopy openness, irradiance, and plant growth, I established 10 plots
in logged areas and 10 plots in control areas, I quantified understory light environments by
placing 1 quantum sensor in each plot, and I assessed growth rate by measuring tree rings for
10 random saplings per plot.”

25. Say first what you want to know, and then what you did. When authors justify their
methodological choices, they often do this in a chronological order. This has as a drawback that
the reader first has to read and remember the first part of the sentence before finding out and
understanding only in the last part of the sentence why you did this. So do not say “I
established 10 tree inventory plots in logged areas and 10 plots in control areas to assess
whether logging affects tree growth” but do say “To assess whether logging affects tree growth
I established 10 tree inventory plots in logged areas and 10 plots in control areas”.

26.Statistics: be fancy, but do not overdo it. Sometimes ecologists want to show off with their
statistical skills, and try to kill a mosquito with a cannon ball (I do not know whether that is
proper English, but at least it is a nice Dutch expression;). You can impress the reviewer with
your skills, but you can also lose your readers with such a statistical overkill. So do not overdo it,
as the only two things you should want to achieve are to present solid results and to
communicate your results in such way that your message gets across.

6
RESULTS

27. Present your results in the same order as your research questions. This creates a similar
structure, and is therefore easier to understand.

28. Present your results in paragraphs, using the same headers as your research
questions. Then it becomes clear what results correspond to what question.

29. Less is more! Present only the key results in the main text, the rest in an appendix.
Without doubt you did lots of interesting stuff that you want to share with the world, but most
readers are interested in the main story. If you present too may results they will lose the
overview and the story line, and only the die-hards want to know the nitty-gritty details. So put
only the key results that address your questions in the text, and put the rest in an appendix. All
scientific journals have electronic appendices these days, so use them.

30. What to present? The key results that test your hypotheses, are interesting, or most
surprising. You probably have a plethora of results, so please do not present them all, else you
and the reader will drown in the data. Focus on the results that 1) you need to test your
hypotheses (even if it is not significant), 2) are interesting (what are the 2-3 strongest
predictors of your results, or the 2-3 strongest correlations?), 3) are surprising (e.g., you did a
fertilization experiment and found out that in fact growth rate is most strongly driven by water
availability, or you did a fertilization experiment expecting that it would increase biomass, and
hence, seed production, but you find that plants with more biomass have less seed production).

31. Do not be wordy but brief: how to present many results? You can present many results in
a succinct way by 1) grouping them in a logical way (e.g., the positive effects, the neutral
effects, the negative effects), 2) presenting them in a logical order (first positive, then neutral,
then negative effects, or by first presenting the ones you are most interested in), 3) only
presenting the most important ones, 4) only presenting the key statistical parameters, 5)
focusing on the significant results. Hence, do not say: “Tree growth increased significantly with
nutrient availability (r=0.55, P<0.01), was not affected by pH (r=0.03, P>0.05), increased with
water availability (r=0.25, P<0.05), increased with light availability (r=0.76, P<0.001),
decreased significantly with aluminium concentration (r=-0.47, P<0.01) and tended to be
related to the amount of peeing dogs (r=0.15, P=0.08), but not significantly so”. This is a
random order of too many things with too many numbers, and therefore difficult to remember.
Do say: “Tree growth increased significantly with light availability (r=0.76), nutrient availability
(r=0.55), and water availability (r=0.25), decreased significantly with aluminium concentration
(r=-0.47) and was not significantly affected by the other environmental variables.”

32. Refer in the text to the relevant tables and figures. If you make a statement based on a
figure or table, please refer then also to that Table/Figure, so that the reader knows based on
what you draw this conclusion. For example, “An increase in irradiance leads to an increased
growth of plants (Fig. 1)”. Often a thesis or article contains tables and figures that have never
been cited in the text!

33. Do not be wordy but brief: presenting figures. The shorter and more to the point your
message, the easier it is for the reader to understand. Hence, do not write ”In the first figure
you can see that when you plot the growth of trees against the light availability, that trees that
receive more light grow faster”. Do write: “Tree growth increases with an increase in light
availability (Fig. 1)”. So just cite the figure in parentheses at the end of the sentence.

7
34. Make a clear and complete legend for your Figures and Tables, which can be read and
understood stand alone. Explain in the legend exactly what is contained in the figure or table,
so that the reader does not have to guess or search again in the materials and methods. What
variable is on the x-axis, what on the y-axis? If you present several subgroups, what are these
(e.g., male and female crows)? What do the bars represent; the median or the average? What
do the error bars represent; the standard error of the mean, the standard deviation, or the
range? If you use different colors, what do they mean? What is the sample size (N)? Convention
is also that the legend is situated below the figures and above the tables. Have a look in
scientific articles how the legends are made.

35. Structure your tables so that the reader gets the overview. When you have a table with
(too) many response variables (e.g., >6 rows of response variables), then it is difficult for the
reader to get the overview. It helps if you group the response variables in a conceptual way (for
example, if you have measured 10 plant traits you could group them into leaf traits, stem traits,
and root traits). Order these groups in a logical way. For example if your study is about nutrient
use, you can start with root traits for nutrient uptake, followed by stem traits that transport
nutrients, followed by leaf traits that use the nutrients.

36. Structure your figures, so that the reader gets the overview. When you present many
isolated figures, it is difficult to see the connection and to compare them. It helps if you put
several figures (i.e., panels) together in one overall figure. That requires less space (which
makes the journal happy), and it allows the reader to get the overview in a glance. Order those
panels in a logical, conceptual, and hierarchical way. For example, if you have 9 panels (3 root
traits, 3 stem traits, 3 leaf traits that are related to morphology, physiology, and growth), then
you can present them in a 3x3 matrix. Put the root trait panels in the top row, the stem trait
panels in the middle row, and the leaf trait panels in the bottom row. Similarly, you can put the
physiological root, stem and leaf trait panels in the first column, the morphological traits in the
second column, and the growth traits in the third column.

8
DISCUSSION

37.Start the discussion with a recapture of questions and main results. After 1.5 hour of
strenuous reading the reader arrives with a red and sweaty head at the discussion.
Unfortunately (s)he has forgotten by then what you wanted to know, and what were the main
results. Put the reader on the same page, by starting with a recapture of 3-4 lines; what was
your main question, and what were your 2-3 main results? This is your story in a nutshell, and at
the same time your take-home message. Hopefully it is also an exciting take-home message, so
that the reader is eager to dive into the discussion.

38.Continue the first paragraph with a reading guide. Continue with a reading guide
(especially for a thesis, this can be more brief for an article) of what main points you will address
in the discussion. Then the reader gets the overview, understands the storyline, and knows what
to expect.

39.Structure your discussion based on your research questions. Divide the discussion in
sections. Else it will become an endless long text without empty space and breathing space,
which makes that the reader becomes desperate and loses overview. Use for each section a
header that is similar as your question. Then it is clear for the reader that you will give an
answer to the question, and where. Do not phrase the header in a totally different way, else the
reader will not recognize the question.

40.Start each paragraph with your hypothesis. When you start each paragraph with your
hypothesis, it becomes clear for the reader what research finding to expect and why. It gives
therefore structure to the discussion. You mentioned the hypothesis already in the intro, but it is
good to repeat it here, as the reader will have forgotten it by now. For example: “I hypothesized
that an increase in light would lead to increased photosynthetic carbon gain and tree growth”.

41.How to structure the discussion of your paragraph? After having presented your
hypothesis, continue saying whether your result agreed/disagreed with your hypothesis (i.e., is
the hypothesis accepted or rejected). For example: “I indeed found that an increase in canopy
openness increased tree diameter growth”, or “In contrast, I did not find that canopy openness
increased tree diameter growth”. Then put your results in a broader perspective by saying what
others found. For example: “Similarly, light availability increased individual tree growth in a
tropical forests in Malaysia and Bolivia (REFS), but it decreased stand growth in a boreal forest in
Finland (REF)”. Then explain the possible reasons for discrepancies between your results and the
literature. For example: “Possibly in my study there was no effect of light availability on tree
growth, because I measured light availability in the dry season, rather than in the wet season
when most growth activity takes place”.

42.Cite the relevant figures and tables in the discussion to back up your conclusions. When
you make in the discussion a statement based on your results, then cite the corresponding table
or figure. This is not commonly done, but it allows the reader to check based on what evidence
you draw these conclusions. If you do not do this, the reader has to search through the results
again, which is annoying.

43.Discuss strengths and limitations of your results, and provide suggestions for further
research (T). As one of the last sections of your thesis, explain what are the strengths and
limitations of your research. Is your strength the novel idea? The large dataset that allows you
to draw firm conclusions? The experimental test that allows you to really test the mechanism?

9
 The large number of variables you measured that provide a more complete understanding? Wat
are your limitations? Did you measure in an inprecise way? Didn’t you include the most relevant
variables? By now you are an expert, so you can share your lessons learned and give
suggestions for the next generation of students. Based on your results, what are the new
questions that we should address? Or based on the limitations of your research, how can you
make a stronger test or experimental design? When you write an article, it is unfortunately
better not to include this section (and hence, not to advance science), as the editor does not
want to know the limitations, and the reviewers are happy to directly reject the paper with the
limitations you identified yourself.

44. What are the implications for management (T)? One of the drives to do research is to
improve our understanding of ecological processes, so that we can better manage (natural)
systems, and make this a better world (love, peace, nature, people, and happiness). Based on
your results, what hands-on management recommendations can you make to increase
productivity/quality/sustainability/biodiversity conservation/your favourite topic?

45.Conclusions: end the discussion with clear conclusions that answer your research
questions. There is nothing worse than having spent 2 hours in reading a manuscript, without
knowing what you have learned. By presenting your conclusions at the end of the manuscript
you make a round story, in which the reader exactly knows what (s)he has learned from this
manuscript. It avoids that the reader has to search him/herself in the discussion what the
possible conclusion can be; most readers prefer to be lazy rather than tired!

46.Take home message and broader perspective. The conclusion section should be short and
sharp (5 lines maximum), so that it sticks with the reader. The reader wants to be touched,
moved and inspired. So give in short sentences the 2-3 most important conclusions and take
home messages. End by putting your results in a broader perspective: what does this mean for
ecology, management, science, and life in general? Try to be as broad as possible to make it
also interesting and relevant for somebody working in another system or another topic. Success!

10
ABSTRACT AND TITLE

47.Spent time on your abstract! You write the abstract as last (because only then you have the
overview), but for the reader it is the first contact point, often the only part (s)he reads, and the
basis to decide whether (s)he will continue to read the rest of the paper and cite it. For a thesis
report, the abstract is possibly the only thing of your thesis that managers will read. Although by
now you have probably ran out of steam and want to get rid of it as soon as possible, you should
spend at least half a day on your abstract. Ask peers inside and outside your field or a layperson
to read and comment upon your abstract, so that you know it is sufficient clear and attractive for
a general audience.

48.Abstract: the shorter the better. The abstract is the most difficult part to write as you have to
explain, summarize and sell your study in a nutshell. The shorter it is (150-200 words) the more
likely the reader will get and remember the main points. For thesis students the abstract can be
longer (up to 400 words) as it is most important that you get your full message across.

49.Abstract: sell your study in a nutshell. Make sure that you put in your abstract the
justification (why is this important?, e.g., “climate change affects forest productivity and carbon
uptake, thus affecting the global climate cycle”), the research questions (what are you after?,
e.g., “what is the effect of a predicted increase in the frequency and severity of drought on
forest productivity”), the methods (how did you do it, so that the reader can see what data you
collected to prove your point, e.g., “I modelled with the process-based forest model MIF
(Modelling Is Fun) the effect of predicted precipitation regime on the productivity of mixed
temperate forest stands in the Netherlands”), the main results (make it a bit quantitative so that
the reader gets a feeling about what you are talking about and how important it is, for example
“Modelling results indicate that changed precipitation patterns may reduce forest productivity by
20% [from 6 to 4.8 m3/ha/y] in the year 2100.”), the conclusions (in which you answers the
question e.g., “Predicted climate change has a large impact of forest productivity”), and the
synthesis (in which you put it into a broader ecological, management, scientific, or societal
perspective, e.g., “Climate change may lead to a strong reduction in forest productivity, and
hence, reduced carbon uptake by the vegetation of the atmosphere. This indicates a limited
potential of forests to mitigate climate change. The reduced productivity may have at the same
time large cascading effects on other trophic levels, and large consequences for the maintenance
of timber production.”).

50.Make an attractive title that hooks your potential readers. Once you have the abstract you
can make the title. This is the real first contact point for the reader, based on which (s)he
decides whether to read the paper. Make the title as general as possible, so that you attract a
wide readership. Make the title also short and snappy, so that it is easier to finish reading and to
remember. So do not say “The effect of predicted changes in the amount and variation in
precipitation patterns on the stand basal area and timber volume production of a mixed oak
beech forest on sandy soils in Lutjebroek, the Netherlands”. That does contain all information but
you will lose your readers. Focus on the key aspects (climate change, forest productivity, a
decline in productivity). Either formulate the title either as a question (that attracts curiosity of
the reader, e.g., “How does climate change affect productivity of a temperate forest?”) or as a
take home message (e.g., “Increased droughts will reduce the productivity of a temperate
forest”). If you want inspiration, check the titles of the papers that you have cited. If you want
to check whether your title is relevant, type your envisioned title in google scholar, and see what
kind of studies and titles you will get.

11
WRITING STYLE

51.Phrase as broad as possible to be of interest to a wide audience. When you want to

attract the interest of a wider readership, try to write as broad and general as possible, so that
you connect to their world, interests, and the concepts they use. Thereafter you can zoom in to
your specific system, and clarify that it is a wonderful example of that general principle. Hence,
do not write: “I always loved to know how lianas compete with trees”. Instead write:
“Competition for shared resources is one of the main processes that structures plant and animal
communities and maintains species diversity. In closed-canopy plant communities, such as
forests, competition is primarily for light.”

52.Use writing language, not colloquial language! This is a scientific report, so do not write
“One may wonder whether the Forest Stewardship Council is indeed as good as they claim” but:
“The question is whether FSC certification indeed leads to a reduced impact of logging on
biodiversity?”.

53.A sentence always consists of 1-3 lines and a paragraph of 3-5 sentences. When you
make the sentence too short it becomes a series of statements and the coherence disappears
from your story. You can easily connect sentences by using connecting words such as "because",
"therefore", “but”, “moreover”, “additionally” etc. If the sentence becomes too long, the reader
loses the overview, and the poor reader who reads it aloud has to gasp for breath.

54.Never discuss more than 1-2 topics in the same sentence. Else it becomes too complex for
the reader to follow what you are talking about. The solution is very simple; use more sentences.

55. Use consistently the same terminology. Use always the same term, and do not use every
time a different synonym. For example, when discussing the growth of plants, you should not
use one time “growth”, the other time “increment” and the next time “production”. In that case
the reader does not know whether each time you refer to the same concept or whether you
mean something different.

56. Define all technical terms when you use them for the first time. Ecological concepts like
“competition”, “stress”, and “biodiversity” are necessarily broad and general, but therefore also
contested, as many people understand these concepts differently. To avoid confusion and
create clarity, you should define right away what you mean with the concept.

57.Define all abbreviations when you use them for the first time. Scientific research is
teeming with jargon and abbreviations, which are only clear to the insiders. If you want to use
abbreviations, write the first time that you use them the full expression with the abbreviation in
brackets. In that case you can use the abbreviation the next time. Use, however, the full
expression in the research questions and figure and table legends. Often the reader focuses on
the questions and figures, and skips the rest. In that case it should be crisp and clear what you
are talking about.

58.Use abbreviations as little as possible. Abbreviations are useful when you use long
expressions that are often used in the text. When long expression occur sporadically it is better
to write them in full, else the reader might have forgotten what, for example, LDCWLOT means
(Lesser Developed Countries With Lots of Trees).

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59.Avoid the use of “this”, the “former” and the “latter” and use instead the concept you
are referring to. Be explicit what you refer back to, otherwise it becomes unclear to the reader
what you are talking about. When you use words like "this", "that", "the first", "the last", “the
former” or “the latter” the reader has to check the previous sentence (which interrupts the
reading), and guess what you are referring to. For example, in the sentence: "An increasing
world population leads to greater pressure on natural resources, and this requires adequate
actions to prevent overexploitation." Does "this" refer to the increasing world population or to
the greater pressure on natural resources? Instead, it is better to write "An increasing world
population leads to greater pressure on natural resources, and this additional pressure requires
adequate action to prevent overexploitation.”

60.Write in a symmetric way. You have to write science, and not prose! Your story needs
therefore to be as clear as possible. Hence, do not write: “There are several reasons why plants
grow faster in gaps; firstly because there is more light, also because water availability can be
higher, and finally because of higher nutrient availability”. Do write: “There are three reasons
why plants grow faster in gaps; firstly because there is more light, secondly because water
availability can be higher, and thirdly because of higher nutrient availability”. Use the same,
symmetrical phrasing in the first and second part of the sentence, so that the contrast becomes
more clear. Hence, do not write: “There is a trade-off between a high growth rate in high light
versus a low mortality rate in the shade.” In that case the difference between high light and
shade is not clear, and the trade-off between high survival and low mortality is not clear. Write
instead: “There is a trade-off between a high growth rate in high light, versus a high survival
rate in low light”.

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HOW TO CITE?

61. Cite only the author in the main text if it is necessary. Mention only the author in the
main text if (s)he has discovered something very important, or has stated something
controversial. For example: “In general, it is thought that plant species are better competitors
when they capture most resources, although Tilman (1988) states that the best competitors are
those species that can deplete the resources most”. Mention the author as a citation in
parentheses when (s)he has done a regular study or has made a regular observation, else most
emphasis will go to the author rather than to the statement you want to make. Hence, do not
write: “According to a study by Poorter (1999), does an increase in resource availability lead to
an increased plant growth.” Do write: “With an increase in resource availability, plants are able
to realize a faster growth (Poorter, 1999).”

62. Cite not more than two authors per statement. Many scientific journals have limited space,
and they dislike it when you cite an endless amount of authors to support a commonplace
statement. This distracts from your storyline, leads to an unnecessary long literature list, and
gives the impression that you wants to show off that you have read an awful lot. Weeding in
references is also the easiest way to reduce the word limit of your manuscript, without
sacrificing the contents of your paper. Hence, do not write: “Functional traits are important for
plant performance (see Grime 1979, Tilman 1988, Chapin 1993, Cornelissen et al 2003, Pietje
2018)”. Do write: “Functional traits are important for plant performance (e.g., Grime 1979).”

63. Put the citation at the end of the sentence and before the point, as it allows the reader
to know to what sentence the citation belongs. Hence, do not write: “Het einde der wereld is
nabij en dat maakt ons zo blij. (Anonymous 2018)”. Do write: “Het einde der wereld is nabij en
dat maakt ons zo blij (Ananymous 2010).”

64. Be consistent in your citation style. Use one citation format and use this consistently
throughout the manuscript. For an article, you have to use of course the citation format of the
journal to which you want to submit your manuscript. For a thesis you may select your
favourite citation format. When you change each time the citation format it distracts the
attention and it gives a messy impression. Hence, do not cite the first time as “(Jansen and
Klaassen 2010)” and the next time as “(Jansen & Klaassen 2010)”. When you have several
citations and you decide to order them in a chronological order, then be consistent, and do not
order them the next time in an alphabetic order. Similarly, when you write the first time “et al.”
using an italic font, then do not write it the next time as “et al.” using a regular font.

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HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR MANUSCRIPT IN A SHORT TIME?

65. Check this checklist, and make sure you have applied all relevant points

66. Do a spell-check before handing in your manuscript! Word has included the spell-check
for free! Nothing more irritating for a supervisor than to try to understand a manuscript filled
with spelling errors.

67. Always read your manuscript aloud: this is the easiest way to realize the mistakes in your
writing style. Do you have to catch a breath? Then the sentences are clearly too long. Do you
have to stop too often and at the wrong moments? Then the punctuation marks (comma, point,
question mark) have been inserted in the wrong place, or they are simply not there!

68. Always ask a friend, study mate, or colleague to comment before handing in your
manuscript. Your friends, study mates and colleagues are amongst the target audience of your
manuscript. If they do not understand your manuscript then they are either very stupid (which
is not so likely), or the manuscript is poorly written (which is quite likely). When you adjust
your thesis with their comments, then your supervisor can concentrate on the contents, rather
than trying to understand what you have written.

69. Join the thesis ring (T)! See point 68. This is a free and safe way to get good input and
comments!

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