如何起草你的第一篇科研论文——应该做&避免做

导语：
1.本文是由Angel Borja博士所写。本文的原文链接在这里。感谢励德爱思唯尔科技的转载，和刘成林老师的转发。
2.由于我第二次翻译，囿于知识水平有限，错误不当之处在所难免（不当之处以原文为准），还请大家不吝批评指正。
3.如果大家发现有趣、有料、有用的文章，可给我留言，我会尽力翻译。谢谢大家。

正文：

按励德爱思唯尔科技的引言：

如何起草一篇科学论文？经验丰富的Angel Borja教授告诉你哪些是必要的而哪些是应该避免的！这是继Angel Borja教授前两篇撰写论文技巧的文章大受欢迎后又一力作。如果您正在准备撰写论文并想在国际期刊上发表，那么这篇文章非常值得您参考并收藏！

准备起草论文第一稿的四个步骤

这是我的四个步骤的使用流程

1.认真思考你想要表达的主题，思考数天直到几周都没有关系。
2.制作用的插图和表格。
3.接着，用最快的速度将你的内容写出来，就像是在自言自语。在写的过程中，可以尽情的忽略掉拼写，语法，风格以及那些牛逼闪闪的词汇。
4.在写完整篇文章之后，就可以校正和重写了。

不要把稿件分割掉给合作者。最好是自己将完整的第一稿写完，再让合作者修改或是增添新内容。用这种方法，论文内部的一致性就有了保证。询问每位审稿人如何修订才能把论文变得更好。

修正你的手稿

使用好的英语

不幸的是，对于那些英语是非母语的人来说，语言问题是论文写作的一个重要问题。如果恰恰是语言妨碍了你和审稿人之间的交流，让他无法明白你已完成的那些工作的内容，那么论文被录用的可能性会大大降低。

至少，你应该尽你最大的努力，组织最好的语言去呈现你高质量的科研成果。在投稿之前，找一个有经验的作者或是一些英语很流利的人去检查一下你的手稿。现在，许多出版提供一项英语校对的服务，大概一篇论文会花费285美元。(例如，Elsevier就有一项英语语言编辑的服务)。

你必须要减少那些需要读者揣摩的内容。看一下下面这个编辑的抱怨：

paper fell well below my threshold. I refuse to spend time
trying to understand what the author is trying to say. Besides, I
really want to send a message that they can't submit garbage to us and
expect us to fix it. My rule of thumb is that if there are more than 6
grammatical errors in the abstract, then I don't waste my time
carefully reading the rest.

科研写作，要做到清楚、客观、精准、简洁，用一种有逻辑性的和容易让人理解的方式表现出来。你可以通过以下方法来提高一下你的语言技能：在你的其他工作中练习用英语阅读和写作。例如，在你的研究中用英语做记录，阅读大量的英语论文。

避免这些寻常的问题

没有逻辑性的句子
对那些非本专业的读者理解起来有困难的句子 (e.g., "The Annex IV of the MSFD includes the definition of GES to be applied by MS.")
语法错误
拼写和打印错误

简化你的语言

简化前："Numerous studies in recent years, such as those by Miller (1995) and Smith (1998), have shown that low salinities enhance oyster recruitment."
简化后："Low salinities enhance oyster recruitment (Miller, 1995; Smith 1998)."

避免长难句

一些语言(例如：西班牙语)喜欢用又长又发杂的句子，但在英语中能有寥寥单词就可以表达清楚。你在进行英语写作的时候，必须要转换你的风格。一句话里面有一个观点或者一则信息就足够了。要避免在一句话里面塞了好多观点。在几年前，我的论文是这样写的(见下),我很理解我的学科，但是一句话里面有78个单词，任何人都不会看它的。

… Conversely, applying M-AMBI the explained variability reaches until
43.4%, for linear regression, and 53.8% for logarithmic regression, and the highest explained variability was found in high and low
mesohaline and polyhaline areas (53-63%), whilst the lowest explained
variability was in the oligohaline area (6%), being the mismatch in
the comparison of both methods in terms of degraded-undegraded
equivalences was of 16.4% of the cases in M-AMBI, and 12.7% in B-IBI,
with a high spatial level of agreement.

审稿人推荐我使用短句子，我把它改成了下面的这个形式：

… Conversely, applying M-AMBI the explained variability reaches until
43.4%, for linear regression, and 53.8% for logarithmic regression. The highest explained variability was found in high and low mesohaline
and polyhaline areas (53-63%). In turn, the lowest explained
variability was in the oligohaline area (6%). The mismatch in the
comparison of both methods in terms of degraded-undegraded
equivalences was of 16.4% of the cases in M-AMBI, and 12.7% in B-IBI,
with a high spatial level of agreement.

长句子中可能存在的问题

被动语态的使用(e.g., 使用"It has been found that there had been many …" 不使用"Researchers found that many …")
用错误的连接词和不正确的悬垂结构造成的乏味的句子结构(e.g., "because …, so …"; "Although …, but …"; "considering …, it is …"). 例如, 要避免这种类型的句子: "The highest explained variability was found in high and low mesohaline and polyhaline areas (53-63%), because of the high concentration of organic matter, although it was …" 最好换成这样的表达: "The highest explained variability was found in high and low mesohaline and polyhaline areas (53-63%). This is related to the high concentration of organic matter. Although it was…"
在一句话中滥用从句 (e.g., "It has already been found that when salinity increases to the mouth of an estuary there would be higher benthic richness, which can result also in higher diversity, while in low salinity areas benthic richness tends to be low …")
在一句话的不同平行结构之中混合使用"and"： (e.g., "This research investigates the grain size of sediments in coastal areas and discusses the grain size and the coastal sedimentation based on grain size …")

避免废话

过度使用连接词。例如"However," "In addition," "Moreover."不要过度使用这些词。
无意义的词组。下面这段话是编辑说的，我想我们应该从中学点什么：“绝对不要说‘参考文献在这里’每一个有点智商的读者都知道去查阅参考文献，以便得到更多的信息。”删除“在当前的论文中”，因为看这篇论文的人手边就是当前的论文，不可能是别的！你开始总结道“在这篇论文中，我们已经准备了...”这些毫无意义，例子早就在实验室里真备好了！
重复的单词。有相同意思的单词的重复使用。例如"schematic diagram," "research work," 诸如此类。最好分别使用这些词："this scheme," "that diagram," "the research was …," "the work done was …"

其他的一些“避免”

不及物动词的过去式。只有及物动词才有过去式，不及物动词没有。因此你不能说: "are happened(被发生)"或者"was went(被走)"。
第三人称单数后面的动词没加-s(e.g., 用"the concentrations shows that..." 不用"the concentrations show that..."
悬垂结构的主语不一致。(e.g., "To improve the results, the experiment was done again." The experiment 不能 improve the results itself. 应改为"We did the experiment again to improve the results.")
别用口语化的缩写词： "it's," "weren't," "hasn't."
绝对不要以数字开头："5 mg of sediment were analysed …" 改为: "Sediment (5 mg) was analysed …"
一位数应该用英语拼写出来；两位及其以上的数字用阿拉伯数字表示。(你可以写 "four samples"或者"25 samples")。如果在一句话中包含了一系列的数字，如果其中至少有一个是二位数及其以上的话，所有的数字都应该用阿拉伯数字表示。 (Of the 21 samples, 1 was muddy, 6 gravel, and 14 sandy.)

后记

手稿的长度

再一次强调，看期刊的投稿指南。但是一个理想长度的稿件约为25到40页。双倍行距，包括必要的数据。下面是比较通用的指导意见。

标题：短，信息量大。
摘要：1段(少于250个单词)。
引言：1.5-2页
方法：2-3页
结果：6-8页
讨论：4-6页
结论：1段
图：6-8个(每页一个)
表：1-3个(每页一个)
参考文献：20-50篇(2-4页)

后后记

为了别让审稿人同志累死累活，我们应该...

在整篇论文中保持文本和布局的一致性。使用相同的字体(一般是Times New Roman)，相同的字号，图和表。双倍行距和12像素的字是比较推荐的。因为这对于审稿人做注释很方便。3厘米的边距对审稿人也很方便。
标出页码！这是非常重要的。因为这能帮助审稿人向你展示需要修改的地方。
标出行号。行号方便你确定出审稿人评论的具体位置。
注意缩略语。在第一次使用的时候一定要标注出来(在摘要和正文里)。有一些期刊甚至禁止在摘要中使用缩略语。如有需要，请参考投稿指南。

广告
更多如何写论文的知识，请参看我这篇博文：How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper: 7th Edition（科技论文写作与发表教程）

关于作者
Dr. Angel Borja is Head of Projects at AZTI-Tecnalia, a research center in the Basque Country in Spain specializing in marine research and food technologies. Formerly he was also Head of the Department of Oceanography and Head of the Marine Management Area. His main topic of investigation is marine ecology, and has published more than 270 contributions, from which 150 are in over 40 peer-reviewed journals, through his long career of 32 years of research. During this time he has investigated in multiple topics and ecosystem components, having an ample and multidisciplinary view of marine research.

Dr. Borja is the Editor of several journals, including Frontiers in Marine Ecosystem Ecology, Revista de Investigación Marina, Elsevier's Journal of Sea Research and Continental Shelf Research. In addition, he is a member of the editorial boards ofElsevier's Marine Pollution Bulletin, Ecological Indicators and Ocean & Coastal Management.

Read more about his work on ResearchGate, ORCID and LinkedIn, and follow him on Twitter (@AngelBorjaYerro).