Ay 31
Writing in Astronomy
Spring 2017
Instructor: Anneila Sargent
Class Meetings: Cahill 211
Fridays 1 - 2pm
04/21/17 1
This week
– Discuss topic and format with your scientific mentor
– Discuss background literature searches with mentors
– Which journal will you write for?
– Obtain “Instructions to Authors” for that journal and plan to
follow them. Compare with recently published articles in
these journals – scientific mentors can also be helpful here
– Begin literature searches on your topic.
– Write an Outline that includes a planned arrangement of
material and decisions about Sections
– Read Hofmann Chapter 17, Alley Chapter 2
– Contact me with any concerns
04/21/17
The First Draft
Alley Chapter 17: Writing the First Draft;
Hofmann Chapter 7: The First Draft
Ask your mentor to recommend a good paper in your chosen area as a
template
Goal - for both journal articles & reviews:
communicate information clearly and concisely to other scientists
Articles: 1) Title 2) Authors 3) Introduction
4) Acquisition of data [Observations]
5) Results 6) Discussion 7) Conclusions
8) Acknowledgements 9) References
Reviews: 1), 2), 3), 6), 7), 8), 9), as above
4), 5) – presentation and review of research results
for area of interest
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Title & Authors
Title
– For scientific articles: title reflects research content
– Should be appropriate for intended audience (not so technical
that only experts will understand)
– For science articles: title could excite interest by summarizing
results
Authors
- First author is usually the person who did most of the work and
wrote the paper
- Others who contributed in different ways may also be listed as
authors on the published version
- For this class, it is expected you will be the sole author. If you
continue to the stage of publishing you should discuss who will
be co-authors with your academic mentor.
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Introduction
– Summarize the question you set out to answer – why did you
undertake this research?
– Provide a background for why that question is interesting
(usually a brief summary of the state of the field and relevant
literature)
– Include a very brief description of the methodology used [e.g.
is the primary new material observations, or new analysis
techniques, or maybe even a combination] to address the
question. This could be as short as one sentence.
– End with a quick road map of the way the paper is organized.
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Acquisition of information
- Describe what you did to address the question you asked
- Could be observations, numerical techniques, different ways of
sampling etc,
- Provide enough information to enable another scientist to
repeat your work [other papers in your field may help to make
clear what is usual]
- It is not usual to put results in this section
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Results
- Present the results of your work in writing
- Use graphs/figures, and tables to illustrate and inform but also
describe these in the text. If you can describe the result
without a graph, don’t introduce one
- Figures should have captions. These are a “shorthand” way to
help readers understand the implications of the figures
- Tables should have titles that describe their contents
- Keep
discussion
of the results for the next section but you may
want to draw attention to particularly novel findings
[
Note the unusually rapid fall-off of property X with time
]
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Discussion
- Begin by highlighting the most significant results in a sentence
or two.
- How do these results relate to the original question?
- Do they fit your going-in hypothesis (if you had one)?
- How do they fit with what other investigators have found?
- If your results are unexpected are there possible explanations?
- Could you interpret the results in a different way?
- Is more research necessary to answer the questions raised by
your results?
- How do your findings fit into a bigger picture of your field?
- Come to a conclusion
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Conclusions and Acknowledgments
- Some authors like to have a concluding paragraph
The last considerations of the Discussion might be placed there.
– Acknowledgements are not always included but give the
opportunity to thank people who helped, but not to the extent
that they should be recognized as co-authors (conversations;
special art work; providing food when you didn’t have time to
get some yourself). This is where gratitude is expressed to the
funding agencies whose grants have supported the research
activities.
– References (Literature cited) depend largely on the publication.
– Typically, work referenced briefly in text (Maginot et al 1999)
is then spelled out in an alphabetically ordered list at the end
Maginot, J. P., Alyssum, H. Y., and Pears, F. X. 1999, ApJ 123, 45
04/21/17
Tentative Schedule (1) Updated
Week 3: April 21 In-class: Writing first draft.
During week, meet with instructor
re: academic mentor, outline.
Outlines due April 21.
Week 4: April 28 NO CLASS but during week meet
with instructor to review progress
on first draft
Week 5: May 5 Guest presentation in class
Preliminary draft due May 2
meet with instructor May 3- 5
Week 6: May 12 NO CLASS. Work on first draft;
Check content w. academic mentor
04/21/17
Tentative Schedule (2) Updated
Week 7: May 19 First drafts due May 17.
In class discussion of this week
Week 8: May 26 Work on second draft
During week meet instructor
maybe also mentor.
Week 9 June 2 Second drafts due May 30:
NO CLASS
During week, meet with instructor
Week 10 June 9 Final assignments due
04/21/17