How to Write a Good Scientific Paper: Style

Abstract

In the era of online searches and digital libraries, the importance of a good title and abstract in a scientific paper is perhaps obvious. Yet, bad titles and poorly written abstracts are exceedingly common in the scientific and technical literature. In this editorial I’ll talk about some of the common mistakes made in paper titles and abstracts, then describe a nearly foolproof approach to writing good ones. The result will be a manuscript that is more likely to be accepted by a peer-reviewed journal, and a paper that is more likely to be discovered and read by the people who should.