Scientific Writing Resources
Scientific Writing Resources
Department of Surgery Courses
- UCSF Department of Surgery Scientific Writing Course is led by Pamela Derish, Director, Scientific Writing Core, UCSF Department of Surgery. Pamela also leads seminars and short courses for individual labs and programs within the Department: Writing a Specific Aims Page, Writing an Effective Research Paper, Writing Grant Proposals, Writing an Abstract for a Scientific Conference, Achieving Clarity in Your Scientific Writing, and Approaches to Getting Your Writing Project Done. If you would like to arrange training for your research group, contact [email protected].
Grant Writing Courses at UCSF
- HDFCCC F Grant Writing Workshop – UCSF Cancer Center training for postdocs and graduate students
- Career Development Grant Writing Course – Open to clinical fellows working in cancer
- UCSF Career and Professional Development Office grant writing series and library of examples
- UCSF Course on Writing an NIH K - For fellows or early career faculty, who are planning to apply for a K-series grant in patient-oriented research. Can review archived course materials.
Templates, Guidance, and Examples for Writing Grant Proposals
- Templates and guidance for primarily NIH F/K/R series Indispensable tools from the University of Iowa School of Medicine’s Scientific Editing and Research Communication Core.
- Templates and guides from the UCSF Research Development Office (RDO) including sample NIH grants (K, T32, Diversity Supplements) https://guides.ucsf.edu/rdo/main and PCORI grants https://guides.ucsf.edu/rdo/pcori
- Videos, slides, and resources from seminars covering various grantsmanship topics and specific funding mechanisms (NIH R, K, F32 and F31) from the UCSF Office of Career and Professional Development (OCPD). https://career.ucsf.edu/gsp/sample-grants
- Sample grants from the UCSF Resource Allocation Program (RAP)
https://rap.ucsf.edu/templates-examples - Guidance and sample grants for Department of Surgery Faculty:
https://ucsf.app.box.com/folder/87516617299?s=s7udos14wk9ey8cf06u4i6l0gfzdqdjj - Guidance and sample grants for Department of Surgery Residents:
- Examples of NIH K Career Development Plans from the UCSF TICR Program
- Examples and summary statements of successful NIH Proposals by type (e.g., R series, K series, F31) from the NIH itself
https://www.niaid.nih.gov/grants-contracts/sample-applications - Example behavioral research proposals from NIH
https://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/brp/funding/sample-grant-applications
Resources for Writing Research Articles
- Clinical Chemistry (the journal) has a series of short articles that covers developing a paper, writing it, and dealing with peer review (available in Chinese and Spanish translation)
- UCSF Library Guide to Journals and Publishers helps you find the right journal and avoid publishers with deceptive or predatory practices.
- https://rmit.libguides.com/systematicreviews/write outlines the process for conducting a systematic review. The UCSF Library offers guidance, https://guides.ucsf.edu/SR and tools https://www.library.ucsf.edu/news/introducing-covidence/
Achieving Clear, Concise, Precise Writing
- Pragmatic guidance with templates to help you build effective paragraphs:
https://libguides.newcastle.edu.au/c.php?g=557839&p=5536259 - The Academic Phrasebank (University of Manchester) is invaluable when you can’t find the words (or phrases) to say what you mean.
- A Clarity Clinic for Surgical Writing, written by Pamela Derish with surgeons in mind, with many examples, but helpful for scientists of all backgrounds:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022480407004039?via%3Dihub
General Resources
- Nature (the journal) Communication for Scientists series on English Communication for Scientists aims to help you communicate more effectively as a scientist, specifically in the English language. Although it was developed with nonnative speakers of English in mind, it is useful for native speakers, too.
- PloS (the journal) Writing Center offers a collection of practical guides and hands-on resources to help you improve your scientific publishing skills.
- MIT “Comm Kit” offers a collection of guides to successful communication in the biological sciences – oral and written, and lots about designing figures.
- AuthorAID is an international organization that offers training, support, mentoring, and resources for researchers in low- and middle-income countries to publish and communicate their work.
Mentor Training in Scientific Communication
- NIH funded SCOARE Program - Faculty can receive superb training to become better mentors of scientific communication. The SCOARE program is the translation into practice of over 10 years of research on the links between scientific communication and trainee research career intention. This training centers practical mentoring techniques that can be implemented immediately and are effective, efficient, and accessible to mentors, including tools to:
- Accommodate trainee linguistic differences (While most mentors focus on the cognitive or ‘thinking’ aspect of language, expressed in scholarly products, we also need to think about the psychological aspects and communicative aspects of language use).
- Set expectations and structure
- Give actionable feedback on SciComm
- Develop strategies to increase trainee SciComm engagement