如何精通Materials & Methods写作？你最关心的8个问题专家都...

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1.Is the grammar important, like tense?

A:Yes. Grammar is important because it makes your work very clear to the readers. Grammar errors will translate into misunderstandings about how you performed your experiments. You should mostly use the past tense in this section to describe the methods that you completed.

2.How to use the tense in the material and methods subsection?

A:You will mostly use the past tense "The mixture was stirred and heated". But there might be moments where you state general knowledge, which should be in present tense (e.g., "Since grass is green ..."). Or you might talk about previous work in another tense "It has been shown that...").

3.Do those common mistakes matter that much as to doom a paper?

A:These errors will have different impacts on your success in publishing. Papers certainly get rejected for not being written clearly enough. But you will still get work accepted with some of these errors if you message is clear overall. If you look past just getting your paper published, I truly believe that more people will actually read your paper (reading your paper leads to citing your paper) if you write clearly and correctly. Grammar errors will reflect negatively on your work even though they really are not connected to its scientific quality.

4.When writing methods, will it be better to always use passive voice like "A is used to do something" or we can also use "we did something"?

A:It is considered more appropriate to use passive voice in this section. You should try to limit your use of "we" or "us".

5.Can "," and "and" be used at the same time?

A:This is actually a very complex question. The short answer is yes. The Oxford comma example has a comma combined with "and". However, if you are combining only two items like "the dog and cat", you would not shorten this to "the dog, cat" or say "the dog, and cat".

6.If there are some common mistakes in your paper, will the article be refused by the journal?

A:These mistakes will not doom you to never getting work published. They can range in severity from making your writing impossible to understand to annoying readers a little bit. I think addressing them will help you pass more quickly through the review process. The main advantage is that you will create a more readable paper, and readable papers should get cited more (this is good for your career).

7.How many actions can I refer to in one single sentence?

A:There is no technical limit. You can make a long list of actions (Something like "The sample was mixed, heated, stirred, shaken, cooled, and dried"). When you start modifying each action, your sentence can become very complex and difficult to understand (even if it is grammatically correct). If you find that your sentence is too long, you should break it into several shorter sentences. The most important thing is to clearly present your methods.

8.As an editor, what kind of paper you would be rejected?

A:Generally, rejecting a paper is based on following the suggestions of reviewers. In terms of the Materials and Methods, they need to be technically sound. Assuming you used correct techniques and your technical content is good, you need to present the methods in a way that makes them easy to understand and reproduce (i.e., the reader should be able to bring your methods into the lab and do the same experiment). If not enough detail is given, the reviewers should ask for more. Hopefully this error would not lead to immediate rejection of the paper, but some people are stricter than others.

来源：募格学术