How to Write an Academic Manuscript

Sitting down at your computer to write an academic manuscript can be a daunting task. You may have done all the research, dutifully made notes about your experiment and the results, but now that it’s time to write it out, your mind is a blank. Where do you start? Are there rules you need to follow? How can you guarantee your work is understood? Thankfully, there are several steps and processes you can follow. While there are variations in form across academic disciplines and paper types, there’s still a solid foundation for you to adapt as you see fit.

Here, we’ll take a look at the kinds of papers you can write, how to begin and position them, and how to improve your craft along the way.

The different kinds of academic manuscripts

What comes to mind when you hear the term “academic manuscript”? For most, it’s a research article. These are the papers commonly published in peer-reviewed journals, both traditional and open access alike. They summarize an experiment and the data from it and provide an overview of the findings. While they draw conclusions based on interpretations of the results, they are generally without bias or personal opinion. They exist to provide information in a clear and concise way.

However, research articles are only one option when it comes to writing an academic manuscript. The form that your data and arguments take depends on what you’re trying to convey. Did you perform a deep dive on a solitary study or patient? You’ll most likely want to turn your findings into a case report, then. What if that deep dive touches on a broader subject that requires more than a single article to talk about? Then you’ll likely be looking at writing a book or monograph.

Additionally, think about how you want to present the findings. Are you trying to persuade the reader? Analyze a set of data without offering a larger or controversial interpretation? Do you simply want to critique information or the literature on your chosen subject? These goals will determine what kind of paper you should develop, as not all formats will support argumentation or statistical analysis.

A couple more examples

• Review articles analyze the literature in a particular field and/or topic. They critically evaluate writing and research on this topic and provide a perspective on the material.
• Abstracts are a collection of just that—abstracts. They provide an overview of a variety of papers, usually presented at a conference, and are printed together in a journal issue.
• Reports are similar to research papers, though they focus more on the results of a study and are usually produced by an institution rather than a group or individual scientists.

Who and what are you writing for?

How you frame your research may depend on the content itself, but it also may depend on who or what you’re writing for. Some academics choose a journal they’d like to submit their academic manuscript to prior to finishing or even writing their piece. If a journal only takes research articles written following a certain set of principles, then that will inform your decision.

If you don’t have a specific journal in mind, focus on your intended audience or message. Are you concerned with reaching academics in a niche field over the general public? Longer format works can be beneficial in that case. Or, at least, reducing your findings into a brief paper may not be necessary. Do you want to highlight a specific part of your study? This could be the tables and figures. Perhaps the results are more important than the methodology, in which case writing a report over an article makes more sense. Many academic manuscripts will include an introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections, but some mediums are better suited to what you want to focus on.

A note about writing

Regardless of who you’re writing for or where you’re submitting your manuscript, a well-edited paper makes all the difference. Make sure you’re following proper grammar conventions. Use the different kinds of word classes properly. A few examples are conjunctions, which join phrases and ideas together, such as “and”. Verbs describe actions, which are important when discussing events that took place during a study. This could be something like “the contents are stirred.” Ensuring you’re choosing the right words can help you convey your ideas to any audience.

Additionally, proper punctuation use improves clarity. Use semi-colons to split up items in a long list to avoid confusion. Periods should come at the end of every sentence. Avoid comma splices so that your sentences flow and which ideas are connected are clear to the reader.

Basic structure of an academic manuscript

Now that you’ve determined some of the fundamental aims of your manuscript, such as who it’s directed at and what information you want to highlight, it’s time to start writing. Before you can get words down, though, you should familiarize yourself with the standard structure of most academic writing.

IMRaD

IMRaD is a structure, popularized in the 1970s, that ensures consistency in academic writing across disciplines. It stands for introduction, methods, results, and discussion. This is a repeatable structure, meaning the same framework can be followed regardless of paper topic or area of study. It also helps early-career academics organize their writing without having to trial and error different formats to see what works. IMRaD ensures a clear progression through information and data, resulting in a paper that effectively introduces and explains an idea.

Breaking down the parts

• Introduction: Similar to the abstract, an introduction should hook the reader. It answers essential questions: why was this study conducted? Why does it matter? What impact will the results have on the literature and the area of study? With a clear purpose outlined, the reader will hopefully be engaged.
• Methods: This is where the writing is at its sharpest and most concise. It details the study materials, such as any chemicals or subjects, the conditions the study was conducted under, the number of tests performed, and any other important details.
• Results: The section provides the data obtained from the study. What were the stats of the first experiment? Of the second? What are the raw numbers and figures? The interpretation of the data is not given here.
• Discussion: This section is where the results are interpreted and explained in detail. If comparisons are to be drawn to other studies on the subject, they’ll be made here. Additionally, any limitations of the study and their impact on the findings, such as within the sample pool, are discussed here.

More features

• Abstract: Prior to the introduction, the abstract is a short summary that introduces the topic, provides a brief overview of the methodology and results, and highlights the main takeaway from the experiment and data analysis. The abstract should hook the reader by telling them the purpose of the study, why it was necessary to conduct, and what they will learn throughout the paper.
• Conclusion: This section follows the discussion. It reiterates important ideas and information mentioned earlier in the manuscript, makes connections between the hypothesis and results, and proposes areas of further study, if necessary. No new information or arguments should be presented.

A few tips to improve your writing

The overall structure of an academic manuscript may be clear, but how these parts are constructed on a smaller scale also matter. That being said, the flow of your paragraphs should follow a few simple rules:

• Begin with a topic sentence. This will introduce the main idea/argument of the paragraph. All information following this sentence will support the topic.
• Body of the paragraph: These are the additional details that provide context for the topic. This can include arguments and data. Generally, the body should be about 3-4 sentences.
• Transition sentence: This segment is tasked with both wrapping up the originally proposed topic and leading into the next one. The two ideas should be connected, and this sentence will make their relationship clear.

Outside of structure, being mindful of your sentence lengths and types can have a huge impact on the quality of your writing. Vary your sentences, with a good mix between short and long and simple and complex. A simple sentence introduces a single, independent idea, complete with a subject, object, and verb. A complex sentence is a mix of both an independent and dependent sentence where both ideas may not fully be related. They are joined by a conjunction or punctuation indicating a pause, such as a semicolon or em dash.

By following these guidelines, you’ll have the tools in your kit to make writing an academic manuscript a smooth process.