How to Write a High-Profile Scientific Paper James Kasting Department of Geosciences Penn State University
Disclaimer First, let me say that there really is no single prescription for how to write a high-profile paper Second, there are lots of scientists with more high-profile papers than me, so I am not necessarily the right person to be giving such advice That said, I will give a highly personal account of what success I have had with writing such papers, along with some thoughts as to what others might do to try to write their own high-profile papers
My own three most highly cited papers 1.Kasting, J.F., D.P. Whitmire, and R.T. Reynolds. Habitable zones around main sequence stars. Icarus 101: (1993). 2.Walker, J.C.G., P.B. Hays, and J.F. Kasting. A negative feedback mechanism for the long-term stabilization of Earth's surface temperature. J. Geophys. Res. 86: (1981). 3.Kasting, J.F. Earth's early atmosphere. Science 259: (1993). – Only one of these was in a high-profile journal (Science) – That paper was an invited review Moral: Not all highly cited papers are published in high- profile journals
Paper 2: Walker et al. (1981) I didn’t write a word of this paper, but it grew out of a question asked me during my Ph.D. thesis defense at Univ. of Michigan 9 months after the defense, I received a manuscript in the mail from Jim Walker, with me listed as a coauthor This paper is actually central to the whole idea of the habitable zone, which is what much of my other highly cited work is about A prettied-up diagram of the carbonate- silicate cycle (not in the original paper!) The argument, which is now widely accepted, is that atmospheric CO 2 should build up as the surface temperature drops, creating a negative feedback that stabilizes Earth’s climate over long time scales
Paper 2: Walker et al. (1981) I didn’t write a word of this paper, but it grew out of a question asked me during my Ph.D. thesis defense at Univ. of Michigan 9 months after the defense, I received a manuscript in the mail from Jim Walker, with me listed as a coauthor This paper is actually central to the whole idea of the habitable zone, which is what much of my other highly cited work is about A prettied-up diagram of the carbonate- silicate cycle (not in the original paper!) Moral: One good idea can take you a long, long way
Paper 1: Kasting et al. (1993) The 1993 Habitable Zone paper was actually the culmination of some 10 years of work and 4 or 5 earlier papers in which the climate modeling techniques were developed and applied to early Earth, Mars, and Venus The idea for what determines the outer edge (CO 2 condensation) came from coauthor Ray Reynolds – Again, this demonstrates that good ideas lead to good papers The original graphics were not very fancy Original diagram of the habitable zone (as drawn by coauthor Daniel Whitmire)
Paper 1: Kasting et al. (1993) Our graphics have improved since then, and we often show the habitable zone in terms of effective solar flux, instead of orbital distance Citations to this paper have gone up dramatically since NASA launched its Kepler Mission, whose purpose is to determine the frequency of rocky planets within stellar habitable zones – Moral (tongue in cheek): Try to get a big government agency like NASA interested in something that you are already doing Latest diagram of the habitable zone (as drawn by graduate student Chester (Sonny) Harman)
My own ten most highly cited papers These papers are distributed in journals as follows: – Icarus3 – JGR2 – Science1 – Astrobiology1 – Precambrian Res.1 – Nature1 – Astron.&Astrophys.1 Moral: Once again, publishing in high-profile journals is not necessarily the key to success. It’s more important just to have a good idea
How to get a good idea How does one come up with good ideas? – If I really knew, I would have a lot more high-profile papers than I actually have One secret, though, may be to pursue your own interests – The idea about the negative feedback in the carbonate- silicate cycle actually came to me when I was trying to calculate the amount of O 2 in Earth’s early atmosphere – O 2 is produced (partly) by CO 2 photolysis, followed by recombination of O atoms, and so I needed to know how much CO 2 was present “The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin
How to get a good idea Pursuing one’s own interests requires being in an academic situation that allows one to do that What kinds of institutional conditions might foster this? – In the U.S., most of the research money is funneled directly to individual investigators, rather than to their institutions – Funding graduate students directly (through fellowships) is also a good idea “The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin
The importance of subject material There is little doubt that subject material is important in producing high-profile papers – A paper about how to increase yields from pig farms is less likely to be published in Science or Nature than one about colliding neutron stars More generally, pure research is often intrinsically more interesting to a broad audience than is applied research – But this requires a commitment from someone, presumably your government, to fund pure research Pig farming procedures Colliding neutron stars
The importance of subject material The easiest way to generate high-profile papers is from expensive, high-profile projects, such as planetary missions, space telescopes, etc. In the U.S., this typically requires large government expenditures The scientists who are involved in such missions typically end up with extremely high citation indices, but this comes at a price NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope
The importance of writing well It is also critically important to learn to write well – Writing well involves more than just being grammatically correct – Nature and Science are also looking for papers that have style. (You don’t have to be Shakespeare, but you do need to sound good.) Writing well is a particular challenge for scientists for whom English is not their native language – Some of my Japanese colleagues hire professional English-speaking writers to help them craft their papers William Shakespeare, famous English writer
The importance of citing the right sources It is also very important to know the literature in your field and to cite all the right sources Another personal example: Jim Walker and I calculated the long-term evolution of the fossil fuel pulse (which no one had ever done) and submitted a paper to Science. It came back from review with the comment from one referee: “These guys may be correct, but they are not the right people to be writing this paper.” – Our problem was that we had not cited the proper sources Adapted from Walker & Kasting, Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimat. Palaeoecol. (1992) The diagram shows what would happen if we burned most of the recoverable fossil fuel reserves (~4200 Gt C) within the next 300 years. David Archer at Univ. of Chicago has by now published several books that include similar, but more elaborate, calculations
How else to get published in Science and Nature Become an expert in your field, so that you get asked to review papers for these journals. Then, review them in a thorough, but constructive, way With luck, you may be asked to write a Perspectives or News&Views article for them – The majority of my own publications in these journals came in this way With even more luck, you may be asked to write a review article. These draw lots of citations – Moral: The easiest way to get a paper accepted by either Nature or Science is to have them ask you to write it. But you have to get very good at something before this is likely to happen
Take-home message My take-home message to both students and young faculty would be that it is a mistake to try to focus too early on writing high-profile papers Instead, focus on learning some subject area very well, and on identifying key problems that have not received enough attention – High-profile papers may come after that, but not necessarily. It depends partly on what you are studying – If you really want to write such papers, you need to try to steer yourself into areas that have broad appeal, e.g. climate, biological evolution, the search for life, to name just a few. But you need to find a job, and funding, that will allow you to do that, and this is something that is not always under your control