How to Write and Publish a Scientific

Paper (Project-Centered Course)

École Polytechnique
About this Course
What you will achieve: In this project-based course, you will outline a complete scientific
paper, choose an appropriate journal to which you'll submit the finished paper for
publication, and prepare a checklist that will allow you to independently judge whether
your paper is ready to submit. What you'll need to get started: This course is designed for
students who have previous experience with academic research - you should be eager to
adapt our writing and publishing advice to an existing personal project. If you just finished
your graduate dissertation, just began your PhD, or are at a different stage of your
academic journey or career and just want to publish your work, this course is for you.
*About Project-Centered Courses: Project-Centered Courses are designed to help you
complete a personally meaningful real-world project, with your instructor and a
community of learners with similar goals providing guidance and suggestions along the
way. By actively applying new concepts as you learn, you’ll master the course content
more efficiently; you’ll also get a head start on using the skills you gain to make positive
changes in your life and career. When you complete the course, you’ll have a finished
project that you’ll be proud to use and shar

Taught by: Mathis Plapp, Assistant Professor

Physics Department

Commitment 7-10 hours of study, 10 hours of active project work

Language English, Subtitles: Portuguese (Brazilian)

Volunteer to translate subtitles for this course

How To Pass Pass all graded assignments to complete the course.

User Ratings Average User Rating 4.3

Syllabus
WEEK 1
Understanding academia
In this section of the MOOC, you will learn what is necessary before writing a paper: the
context in which the scientist is publishing. You will learn how to know your own
community, through different exemples, and then we will present you how scientific
journal and publication works. We will finish with a couple of ethical values that the
academic world is sharing!
8 videos, 4 readings, 5 practice quizzes
1. Video: Introduction by Mathis Plapp

2. Reading: Teaching team

3. Video: Let me walk you through the course
4. Discussion Prompt: Your thoughts
5. Video: French version of the class
6. Video: Why is publishing important?
7. Practice Quiz: Why is publishing important?
8. Reading: Breakthroughs!
9. Video: "KYC": Know Your Community
10. Practice Quiz: Know your community
11. Video: How journals work: the review process
12. Practice Quiz: How journals work: the review process
13. Reading: Additional contents
14. Video: Presentation of scientific journals
15. Discussion Prompt: Compatibility between paper submission and editorial
board

16. Practice Quiz: Communication with the editorial board

17. Video: Ethical Guidelines
18. Reading: Examples of guidelines
19. Practice Quiz: Ethical Guidelines and intellectual property

Show less
WEEK 2
Before writing: delimiting your scientific paper
A good paper do not loose focus throughout the entirety of its form. As such, we are
going to give you a more detailed view on how to delimit your paper. We are going to
lead you through your paper by taking a closer look at the paper definition which will
ensure you don't loose focus. Then we will explain why the literature review is important
and how to actually do it. And then we will guide you with advices as to how to find the
so-what of your paper! This is important as research is all about so-what!
Show less
6 videos, 1 reading, 2 practice quizzes
1. Video: Paper definition "KYP", Know Your Paper
2. Discussion Prompt: Compatibility between paper and journal
3. Practice Quiz: So, what?
4. Video: How to: the literature review 1/2: find a good literature review
5. Discussion Prompt: Understanding how the literature review is structured
6. Video: How to: the literature review 2/2: construction of your own literature
review

7. Reading: Books and tools

8. Practice Quiz: Think about it
9. Discussion Prompt: Finding Useful References: Difficulties & Strategies for
Success.

10. Video: How to: the research design

11. Discussion Prompt: Comparing different research designs on the same subject
12. Video: How to: the gap
13. Video: Presentation of Zotero: aggregate references

Show less
Graded: Literature Review
Graded: Main ideas
Graded: The Gap?
WEEK 3
Writing the paper: things you need to know
In this part of the MOOC, you will learn how to write your paper. In a first part, we will
focus on the structure of the paper, and then you will be able to see how to use
bibliographical tools such as zotero. Finally you will be required to write your own
abstract and to do a peer review for the abstract of the others, as in real academic life!
5 videos, 2 readings, 1 practice quiz
1. Video: The structure of an academic paper

2. Discussion Prompt: Comparing different constructions of papers

3. Video: On writing an academic paper, preliminary tips
4. Reading: Important readings before writing a paper
 5. Video: How to: the bibliography
6. Practice Quiz: Please, try by yourself
7. Video: The abstract
8. Discussion Prompt: Discussing abstracts
9. Reading: More detailed information on how to write your article
10. Video: Zotero: online features

Show less
Graded: The bibliography
Graded: Peer reviewing of an abstract
WEEK 4
After the writing: the check list
After writing the paper comes the time of reading your paper a few times in order to get
everything perfect.In this section you will learn how to remove a lot of mistakes you might
have been writing. In the end, you will have to build your own checklist corresponding to
your own problems you want to avoid. After this, your article can be submitted and will
hopefully be accepted!!
5 videos, 3 readings
1. Video: How to avoid being boring?

2. Reading: Avoiding mistakes

3. Video: The main mistakes to look for: format
4. Reading: Format and Writing Readings
5. Video: 1. The researcher
6. Video: 2. The editor
7. Video: Constructing your checklist
8. Discussion Prompt: Several content worth taking a look at
9. Reading: Tips

Show less
Graded: Now it is your turn: the checking list