“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

Dr. Johnson.

One important thing that I learnt about writing is know your readers and take care of them.

Knowing the target audience for our writing piece is very important to connect with them. We should treat readers like our customers and always place their needs above ours. We should be genuinely motivated, passionate and believe in what we are saying.

Keep things simple and straightforward. People already have so many complicated problems to sort out in their life. We should do the task of simplifying things ourselves. If an article is unnecessarily cryptic they will just hop on to next website or article.

Focus on important points and say them with minimum words.

Organize the contents in way that is easy for a normal human being to grasp.

Write a piece, leave it for sometime. Then revise it. Keep revising and rewriting until you are satisfied with the quality of the text.

Ask your friends and mentors to read it and give feedbacks.

Splling mistakes in your article? Never do that. It distracts readers.

Highlight important parts using underline or boldface so that readers don’t miss them.

People tell “Writing is a skill that can be learned“. I hope that is true, my life as an academic rests on the validity of this statement.

Please share your comments and ideas.

Some useful links:

1. Coursera course on writing in sciences; https://www.coursera.org/learn/sciwrite
2. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01753-y
3. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01362