Writing Resources
The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center (Catalyst) has a Writing and Communication Center, which offers resources on various topics, including writing effectively, communicating authentically, and visualizing science.
Please note that the GSAS Fellowships & Writing Center is open exclusively to graduate students.
There is also a non-credit Public Health Writing Course at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. These include "Writing and Publishing Health Research–A course in Scientific writing. Donald Halstead, Director of Writing Programs at the HSPH, has confirmed that his courses were open to FAS postdocs.
Additional Resources
A Guide to Writing Scientific Papers in English: 2nd Edition.
"Writing Scientific Papers in Astronomy," Astronomy Educational Journal (2021)
"Writing a Paper," by George Whitesides.
Mission
The FASPEA seeks to help postdocs to improve the quality of drafts before they submit them to faculty mentors. This initiative, mirroring the one at UPenn on which it is modeled, aims to minimize the time that mentors have to spend fixing basic writing issues during the process of preparing a manuscript for publication. Doing so will help to optimize the meaningful interaction between postdoctoral researchers and their mentors.
The service offered by FASPEA editors will entail reviewing manuscripts (papers and posters) for language usage, punctuation, clarity, and organization in an effort to clarify prose and meaning. However, they will not be able to provide substantive review of the content. This critical, subject-specific dialogue should occur between postdoctoral researchers and their mentors during the process of preparing a manuscript.
Services and Guidelines
FASPEA provides confidential review of a variety of different documents including manuscripts, abstracts, and slides/posters for meetings. Please note that while FASPEA editors will help to improve manuscripts, they will be unable to provide formal line-by-line editing or help editing any classwork.
Materials will be reviewed only once.
Materials should be submitted in pdf format.
FASPEA will aim for a two-week turnaround.
Postdoctoral authors will have the option of requesting an editor in their field or on the contrary specifically excluding one. Matches take these into account, but will be subject to the availability of editors.
In order for the service to be most helpful, postdoctoral authors should endeavor to submit their most polished, final draft.
Confidentiality
FASPEA editors treat every submitted manuscript as a privileged communication. The Editors-in-Chief and editors must exclude themselves from the review of any manuscript that might involve a conflict of interest or the appearance thereof. To this end, FASPEA editors will disclose to the Editors-in-Chief any conflicts of interest that make their knowledge of the information included in the manuscript inappropriate. The editors pledge not to use knowledge of the work to further their own interests.
Process
Step 1: Should a postdoctoral author deem it necessary, they and their PI should sign the confidentiality agreement. This may be particularly necessary in sensitive scientific fields, where results must remain confidential until the time of publication.
Step 2: Email faspea@fas.harvard.edu to request FASPEA assistance. Please attach the confidentiality agreement, if applicable, and your manuscript (pdf format).
Please also include the following information:
Your core subject area.
Any special requests or concerns.
Would you like feedback in person or electronically.
Is the paper for a general or specialized audience?
Do you have any editor preference or exclusion?
Areas (Things, Particulars, etc.) you would like the editor to focus on, if any (language, structure/organization, figures).
Whether you are a native English speaker.
Contacts
Editor-in-chief and Editors: To be determined (As of December 2024). In the meantime, just contact Stephen Kargère (kargere@fas.harvard.edu).
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