Interlude: Checklists, Figures, and Images
Do you use checklists for your writing?
For a long time, I would review drafts without a checklist. I had a systematic method for these reviews, but I relied on my memory to recall every step of the system.
Then I discovered The Checklist Manifesto. And my review process changed dramatically.
Now I have checklists for every type of document that I review regularly. These checklists include a variety of items related to the content, structure, format, and even particular style (eg, AMA, APA) needed for that document. And these items are organized in a way that makes my review as easy and efficient as possible.
Now my review process is so much faster and easier. And I continually update the checklists as guidelines change or to optimize my system.
I highly recommend creating checklists for anything that you find yourself repeating. Checklists can be incredibly helpful for ensuring that you don't miss something and that you optimize your time.
How do you use checklists to optimize your writing or systems? Hit reply and let me know.
Now onto this week's round-up...
💌 Round-up
💻 From My Desk
How to Improve the Quality of Your Scientific Figures
Figures are an important part of visually conveying your research. And some readers believe that the quality of your figures reflects the quality of your research. To create quality figures, use these eight tips to showcase your research and expertise.
📆 Upcoming
Find Your Flow: Connect Ideas to Guide Readers Through Your Writing – October 28, 2023
I’m thrilled to be invited to speak at the upcoming American Medical Writers Association conference in Baltimore, MD. I’ll be speaking about how to synthesize your writing to create a smooth flow that guides readers through your writing with ease.
👓 Reading
Community-developed checklists for publishing images and image analyses
"Here, we present community-developed checklists for preparing light microscopy images and describing image analyses for publications. These checklists offer authors, readers and publishers key recommendations for image formatting and annotation, color selection, data availability and reporting image-analysis workflows."
🧰 Tools
BioRender
This online tool can help you easily create professional science figures with more than 50,000 pre-made icons and templates. These icons and templates cover more than 30 fields of the life sciences, and they have been curated and vetted by industry professionals.
📝 Experiment
Open the most recent paper or proposal that you submitted. Review the figures and think about what changes you could have made to make the images and information clearer for readers.
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
