March 13, 2018 R.T. Thomason, Ph.D., Figure Editor

This week, we will continue discussing an article I posted last blog:

https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005845

Citation: McDermott JE, Partridge M, Bromberg Y (2018) Ten simple rules for drawing scientific comics. PLoS Comput Biol 14(1): e1005845. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005845

 

Today will be my last post regarding this article. I wanted to highlight two of the rules that really spoke to me. Rule #3 “Make it Right, not Perfect” and Rule #6 “Tell a Story.” Please take a moment to read the paragraph for each rule.

 

Rule #3: Very important concepts here. It is SO important to really do a background check on the science you are presenting. People will assume what you are reporting is indeed true and correct. It’s also important to your reputation.

 

Rule #6: My favorite advice to give a budding scientist (which also applies to seasoned scientists). Tell a Story! So vital. You must guide your reader along the path of your project. Don’t expect them to know the who, what, where, when, why, how of your experiments. This is important for the writing component AND the figure component.

 

Until next time… keep reading and mulling over these ten rules, then apply them to your figure design and editing!