The workshop was taught by Markus Elsner, Senior Editor of Nature Biotechnology and Rebecca Furlong, Team Manager and Senior Editor of Nature Communications. Their charismatic and friendly presentation styles created a fun environment, allowing participants to engage in lively debates with the teachers and with each other. The lectures and interactive exercises paid attention to all stages of writing and publishing, from specific sessions on abstract writing to assessing peer review comments. Individual feedback from the teachers on our own writing further enhanced the learning experience and helped to reinforce lessons learnt earlier in the day. The advice and tips offered at this course are relevant for any type of scientific writing, not just those interested in publishing in a Nature journal. It was therefore a rare chance to hear what makes a great paper from the editor’s point of view, and gain invaluable knowledge on how to write, edit and publish one. For this reason, I recommend this course to PhD candidates and postdoc researchers, regardless of their writing experience.
This experience was all made possible by the collaboration between FORBIO, NORBIS, IBA, NFIF and of course DEEP, to whom I am very grateful for allowing me to attend.
- Isabel Edmundson