Rules for collaborative scientific writing

TL;DR

This paper offers guidelines for collaborative scientific writing, addressing common pitfalls faced by research groups to improve clarity and effectiveness in joint manuscript preparation.

Contribution

It extends previous individual writing advice to collaborative contexts, providing specific rules to avoid common co-authoring mistakes.

Findings

Identifies frequent collaborative writing errors

Provides practical rules to improve group writing

Enhances quality of scientific manuscripts

Abstract

Several years ago, one of us, having noticed that inexperienced scientists tend to make largely the same mistakes while writing their first papers, was compelled to write a one-page note summarizing some dos and don'ts intended to help take care of common problems before they occur. Since these days the majority of research papers are written collaboratively by groups of co-authors, we are compelled to extend these recommendations to collaborative writing as we observe groups of co-authors falling into the same traps again and again.