What is a journal article?

Tldr

• The purpose of journal article is to disseminate knowledge
• Knowledge = the current best interpretation of the data

The purpose of a journal article

Most drafting slows down — or is difficult to get started — because you don’t really know what you’re aiming for. Yes, you know you need to write a journal article. But what does that actually mean? What is this thing you’re trying to build?

It’s not just sharing results. A journal article disseminates knowledge. That’s more than just presenting numbers.

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is our current best interpretation of all available data¹ — your own experiments plus what others have found. With the emphasis on interpretation: you’re not sharing the truth — you’re simply making a case for your interpretation of the data.

Writing the Results? That’s interpreting your raw data. Writing the Discussion? That’s interpreting your results. Everything is interpretation.

So you’re not simply stating facts. Your goal is to convince the audience that your interpretation is the most likely one given the evidence. And that requires trust.

Why this matters

If you understand that knowledge isn’t facts but interpretation, it becomes easier to write the Discussion section. This section is almost entirely interpretation of facts, by extrapolating findings about a specific population to a more general one. That requires tolerating uncertainty, and that’s easier to do if you’re aware of this uncertainty.

Footnotes

1. Even evolution is ‘just’ our current best interpretation of the data. ↩