New March 2026: update of how to answer open discussion reviews.

New 28 March 2025: try inkscape.org for graphical abstract digitalisation

Tipps & trick for paper writing

• Read our  help document for paper writing, by Ceperley, Horton, Schaefli, current version on google docx.

• There are writing classes offered at Uni Bern, consider following a class.

• A nice article on how to avoid wordiness : Wordiness, Wordiness, Wordiness List

• Nice tips for designing the title: https://www.writingclearscience.com.au/how-to-write-paper-titles/

• An interesting resource: Ten simple rules for structuring papers, Mensh & Kording, 2017, Plos

• A note on language use: Effective writing, Scitable, by NatureEducation. Effective writing is readable — that is, clear, accurate, and concise.  read more. Touches upon sentence structure, use of verbs, us of tenses and much more. 

• Or the opposite: How to Prepare a Really Lousy Submission, by the editors of WRR, 2012; perhaps not the best communication strategy but it touches upon many important topics from title to dual submission. 

• A note on the use of parentheses: Parentheses Are (Are Not) for References and Clarification (Saving Space), Robock, EOS, 2011

• A note on shared first authorship by Schaefli, 2022, EGU Blog

• The 14 possible roles of authors, according to CRedIT Contributor roles: https://casrai.org/credit/

• The AGU grammar and style guide for publishing in AGU journals

• The HESS math notation guide, a good reference to stick to. Always remember: no multi-letter variable names!

• Can repetition be useful in academic writing by Charlesworth Author Services, 2020

• Plagiarism: check with Turnit-in with UniBe licence.  I strongly recommend watching this excellent short course: https://www.coursera.org/lecture/sciwrite/6-1-plagiarism-5dFfm

Paper composition: Bettina's 2 step approach:

• • Step 1: know your story in three parts (following Jeff McDonnells recommendation in a short course)

    • What is the state-of-the-art?

    •  What is wrong about it ? 

    • How do you address this?

  • Step 2: collect all material you need  and organize the writing process

    • Select max. 12 figures that you want to show, comment them with short sentences (this should outline the story to tell about your results)

    • Collect bullet points that should be the core of your conclusions (or even better: write the conclusion - this gives you the direction of the paper; even if the conclusion changes throughout the process)

    • Go to the abstract: do not keep it for the end, write it almost at the start (since you know your story, you know its summary!)

    • Write the introduction: the introduction is often more difficult than methods and results, do not keep it for the end

    • Finish with methodology, results, discussion

Writing peer-reviews

• A quick guide to writing solid peer reviews, by Nicholas and Gordon, 2011, EOS

• Seeking good reviews in geomorphology by Stuart Lane, 2012, Geomorphology,

Shared first authorship

Everything you should know about shared first authorship (by Bettina Schaefli): https://blogs.egu.eu/divisions/hs/2022/07/06/the-mystery-of-shared-first-authorship/

Revising a paper, answering reviews

• if you have submitted to an open-review / discussion journal such as HESS: 

  • answer the reviews and comments as soon as possible (best is within 1 week);  do not wait for all reviews to be in and do not start revisions. This answer can be written in a "we will do xxxx" style. You should not provide new figures or simulations at this stage. What is key is to answer quickly so that e.g. reviewer 2 can read it or so that reviewer 1 can answer again during the discussion phase.

  • Also: you do not need to answer all minor comments, you can write: "Thanks for all minor suggestions, which we will adopt". Of course you can answer any detailed or minor comment with more details if useful. 

  • You can reply more than once to one reviewer: a first response with things you plan to do; a second response if you have e.g. new simulations ready 

  • The actual revisions together with a detailed answer and list of revisions is only due during the revision phase, upon decision by the editor (the editor might refuse to go to the next stage!)

• in any case (with/without public discussion), you need to provide a response letter (do not call it a rebuttal), an example response letter is given here; consider numbering the comments for cross-referencing.

  • read the 2017 editorial by Stuart Lane: Respond, don't rebut, EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS, 2017

• response letter:

  • always adopt the perspective of the reader; if something is unclear, it is not the reviewer's fault, you should improve the explanation/text/formulation; 

  • you can address directly the reviewer ("thanks for this important comment"), but only in positive wordings; 

  • avoid using "he / she", use "their", which (despite being seemingly plural), is the correct English formulation if you do not know the person you are talking about  ("everyone should do their homework")

  • always provide as much information as useful in the letter directly; the reviewer (during the re-review process) does not want to jump back and forth between the response and the manuscript); thus, rather than writing "this is changed at line 304", write: "we changed this (see line 304) and it now reads as follows: "The hydrological data xxxx".  Always provide as much detail as needed to understand your change, without copying long paragraphs to the response letter

• revision of the paper: keep track of the modifications if possible (e.g. in word) or make sure you have a latex-difference analysis tool (such as latex-diff); you will have to submit a track-change version; if your modifications of the paper structure are too heavy: prepare a summary table that explains the content of new / original subsections and explain in detail what has changed in the subsections

Software for references management

• EndNote: licence required

• ReadCubePapers, licence required, integrated in the cloud, with attached pdfs: but attention, in Word in cannot handle citations where the author is not in brackets, not linked Overleaf

• Zotero

• Mendeley

Literature search

• Discover visual paper search: https://www.connectedpapers.com or (beta version) https://openknowledgemaps.org/