Problem - Solution
I write quite a few research papers these days. And I read many of them. I often find myself stuck in a paragraph or sentence. Its the feeling that something is wrong, that the argumentation is unclear or that I don’t know how to continue. The same happens when I read papers. Sometimes the argumentation seems clear but I feel that there is some important bit missing. In (luckily) rare cases, it seems that really I don’t get what the authors want to say. Most often the solution to the problem is the problem itself: WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? To me, that’s the most important question for writing and reading. This is a lesson that I’ve learned during many interesting and valuable discussions with a good colleague and friend. So my solution to the “stuck writer situation” is to get the problem right.
- Write down the problem
- Get the argumentation for the problem right (references from literature)
- Describe and discuss the solution
- STICK TO THE PROBLEM. For me, it’s often tempting telling the reader about too many side-aspects. I would bet that in 99% this leads me to the wrong track.
While the solution is simple, its surprises me how often I make the same mistake of not getting the problem right or leaving the track. It just happened some minutes ago which motivated me to write this post. And its not me alone. Many scientific papers fail in getting the problem right or in justifying the problem. In the worst case, the result is some unclear bla-bla about this and that. It feels that such a paper never hits the spot. And yes, I wrote such papers myself.
Hitting the spot is IMO what makes articles from authors like Martin Fowler such a pleasure to read. He has a problem and writes about the solution to this problem using a great style of writing. Simple as that.