Whether you’re starting a research career, breaking into academic publishing, or pivoting your area of interest, it may seem difficult to build the expertise and network to become a coauthor on academic papers. But it may be more straightforward than you think. 

“In terms of publishing academic research, the number-one holdup in my position right now is a lack of scientific writers,” says Jessica Lasky-Su, DSc, MS, associate professor in medicine and associate statistician at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and faculty for the Effective Writing for Health Care certificate program. “If I had a few writers right now that I could hire, I would do it in a heartbeat.”

The need for good science writers and editors can still be under-recognized in the academic community, but once a principal investigator understands the concrete value you bring, you can begin building a portfolio of published work. Here’s how to get started.

The Work That Merits a Byline on a Scientific Paper

First things first: how much work merits a byline on a research paper, exactly? Lasky-Su, who has published more than 250 papers to date, explains that it can depend on the principal investigator and thus can be a gray area. “But my basic framework is: if this person has contributed important scientific input or research, they should be on the paper, she adds. 

Your area of research may have a specific (and unique) framework for the conditions of getting a byline, but Lasky-Su notes that even high school and college interns who know the general subject matter and do research for the introduction on one of her papers can potentially get a byline. 

“It might not be the ‘default’ role, like the postdoc or the statistician, but I think it’s important to think of contribution more broadly. Who is the big team? Everyone should be acknowledged,” she says. It’s in this broader definition where your contributions may be essential. 

Why Networking Is the First Step to Contributing to Academic Research

Networking is critically important if you want to break into scientific writing, and it’s particularly true if you’re not already in a department that focuses on the research you’re interested in. From a postdoctoral fellow looking to join a new team to a medical professional getting into research for the first time to a nonscience writer hoping to break into academic writing, the most important thing you can do is develop your network.

“If you have no experience, but you want to be a contributor, reach out to someone who is in the area you’re interested in and ask, ‘What can I do to learn a little bit and potentially contribute on a paper?’ If a principal investigator is open to having someone help and have it be a learning experience, that’s the easiest way,” explains Lasky-Su. 

These initial opportunities may or may not be paid (the principal investigator may be limited in terms of how they can distribute funds), but, often, a contributing writer on a paper does not have to be involved 40 hours a week. You can still do the work that keeps you employed, in other words, and contribute to a research paper at the same time.

The Specific Contributions You Can Make on a Scientific Paper

Your work will depend on the subject matter. However, Lasky-Su (whose papers make use of terabytes of molecular data) says that any research that utilizes large language models will require someone to interpret and make sense of the data in a macro way.

“We are in a computational place where the output and the quality of the output that we have are dramatically different. There’s so much more that you can generate and analyze, and the tools have become so much more sophisticated that the output is probably at least ten times more than what publishers expected ten years ago,” she says.

Furthermore, she explains that the team members performing the science and analysis might not be the right people to tell the story of the research story. The introduction and discussion sections of a research paper often take the most time and require a separate set of skills to “translate” findings to a broader context. 

At the beginning of developing a paper, Lasky-Su and her team put together an overarching outline and then spent months synthesizing the results. “The value-add of a person like this, if they were proactively involved, is that they could take the time required to synthesize our results from six months down to three or two. It’s such a critical component of expediting the process,” she says. 

And, in fact, that ability to save the team time and effort can be a selling point for anyone hoping to contribute to a research paper—especially if a principal investigator has not had a scientific writer on their team before who can make the paper coherent and cohesive when it’s in the editing stages. 

How to Build on Your Bylines

Once you’ve been able to get your work formally recognized on a paper, you can use your network and demonstrated expertise to build a portfolio. “Now, you have a few people that you can work with,” says Lasky-Su. “After a few papers, maybe you want to expand to a different group. But the point is that you now have an initial network that you can build upon.” 

Lasky-Su has extensive experience in working with students at Harvard Medical School’s Effective Writing for Health Care and other Continuing Education programs. Whether a participant is hoping to write for the science media or for academia, she notes that formal writing programs will provide the necessary background as well as a head start on developing this ever-important network.