Writing tips - meyermicrobiolab/Meyer_Lab

JM -- My advice for writing scientific papers: in other words, what works for me. You might develop or have your own style. This will likely be a collection of helpful processes to try if you don't know where to start or you are stuck.

Order of writing: methods, results, intro, discussion, abstract. I am pretty adamant about writing the abstract last, as it is definitely the first thing the readers read (and often the only thing). The abstract is the most important "essence" of the paper. Since you always have a word limit, the abstract needs to provide a brief overview of what you did, why you did it, and what the ultimate take-home message(s) of the paper are.
A lot of beginning scientific writers struggle with the interpretation (discussion) - this is natural. The literal results may be obvious, but what do they mean in the context of the organism and/or ecosystem? See the link below about telling your "biological results".
I like to storyboard my paper by laying out the figures that will go into the paper, in order of appearance. When I am analyzing data, I make lots of figures although not all of them will be important for the actual paper. When I have chosen the figures that should be in the paper, I print them out one per page in color, number them, and write the take-home message(s) of the figure on the top of the page. Now my results have a series of topic sentences (take-home message = topic sentence) that form an outline of the paragraphs in the results section.
If your paper is well-organized, the reader should be able to read only the first sentence of each paragraph and understand what your paper is about (this is a trick that some people use to skim a paper for its contents). You probably learned this in middle school (because it is important and it works!), but remember your paragraphs should lead with a topic sentence and all of the other sentences in the paragraph provide the supporting details for the main idea in the topic sentence. And I'm not the only one who thinks the topic sentence is magical.
It takes a lot of practice to write clearly and articulately. Complicated sentences don't make you look smarter, they only irritate the reader. You are writing for the reader, don't make them mad! Whether you are writing a paper, a grant proposal, or a job application, you are trying to convince the reader of something and in order to do that you have to get them to read it! See the video below on the craft of writing effectively, which basically tells you how to write for the reader. The video was not made by a scientist, but all of his tips will absolutely work for your writing.
Reading a lot will help you become a better writer. Find papers that made a large impact on you and figure out why they were good papers. Was it the organization, the figures, the interpretations? Use those techniques to craft your own work.
Edit, edit, edit. You can always improve your sentence structure to make it more readable (ie. easier for the reader).