If you are thinking about writing a science paper for peer review and publication, what should be your first steps? Ideally, you have thought about the possibility of writing and publishing early in your research project because some early planning can help you avoid problems later. But first, you should ask yourself about your motivations for writing a science paper.

1.1 Why Write and Publish a Paper?

Writing a paper and getting it published in a peer-reviewed journal is hard work, even after the hard work that led to the publishable results. So why do people do it? What motivates authors to go through the writing process, and then the peer review process, in order to publish their work? There are two kinds of motivations, altruism and self-interest, and most authors have some combination of the two.