Have you ever had a new published paper that you want to promote on Twitter, but you weren't sure how to tweet about it?

I get asked a lot how to make Twitter threads for papers, so here's a thread about threads promoting your research

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First off, I am very firmly in the camp that it is good to self-promote your research on Twitter. If you think promoting your own research on Twitter is self-indulgent, then this thread isn't for you

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Your first tweet is the most important, it's going to be what captures the internet's attention. So what should you include?

1) Include a link to your paper. If you need space you can use a link shortener, but make sure it's at the start of the thread, not the middle or end

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2) *Succinctly* summarize your paper. You can do this by either posing a thoughtful question that's central to your work, or sharing the main result

It's important to get straight to the point. Remember, this is the top of the thread and it needs to catch Twitter's attention

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2a) Avoid too much jargon, your audience is Twitter, and broader than who you might have written the paper for

2b) It's great if you can fit the paper title too. But it's not as important as grabbing Twitter's attention with a cool question or result

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3) If you have a pretty data visualization, or a really striking results table, then include that as a picture in the tweet. I suggest only one picture, so that it's clearly displayed and not obscured in a collage

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Side note: when you're making figures for your paper, this is a good reason to make both a .pdf version for the paper and a high-quality .png version for Twitter (and also slides)

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Also, if you don’t have any data visualizations or tables, you can also use a screenshot of your abstract. I don’t do this as much, but I appreciate when I can read what a paper is about without having to leave Twitter

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4) Mention your co-authors. If you're a senior author, you *need* to mention the early career authors!

If they're on Twitter, use their Twitter handles.

If you're running out of room, you can tag your co-authors in the tweet's picture instead of @'ing them

#TeamScience
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So you've made your first tweet about your paper! But we're not done yet!

Next is the rest of the thread. You have flexibility here, but this is what I try to do:

1) In 2-3 tweets, motivate the paper. What's the question? Why should a random Twitter academic care?

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Remember, you're aiming this thread at a broad audience. Twitter is where you have the chance to pick up readers who might not otherwise even see your paper. The more accessible you can make your motivation, the more people will want to read the paper

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2) *Briefly* describe the data and methods in 1-2 tweets

I love methods. I love talking about them. But even I'm careful about being too detailed. If people really want to know what's going on, they'll read the paper. Twitter is not the place for data technicalities

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If you've written code for your papers that you want other people to use, this is a good place to mention it. It's also a good place to point to open data that's made available with your work

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3) In 2-3 tweets, go into detail about the results you introduced in the first tweet

Just high level recaps. You don't need to lay out every detail and caveat. Just enough to be honest and to get people to want to read your paper

If you have pretty figures, add them here!

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Finally, we're near the end of the thread. I like to finish by thanking my co-authors again, and acknowledging others like undergrad RAs, those who gave helpful input, etc

I wrap it all up by linking to the paper and any code one more time

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My approach to writing threads about papers is *not* The Definitive Guide to tweeting about research. You can change this as you see fit

I hope this makes some folks feel less nervous about promoting their research on Twitter though. We want to read it! Share it with us!

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I'll end by linking to some examples of paper threads I've made this year (shamelessly self-promoting in the process)

Our paper about how there are multiple different types of core-periphery structure in networks https://twitter.com/ryanjgallag/status/1263449345430556673

Our paper about who people in the United States have been amplifying around COVID-19 on Twitter https://twitter.com/ryanjgallag/status/1306214271509049344

Our paper introducing a scientific and reliable alternative to word clouds that help interpret text as data, including when doing sentiment analysis https://twitter.com/ryanjgallag/status/1291348764213628930

Our paper about how to put hashtag activism data within the context of the communities that people are a part of *before* a particular hashtag emerges https://twitter.com/ryanjgallag/status/1234496356745609216