Use of "paper" / "study" / ... in scientific publications

Question

In my research paper I used the phrase "this paper" to refer to the one I am writing and sometimes I write "the [other] paper" to refer to some other paper. The editor replaced "paper" with "study".

(Edit: The editor is not from a publisher. It is a service that checks my punctuation and spelling, before I submit my paper for peer-review.)

I thought that "study" refers to research in which one "goes out into the world, collects data and draws conclusions from that". That is NOT what I am doing, because I am writing a math paper. My main contribution is the theory not the experiments, which are case studies of my methods. (See what I did there? In the experiments section I do indeed use the word "study".) So, what I opted in for now is, to call other people work "literature" and my own work "this work".

Is the word "paper" bad style in scientific writing? I could also use the word "article" if that is better.

I understand that "research" refers to the entire body of publications on a topic, while "study" only refers to a single publication. But then again I could also say, "other's research [11]", while citing a specific paper, right?

When should I use which word:

• paper,
• study,
• article,
• literature,
• research,
• publication,
• work?

Answer 1

This is rather subtle, and to some extent a matter of style, personal preference, and practice in the scientific field. However, I would argue that there is a rationale basis for a choice between two sets of terms. My own choice would depend on which of the following I wished to place the emphasis on:

• The actual published account — in which case paper, publication, article (or perhaps literature) would be appropriate.
• The data presented, its analysis and interpretation — in which case study, work or investigation (not research) would be appropriate.

As a biological scientist, in general reference to other publications I would use the latter:

In previous work we showed that…

A previous study demonstrated that…

It is what was done that I regard as important, and, in my opinion, referring to the vehicle by which it was communicated takes the reader one (unnecessary) step away from this.

Occasionally, where the focus is on a famous publication, several papers, a particular aspect of a paper, or perhaps a theoretical paper (dealing with ideas, rather than work) I would write:

In their historic Nature paper, X and Y argued…

In a series of articles published in the early ’70s, Z and coworkers demonstrated…

In a recent report it was claimed that…

We have made a thorough survey of the literature, but have been unable to find…

So, although I imagine that ‘paper’ was not incorrect in the preliminary document mentioned in the question, I would suggest that the above is the rationale for preferring ‘study’, and that in this respect the editor was doing a good job.

Postscript

The poster asks some additional questions about specific terms, whereas this answer tries to point out the general rationale. However, for the record, I would say that:

• Study and work can both be used to describe the contents of a single publication. Examples in which both study and work would seem appropriate are research performed to compare things (e.g. plants) or out what happens in a system disturbed in a particular way (e.g. hormone treatment). Research to determine a nucleic acid sequence or the structure of a protein (e.g. covid virus and its spike protein) would generally be described as work and not a study.
• Research is not widely used as it is taken for granted that a scientific publication is of research, unless it is labelled as a review or hypothesis. You might use it in a general context, e.g. ”there has been little research into this topic”.

Answer 2

Use whichever word is reasonably specific and concise.

Style guides like APA generally don't suggest a preference between paper and study. Nor do genre-specific writing guides. For instance, in Angelika Hofmann's book Scientific Writing and Communication (2nd ed., 2014), she does not refer to this kind of usage directly, and her examples include both paper and study:

To determine the mechanism for the direct effect of contrast media on heart muscle mechanics, we carried out the study on heart muscles isolated from cats. (p.48)

It is one of the goals of this paper to assess the limitations of the models used (p.73; this is an exercise where the point is to rewrite using first person, e.g., "Our paper assesses the limitations of the models used.")

In this study, we show that a sequential scheme of phosphoryation and dephosphorylation can generate circadian oscillations. (p. 224)

I've also seen words like work used in similar ways, like this excerpt from Leslie Ann Roldan and Mary-Lou Pardue's book Writing in Biology: A Brief Guide (2016):

Our work contributes towards a greater understanding of metastasis, and draws our closer to the goal of mediating therapeutic intervention for this complex process (p.75)

In terms of IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) organization, references to our study, paper, or work will most likely happen in the introduction (bringing up the research question) or discussion (describing what the study does in general). Such global statements would be unexpected in a literature review, methods section, or results section. For non-IMRaD scientific writing, the introduction or conclusion would be the most likely spot for saying this study/paper/work or similar uses.

So in your case, if paper makes more sense to you given your context, use it.

Answer 3

Your usage is correct in the scientific community. Your editor may have excellent English but less experience with reading scientific publications, which have their own jargon and expressions.

I would stick with paper for all of the reasons you noted.