Scientific writing tips

Scientific writing tips

Here are the top tips and techniques that can transform your written work: 1. Ask the right questions. Powerful writing starts from an ordered, clear structure. Begin ordering your ideas by asking yourself the questions: what? where? when? how? why? and who?  · Science Writing: Some Tips for Beginners. By Jim Austin May. 20, , AM. BACK TO THE FEATURE INDEX. As a writer, an editor, and a former scientist, I rarely give a public presentation that Science writing must be precise, and precision often requires a fine level of detail. Careful description of objects, forces, organisms, methodology, etc., can easily lead to complex sentences that express too many ideas without a break point

Scientific Writing Tips

Nearly every element of style that is accepted and encouraged in general academic writing is also considered good practice in scientific writing. The major difference between science writing and writing in other academic fields is the relative importance placed on certain stylistic elements.

This handout details the most critical aspects of scientific writing and provides some strategies for evaluating and improving your scientific prose. Readers of this handout may also find our handout on scientific reports useful.

There are several different kinds of writing that fall under the umbrella of scientific writing. Scientific writing can include:. As a student in the sciences, you are likely to spend some time writing lab reports, which often follow the format of peer-reviewed articles and literature reviews.

Several key elements allow scientific writers to achieve these goals:. Theories in the sciences are based upon precise mathematical models, specific empirical primary data sets, or some combination of the two. Therefore, scientists must use precise, concrete language to evaluate and explain such theories, whether mathematical or conceptual. There are a few strategies for avoiding ambiguous, imprecise writing.

Often several words may convey similar meaning, but usually only one word is most appropriate in a given context. This same idea also applies to choice of phrasing. When presented with a choice, scientific writing tips, a more specific and less ambiguous phraseology is always preferable.

This applies even when you must be repetitive to maintain precision: repetition is preferable to ambiguity. Although repetition of words or phrases often happens out of necessity, it can actually be beneficial by placing special emphasis on key concepts. Figurative language can make for interesting and engaging casual reading but is by definition imprecise. Include as much detail as is necessary, but exclude extraneous information. The reader should be able to easily follow your methodology, results, and logic without being distracted by irrelevant facts and descriptions.

Ask yourself the following questions when you evaluate the level of detail in a paper:. Whenever possible, use quantitative rather than qualitative descriptions. Complexities in language use and sentence structure scientific writing tips perhaps the most common issues specific to writing in the sciences. Here are a just a few examples of complex words and their simple alternatives:.

In these examples, the term on the right conveys the same meaning as the word on the left but is more familiar and straightforward, and is often shorter as well. There are some situations where the use of a technical or obscure term is justified.

If you choose to go with the technical term, scientific writing tips, however, make sure you clearly define it, as early in the paper as possible. You can use this same strategy to determine whether or not to use abbreviations, but again you must be careful to define the abbreviation early on, scientific writing tips. Scientific writing tips writing must be precise, and precision often requires a fine level of detail. Scientific writing tips description of objects, forces, organisms, methodology, scientific writing tips, etc.

Several things make this sentence complex. First, scientific writing tips, the action of the sentence activates is far removed from the subject the osmoregulatory organ so that the reader has to wait a long time to get the main idea of the sentence. Consider this revision:. This sentence is slightly shorter, scientific writing tips the same information, and is much easier to follow. The subject and the action are now close together, and the redundant verbs have been eliminated.

Prepositional phrases themselves are not a problem; in fact, they are usually scientific writing tips to achieve an adequate level of detail in science writing. However, long strings of prepositional phrases can cause sentences to wander. The use of eleven yes, eleven! prepositional phrases in this sentence is excessive, and renders the sentence nearly unintelligible. Judging when a string of prepositional phrases is too long is somewhat subjective, but as a general rule of thumb, a single prepositional phrase is always preferable, and anything more than two strung together can be problematic.

Nearly every form of scientific communication is space-limited. Furthermore, adding unnecessary words or phrases distracts rather than engages the reader. Avoid generic phrases that contribute no novel information. Your reader will decide whether or not your paper is interesting based on the content. In any case, if information is not interesting or noteworthy it should probably be excluded.

The objective tone used in conventional scientific writing reflects the philosophy of the scientific method: if results are not repeatable, then they are not valid. In other words, your results will only be considered valid if any researcher performing the same experimental tests and analyses that you describe would be able to produce the same results. Thus, scientific writers try to adopt a tone that removes the focus from the researcher and puts it only on the research itself.

Here are several stylistic conventions that enhance objectivity:. You may have been told at some point in your academic career that the use of the passive voice is almost always bad, except in the sciences. The passive voice is a sentence structure where the subject who performs the action is ambiguous e. The rationale behind using the passive voice in scientific writing is that it enhances objectivity, scientific writing tips, taking the actor i.

Unfortunately, the passive voice can also lead to awkward and confusing sentence structures and is generally considered less engaging i.

This is why most general style guides recommend only sparing use of the passive voice. If you are unsure, check with the instructor or editor who will review your paper to see whether or not to use the passive voice.

Your conclusions should be directly supported by the data that you present, scientific writing tips. For example, if you discover a correlation between fur thickness and basal metabolic rate in rats and mice you would not necessarily conclude that fur thickness and basal metabolic rate are correlated in all mammals. You might draw this conclusion, however, if you cited evidence that correlations between fur thickness and basal metabolic rate are also found in twenty other mammalian species.

Assess the generality of the available data before you commit to an overly general conclusion. We consulted these works while writing this handout. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, scientific writing tips it may not match the citation style you are using.

For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback. Alley, Michael. The Craft of Scientific Writing3rd ed. New York: Springer. Council of Science Editors.

Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers8th ed. Day, Robert A. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper4th ed. Phoenix: Oryx Press. Day, Robert, and Nancy Sakaduski. Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other Scientific writing tips3rd ed.

Santa Barbara: Greenwood. Gartland, John J, scientific writing tips. Medical Writing and Communicating, scientific writing tips. Frederick, MD: University Publishing Group.

Williams, Joseph M, scientific writing tips. Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace12th ed. New York: Pearson, scientific writing tips. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4. You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Vlog 231 - Quick fixes to improve your academic writing

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Scientific Writing Tips | Learn about effective writing and publishing in biomedical journals

Some writing tips for scientific papers – by Andrew Hendry Note that these comments apply to scientific papers and may not always be relevant to other forms of writing, such as this particular document. Paper structure and general guidelines: 1. Try to state the main objective of the paper in the first paragraph. Many authors place Science writing must be precise, and precision often requires a fine level of detail. Careful description of objects, forces, organisms, methodology, etc., can easily lead to complex sentences that express too many ideas without a break point Likewise, objectivity is key since scientific writing should be based on evidence. Avoid making generalisations, unproven statements or any other statements that can’t be backed up by facts. Remain impartial, and stay away from hyperbole