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A Quick Introduction to Scientific Writing

February 27, 2019
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By Tuğba Nur Öztürk


I was trained as a physicist: the kind that does experiments in the lab and is often expected to be there on the weekends and always be in a state of hard work. But as I gained more experience in grad school and met more graduate students and professors at Concordia, it became clearer to me that there is much more to being a successful scientist. Looking to my personal scientist heroes and heroines, I noticed two characteristics they possess in common: they keep up-to-date with their field of study and have good oral and written communications skills. My undergraduate training failed to emphasize these skills enough, which is why I am stressing the importance of developing these in grad school.

What and how much we know are important parts of being a scientist. No doubt there. But it is just as crucial for us to be capable of explaining what we know. Otherwise, what is the point of doing science? Especially now in the internet era, where we scientists have an online presence, science communication is a vital skill. We use social media such as Twitter, and platforms like ResearchGate, Academia and Orcid, to share our research projects and build good collaborations. Many colleagues that we have yet to meet in person already know about us through the internet. Therefore, the way we present ourselves and our science online, in writing, is their first impression of us! On a daily basis, it is perhaps even more important. We write emails, reports, papers, grant proposals, lecture notes, reference and cover letters. To some extent, we can even say that our success is measured by our writing skills. Even if our papers include great science but are written badly, they will not get cited; and therefore our h-indices will be low. For some institutions, we are nothing more than those numbers. So, to sum up, we need to become good writers as well as good scientists to survive in academia!

This pushed me to think about and research scientific writing. As you already know, many programs do not necessarily include any courses for a “scientist-to-be” to improve their scientific writing skills, so here is my list of amazing resources on scientific writing.

9 Recommended Resources to Master Scientific Writing:

  1. On Writing Well by William Zinsser.  This is a brilliantly simple book that everyone who writes should read. I believe that it is a great book to start with. The focus is on simplification (in Zinsser’s words, getting rid of clutter!). It flows well and shows you how the job is done.
  2. Writing Science in Plain English by Anne E. Greene. This book is a list of plain and efficient tips and advice for clarity and well-designed examples to make you think about writing thoroughly. It also covers sentence and paragraph-level advice. If English is not your native language, I strongly recommend this book.
  3. The Elements of Style by W. Strunk and E. B. White. This famous book covers fundamentals such as the choice of tenses, clarity and punctuation. However, a lot of new words entered into our lives since 2000 and some words Strunk considers as “informal” are now formal.  
  4. Scientific Writing: A Reader and Writer’s Guide by Jean-Luc Lebrun. This book provides you with a reading toolkit, examples, exercises and a scientific paper. In the last chapter, the author lists further readings on various subjects including visuals, grammar and the writing process.
  5. Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded - by Joshua Schimel. This book is about style --or storytelling-- and flow, rather than the content and grammar. It is full of useful tips at both the sentence and paragraph level.
  6. Take an online course: Check out Writing in the Sciences by Dr. Kristin Sainani on Coursera. This course is a brilliant blend of all the books I’ve mentioned. Dr. Sainani talks about everything from grammar, punctuation, tenses, the process of writing, sections of a scientific paper, reference letters and much more.
  7. For structured minds, there should be a checklist. Here is a checklist on scientific writing prepared by Dr. Daniel Zuckerman -- a physicist who writes articles, books and blogs to teach biology with physics! You may like to print and have this next to you while writing.
  8. The Science of Scientific Writing by George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan mostly focuses on clarity in the content and style. The authors revise and improve several examples to demonstrate their points clearly.
  9. Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker. This 1-hour long lecture is to-the-point, well-prepared and inspirational.
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