Introduction to Scientific Writing
Introduction to Scientific Writing

Definition:

Scientific writing is technical writing by a scientist/researcher, intended for other scientists/researchers.

Example:

Plants need light for growth. This is a research topic. The research question here is what is the optimum level of light that is needed because too much can burn the plant while too low will not work. So studying the effect of different intensities on plants will be the topic for research writing.

Importance:

  • Scientific writing is used to communicate effectively with other scientists and plays a vital role in information spread.
  • Most of the time it is confused with Science Writing, however, both are two different things.
  • Scientific Writing is done by scientists/researchers but in the case of Science Writing, the audience is the general public so writing is less scientific and more layman language.

Beyond Data Presentation: Effective Communication in Scientific Writing:

  • Scientific writing is not just a mere presentation of information; its fundamental purpose is to communicate effectively with the intended reader.
  • The presentation should be in a language or format that the common man can understand too.
  • For example, if we want to present the data collected during an experiment of two variables time and temperature, we could use the following methods to compare them [07].

Method 1: t = Time, T = Temperature; t=0′, T=15º; t=2′, T=19º; t=5′, T=17º; t=8′, T=12º; t=11′; T=21º

  • It can be seen that the second method in which data is present in graph form is more understandable for comparison. Information can be interpreted more easily and accurately if it is presented in a way that the reader expects.

Benefits of Scientific Writing:

Scientific writing has many benefits:

  • The most important one is to appreciate and evaluate other’s work.
  • It enhances mankind’s knowledge about scientific discoveries
  • Scientific writing is used to get global recognition.
  • It is a minimum requirement in many organizations for promotion.
  • Some organizations have scientific writing requirements in the hiring process.

Types of Scientific Writing:

There are various formats used in scientific writing and every format serves a different purpose:

  • A journal article is a detailed article written on a published report in a recognized journal.
  • Conference research papers are a series of papers that are presented in a conference and they help all those who were not in the conference.
  • Workshop papers a scientific documents that are published after every workshop and they give details about the proceedings of the Workshop.
  • Research Funding Grant proposals are a kind of scientific writing that you write to convince your sponsor to grant you a fund for your research. You provide different details as mentioned in the requirements.
  • Lab reports are a kind of scientific writing that provides details about experiments, their methodology and their results.

Challenges in Scientific Writing:

Sometimes writing fails to disseminate the actual thoughts or work of a scientist and the following could be the main reason behind those bad scientific writings [03].

  • Lack of Incentive
  • Lack of Interests
  • Faulty or Artificial Style

Lack of Appreciation:

  • This is common for house-readers who do not get any incentive for reading instead they are afraid to give sincere comments on their colleague’s writings.
  • They fear that they might hurt their colleagues’ feelings and that if they give comments, the writer could also give comments in return when their own paper comes up.
  • Sometimes correcting bad writing is also considered disrespectful to the author so even editors avoid making corrections in the writing of well-known authors.
  • The solution to avoid this problem is to use a double-blind review in which the author and reviewer of the writing are kept hidden.

Lack of Interests:

  • A lack of interest in technical writing could be due to a lack of knowledge of the English language.
  • Writers whose English is not good often fail to express their work properly, leading to rejection of that writing. This problem can be overcome by hiring a proper editor who can edit your final draft because your work might be amazing and will be appreciated if published.

Faulty or Artificial Style:

  • Some writers are very much impressed by “Beautiful English” so they try to use complex words in their writing, which is unnecessary.
  • These florid writing styles sometimes lead to artificial or faulty style. In technical writing aside from technical terms, the thoughts of the author should be communicated in the simplest possible way while maintaining its technical aspects.

Key Elements of Scientific Writing:

Several key elements are involved in scientific writing which may lead to success or failure, therefore following points should be considered carefully before performing technical writing.

  • Be very precise in your writing. Avoid creating confusion.
  • Be very clear in explaining difficult topics and concepts.
  • Your proposition should always be based on facts, not on your emotions. Theoretical explanations, past experiences, and practical examples should be used.
  • The article should be well-structured
  • Only necessary detail should be included in your article try to exclude extraneous information. The reader should be able to easily follow what you are trying to explain (methodology, results, and logic) without being distracted by irrelevant facts and descriptions.
  • Try to increase the use of quantitative descriptions rather than qualitative descriptions.
  • Use plain English (but do not avoid the appropriate scientific terms). Understandable to your readers (scientists/specialists).
  • Use tables and figures for effective communication of major findings and insights.
  • Always provide context if you are going to present something new.
  • Always give references if you quote something from someplace else and try to reference the latest work more.
  • Follow a standard for listing all of your references.

Conclusion:

Scientific writing must use precise, concrete language to evaluate and explain scientific theories because science theories are also based on mathematical models, data sets or a combination of these two. Following the above guide will help you what scientific writing is and how can you use it for the betterment of science.

References:

  1. Blanka Frydrychova Klimova (2013). “Improving student’s scientific writing”. 2nd World Conference on Educational Technology Researches. Procedia, Social and Behavioral Sciences 83 (pp. 130 – 133).
  2. Jane Webster, Richard T. Watson (June 2002). “Analyzing the past to prepare for the future: writing a literature review”. MIS Quarterly Journal Volume 26, Issue 2 (pp. 13-23).
  3. Reubens, John B. (Dec. 1965, Current Ver.: 12 November 2007). “Challenge: Good Scientific Writing”. Transactions on Engineering Writing and Speech – IEEE, Volume 8, Issue: 2 (pp 48 – 55).
  4. Nathan Sheffield. (2011). “Graduate School Scientific Writing Resource”. Available: https://cgi.duke.edu/web/sciwriting/index.php?action=science_writing
  5. Wilfred Peh. (2007). “Scientific writing and publishing: its importance to radiologists”. Available: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3097672/
  6. The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2012). “Sciences”. Available: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/sciences/

George Gopen, Judith Swan (1990). “The Science of Scientific Writing”. Available: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-science-of-scientific-writing