Dr. Burford Reiskind’s writing tips for scientific writing!

Things to cogitate on while crafting your reports:

A few of the examples below are from Robert A. Day’s book: Scientific English: A Guide for Scientists and Other Professionals.

Passive voice

Typically I found a lot of passive voice both in describing the papers and when referencing the studies – you should avoid it.  Use active voice.  For example: “Martha (subject) laughed at Bill (object)” (active voice) vs. “Bill (object) was laughed at by Martha (subject)” (passive voice).  When you reference a study try to avoid passive voice.  This is a common mistake.

Wordiness

Scientific writing requires concise and succinct sentences, to a point.  You will avoid wordiness by using active voice rather than passive voice.  Get rid of all unnecessary words.

References

References should be used to back up your statements or to convey ideas or both.  As you are discussing the articles, make sure you write about their findings in your own words and reference it to the paper.  Please limit or eliminate any quotes from the article report.  When you reference a paper within the text follow the examples below as outlined in your syllabus:

Connell et al. (1980) reported that diseased urchins…

Several studies found genetic patchiness in marine organisms with pelagic larvae (Hedgecock et al. 1994, Edmonds et al. 1996, Palumbi 2003, Burford & Larson 2007).

Note: there are no commas between the name and date.

Pronouns

“They analyzed x…” is better than “X was analyzed by this study in Ano Nuevo.”  They analyzed the effects of diseased individuals …is better than Diseased individuals and the effects of drug trials were analyzed in a study conducted in… I know it feels weird to do this, but you will get used to it.  It makes your message clear and concise.  Trust me.

Tense issues

There are four “tense” rules in scientific writing that sometimes result in tense changes within the same sentence – don’t panic.  There are a few exceptions to these rules.

(1) Established knowledge are given in the present tense

(2) Description of methods or results in your current paper are given in the past tense

(3) Tables and Figures are described in the present tense – Table 1 shows that….

(4) References to other studies are described in the past tense – Connell et al. (1980) reported that…

Syntax

Take a deep breath and try to remain calm when I tell you that there is a proper order to a sentence.  Modifiers should be as close as possible to the words, phrases, or clauses that they modify. The worst offender is the dangling participial (often a phrase).  You should become intimate with this one so you can avoid it.  Day shares his favorite dangling participial in his book:

“Lying on top of the intestine, you can perhaps make out a thin transparent thread.”

The participial phrase “lying on top of the intestine” is modifying “thread” and should be next to it.  When you are constructing your sentence make sure you are not misplacing modifiers.  Read sentences out loud to hear the mistakes.

 

DO NOT rely on the grammar check, because it doesn’t catch all mistakes and can be wrong.

READ YOUR PAPER OUT LOUD AT LEAST ONCE BEFORE YOU TURN IT IN!!!!!