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Becoming a Scientific Writer (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Written Word)
- 1. Becoming a Scientific Writer (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Written Word) Karen L. McKee USGS Scientist Emeritus (retired) Twitter: @scivideographer
- 6. Writing
- 8. Writing Tedious Chore? or Enjoyable Task?
- 9. Becoming a Scientific Writer (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Written Word) Karen L. McKee USGS Scientist Emeritus (retired) Twitter: @scivideographer
- 10. First, distill your message.
- 11. First, distill your message. Distilling Process Main finding + Significance Single Sentence
- 12. Message in a Bottle
- 13. Message in a Bottle
- 14. First, distill your message.
- 15. Always keep the reader in mind.
- 16. Always keep the reader in mind. Comprehension = Content + Structure
- 17. Always keep the reader in mind. Comprehension = Content + Structure Use Simple Language
- 18. Always keep the reader in mind. Comprehension = Content + Structure Use Simple Language Diction Syntax
- 20. “The smallest of the URF’s (URFA6L), a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.”
- 21. “The smallest of the URF’s (URFA6L), a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.”
- 22. “The smallest of the URF’s (URFA6L) has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.”
- 23. Writing Principles (Gopen & Swan 1990) 1. Follow a grammatical subject as soon as possible with its verb. 2. Place in the stress position the "new information" you want the reader to emphasize. 3. Place the person or thing whose "story" a sentence is telling at the beginning of the sentence, in the topic position. 4. Use active vs. passive voice. 5. Place appropriate "old information" (material already stated in the discourse) in the topic position for linkage backward and contextualization forward. 6. Articulate the action of every clause or sentence in its verb. 7. In general, provide context for your reader before asking that reader to consider anything new. 8. In general, try to ensure that the relative emphases of the substance coincide with the relative expectations for emphasis raised by the structure.
- 24. Develop your unique (scientific) voice.
- 25. Develop your unique (scientific) voice.
- 26. Develop your unique (scientific) voice. Active or Passive?
- 27. Develop your unique (scientific) voice. “In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have turned their attention to the problem of rising sea level and its effects on coastal communities. In this article, we describe a standardized method to assess relative vulnerability of coastal areas to sea-level rise.”
- 28. Develop your unique (scientific) voice. “In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have turned their attention to the problem of rising sea level and its effects on coastal communities. In this article, we describe a standardized method to assess relative vulnerability of coastal areas to sea-level rise.” “Sea level is rising and threatening coastal communities worldwide, but some areas are at greater risk of flooding than others. Which ones? To answer this question, we developed a standardized method to assess relative vulnerability of coastal areas to sea-level rise.”
- 29. Develop your unique (scientific) voice. “In recent years, an increasing number of researchers have turned their attention to the problem of rising sea level and its effects on coastal communities. In this article, we describe a standardized method to assess relative vulnerability of coastal areas to sea-level rise.” “Sea level is rising and threatening coastal communities worldwide, but some areas are at greater risk of flooding than others. Which ones? To answer this question, we developed a standardized method to assess relative vulnerability of coastal areas to sea-level rise.” General topic Specific problem Solution
- 30. Develop your unique (scientific) voice.
- 31. Develop your unique (scientific) voice.
- 32. Be aware of narrative structure.
- 33. Be aware of narrative structure. “We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.”
- 34. Be aware of narrative structure. “We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.” IMRaD [I]ntroduction [M]ethods [R]esults [D]iscussion [a]nd
- 35. IMRaD [I]ntroduction [M]ethods [R]esults [D]iscussion [a]nd What I set out to study and why How I did it What I found What I think it means Story Be aware of narrative structure.
- 36. Abstract: Aim, methods, main result, interpretation, significance Title Figures Be aware of narrative structure.
- 37. Silence your internal critic. Ideas first Revise later
- 39. Be a reviewer.
- 40. Write every day.
- 41. Writing is an essential skill.
- 42. Writing is an essential skill.
- 46. Becoming a Scientific Writer (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Written Word) Karen L. McKee USGS Scientist Emeritus (retired) Twitter: @scivideographer
Editor's Notes
- This PhD comic strip is a great illustration of how many novice writers feel. If we are honest, most of us would admit to feeling frustration at one time or another when trying to write. But we rarely question why this frustration happens or what can be done about it.
- In undergraduate and graduate school, writing assignments generally give you some basic skills.
- But making the transition from student to science professional and published author requires a lot more in the way of writing ability.
- My first major writing experience was my master’s thesis. It was a terrible experience. I struggled through the entire process. Although I finished my thesis and graduated, I was so devastated by the experience that I seriously questioned whether I was cut out to be a scientist.
- Many science professionals receive no formal training in scientific writing, which was especially true of my generation. We were expected to pick it up as we went along. Without training or a really good mentor, however, writing can be a struggle, as I discovered.
- And, there is a greater chance that writing can become viewed as a tedious chore--something you have to do to be a successful scientist.
- Imagine how much better things would be if writing were something you actually looked forward to and enjoyed? This latter condition should be your goal as a scientific writer.
- In this presentation, I’m going to describe some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way that helped me become a better writer and, moreover, how I learned to love the process of writing.
- One useful lesson I learned was to distill my work down to a single, clear message before beginning to write. Many science professionals make the mistake of starting with a laundry list of results and fail to identify a clear message. This approach can hamper the writing process and ultimately confuse the reader as to what you are trying to say.
- So I learned to distill my message before beginning to write. In the distilling process, I decide what my main finding is and its significance and try to put it into a single sentence.
- I like to think of it as a message in a bottle. What would I write so that a colleague finding the bottle would understand it?
- If you can express your message in a single, clear sentence, you are ready to write: Often, such a sentence can be used with minor modification as the title of the paper.
- But the main purpose of distilling is to make sure you you see the big picture before starting to write. You may have multiple points to make in a paper, but having an overall message in mind will keep you on track as you write.
- Another lesson I learned was to always write with the reader in mind. When someone considers a piece of information, their comprehension depends not only on the content but how that content is structured. Your reader must expend energy taking in your information. You can make it easy for the reader to grasp the substance or you can make it difficult by using tortuous language. I learned to use simpler language, which greatly improved the clarity of my writing. By simple, I don’t mean simplistic. Simple means easy to understand or uncomplicated. A lot of scientific writing is so dense it takes two or three readings to understand what the authors are trying to say. Novice writers often attempt to emulate this bloated, pretentious style. You do not want to do this. But how do you learn to write simply and clearly?
- Another lesson I learned was to always write with the reader in mind. When someone considers a piece of information, their comprehension depends not only on the content but how that content is structured. Your reader must expend energy taking in your information. You can make it easy for the reader to grasp the substance or you can make it difficult by using tortuous language.
- I learned to use simpler language, which greatly improved the clarity of my writing. By simple, I don’t mean simplistic. Simple means easy to understand or uncomplicated. But how do you learn to write simply and clearly?
- I’m talking about diction (choice of words) and syntax (how words are arranged in a sentence). A lot of scientific writing is so dense it takes two or three readings to understand what the authors are trying to say. Novice writers often attempt to emulate this bloated, pretentious style. You do not want to do this. But how do you learn to write simply and clearly?
- An excellent resource that helped me is this paper: The Science of Scientific Writing by Gopen and Swan. It essentially breaks down sentence and paragraph structure to reveal basic rules of clear scientific discourse.
- Let’s look at just one example of some abstruse scientific prose and how Gopen and Swan recommend revising it. You might think that the main problem with this sentence is the unfamiliar terminology and the length—42 words. However, you would still have difficulties even if you know the terminology. Gopen and Swan argue that one of the main problems with this sentence is subject-verb separation.
- There are 21 words between the subject “smallest” and the verb “has been identified”. A lot of intervening words greatly reduces comprehension.
- By simply moving the subject and verb closer together, you can enhance comprehension. This version is easier to understand and uses fewer words. The authors have identified the smallest unit in animal DNA analogous to a previously described gene in yeast that codes for an important enzyme in energy metabolism. Just by paying attention to subject-verb placement, you can improve the clarity of your writing.
- Gopen and Swan go on in their paper to describe a whole series of structural adjustments that improve clarity. The example I just gave is the first one in this list I’ve extracted from their paper. I kept this list above my desk for many years and referred to it often.
- Another aspect of writing is voice, which is the unique manner in which an author puts words together.
- This aspect is typically ignored by scientists in their writing—mainly because modern scientific writing is designed to strip out anything that indicates a human wrote it.
- At most, someone writing a scientific paper might ponder whether to use active vs. passive voice. But the scientific writer’s voice is much more than that—it’s taking the same words that everyone else uses and putting them together in a way that is original.
- Let’s look at an example of the scientific writer’s voice. This is a hypothetical paper that begins the way many other papers begin. You’re probably thinking what’s wrong with this? It’s understandable and clearly written. Yes, but the wording is indistinguishable from dozens of other papers on the subject and sounds stale and boring. Also, who cares what researchers have been doing in recent years?
- Here’s another way to start this paper. I think you can see the difference. This second construction not only focuses on the scientific topic rather than researchers, but articulates it in a way that sounds fresher and more original than the first version.
- Also, I’ve restated things first as a general issue, then as a specific problem followed by the solution that will be described in the paper. That simple change can make a reader more interested in reading further.
- When I wrote my first papers, I was not thinking about developing a unique voice or style of writing. I emulated the style of scientific writers I admired, which helped me learn to write, but made my papers sound like everyone else’s.
- With time and experience, though, I developed my writing voice, one that reflects my distinct choice of words and how I use language to express myself. By the way, this was when I began enjoying the process of writing—when my own voice emerged and I used it to try to write papers that people might actually enjoy reading and could get a glimpse of me, the author.
- Another aspect of technical writing that gets short shrift is narrative structure, essentially how we tell the story of our research. Early scientific papers told great stories and explained things using simple language. Watson & Crick’s famous 1953 paper in Nature describing the structure of DNA is one example.
- They not only told a good story, they explained things with simple, straightforward writing.
- In the modern scientific paper, we typically use the more formal IMRAD structure-in which the paper is broken into sections: introduction, methods, results, and discussion. This structure helps organize things and makes scientific papers more consistent. However, we often write these as separate sections and not necessarily in this order, which can make us lose sight of the fact that we are actually building a narrative…that these sections are actually connected parts of a storyline. I see a lot of student writing that displays narrative blindness.
- Take the blinders off, though, and you can see that you are telling a story. You are leading the reader along the path you took in conducting your study and interpreting the outcome. It’s important to be aware of narrative structure because it is key to making your story clear to the reader.
- Key components of a paper can be designed to repeat the storyline. The title, the abstract, and the figures can all be designed to recapitulate your story. All this ensures that you have a clear and consistent narrative—a story that is apparent even to the casual reader.
- If you are struggling to get the words from your head to computer, it sometimes helps to silence your internal critic. Some people get blocked when they try to write each sentence perfectly the first time. The way to silence that internal critic is to write without worrying about grammar or punctuation or picking just the right word. Get your ideas down first and then go back and revise later.
- Another important lesson I learned was to spend time analyzing how other authors write. Pick papers that you think are particularly well written and reverse-engineer them. How did they start their introduction? Did it grab your attention? How did it grab your attention? How did they build the discussion to a logical conclusion?
- Actually, it’s not enough to read good papers and try to emulate them. You need to understand what mistakes bad writers make. Reviewing papers for journals will expose you to a variety of poor scientific writing and over time, you’ll begin to see patterns—the same mistakes made over and over—mistakes that you can avoid.
- The last lesson I’ll share is that I learned to write every day. Daily practice is obviously essential for a musician but it’s no less important for the writer. The only way to become a better writer is to write—a lot. Set aside time, even if it’s just an hour, to write every day. And I’m not talking about Tweeting or texting. Practice scientific writing. Don’t wait until you have all your data in hand to begin writing a paper. Start writing up your methods when you start a project and then continue writing as your results come in. You may change things later during revisions, but the job will not seem so overwhelming. Also, practice will get you comfortable with writing.
- In conclusion, being able to effectively communicate your science through writing is a key skill that all science professionals must have to succeed. That’s a given. And has been true since the beginning of science publishing.
- Even though writing is essential, it should not be a tedious chore like washing glassware.
- Despite the problems writing my master’s thesis, there was a happy ending to that story.
- Despite the problems writing my master’s thesis, there was a happy ending to that story. I eventually published that research in a journal, much to the amazement of my major advisor
- I did not leave science and I went on to write many more papers over my career. I learned to love writing, and this attitude adjustment made a huge difference in the quality of my papers.
- I hope those of you just starting out find my lessons useful as you transition from consumer of science information to scientific writer and published author.