Getting What you want from your science writing

Focus: Science Writing

Getting What You Want from Your Science Writing

Clear writing is an essential ingredient of any communication and especially scientific communication. For example, in Science, we don't encourage clear writing, we insist on it.
—Dr. Alan Leshner, CEO, AAAS (1)

By Michele Arduengo, Ph.D.
Promega Corporation

Published in July 2007

Introduction

Good science writing is like good writing in any discipline, the writing communicates an idea or concept to the reader in a clear fashion. The goal of the science writer is not to sound smart or elitist by using vague verbs and abstract nouns that make the reader search for meaning in the text. Instead, the goal of the science writer is to explain scientific concepts and ideas clearly and engage the reader.

So, good science writing, like any writing, is not evaluated on how many multi-syllable words it contains or how impressive it sounds; good writing is evaluated on the reader’s response to the writing. Did the target reader understand the message? Could the reader remember the message? Could the reader follow the instructions successfully or make the necessary decision? Did the reader do what you wanted (i.e., sign off on your dissertation or fund your grant)?

Becoming a world-recognized novelist or highly acclaimed science writer requires talent in addition to basic writing skills. However, most of us can improve our general writing skills by applying a few basic principles to what we write. Below are ten simple principles that you can use to make your writing projects more effective.

1. Know your audience, purpose and desired outcome.

One way to find out if you have succeeded (in writing clearly) is to show your draft to colleagues in other specialties. If they do not understand it, neither, very probably, will The Lancet's staff. —The Lancet (1)

Audience. No matter how precisely and deliberately you write about your science, your efforts are wasted if the members of your target audience do not understand what you wrote. For instance, you probably didn’t communicate the message you intended, and you certainly did not achieve your goal, if a journal editor sends you a copy of Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, along with your rejected manuscript.

Ask yourself when your readers will encounter your work. If you are writing something that will be read at the lab bench, you probably need to use a “modular” approach and create sections that can stand alone. Your text may need to be written in numbered steps. You will want your writing to be as concise as possible so that it can be understood at a glance. If your writing is intended for more leisurely reading, you can use longer sentences and paragraphs, and you can create a piece that leads the reader from beginning to end, with the assumption that the reader will read the entire document.

I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning and inhibit clarity. —Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes)

Purpose. Why are you writing this document? Your purpose will dictate much of your writing style and organization. For instance, a piece that is primarily educational may be organized around a main theme with several supporting points. If you are creating a protocol for a new technique, your writing will probably involve a chronological series of steps. If you are trying to convince people of the quality of your science, you might organize your writing by stating your hypothesis and countering each argument or objection to that hypothesis. If you are trying to get published in a particular journal, the instructions to authors will tell you whether or not your results and discussion should be combined, whether methods will be part of figure legends or a separate text, and how long your abstract should be.

Your purpose will also keep you on track. If you are writing a paper to discuss the use of cell-free protein synthesis systems to study the endoplasmic reticulum degradation pathway, you probably don’t need a diversion into the details of the intrinsic apoptotic pathway. As you write and review, evaluate each sentence to see if it contributes to the topic or the purpose of the document.

Desired Outcome. If this piece of writing were perfectly crafted, what would be the outcome of your target audience reading it? Would your grant be funded? Would your paper be published in Science or Nature without revision? Would all of your committee members approve on your dissertation and heap unqualified praise upon you at the conclusion of your defense? If you write with the outcome in mind, you are more likely to achieve it. For instance, if you really want your paper in Cell, follow their instructions to authors. If you want your grant funded, be sure you build your case by using the appropriate rationale, clearly stating your credentials, and clearly describing what you intend to do with the funds.

2. Read the instructions to authors and follow them.

An editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association was asked by a participant in a writing workshop what one thing authors should do to increase their chances of being published. Her reply: “Read the instructions to authors and FOLLOW them.” The same sage advice applies to grant applications and dissertations. Many institutions and publishers will specify a particular style such as AMA, ACS or CSE. Make sure you have a copy of the latest edition of that style guide by your side while you write. You might even want to refer to it occasionally, especially for referencing and citation styles.

The instructions to authors usually contain information about submitting figures and artwork as well. You will probably want to check on preferred file types and minimum resolution accepted. Some journals have specific instructions regarding the kinds of enhancements and adjustments that you can make to electronic figures, and some may even request your original unedited images in an attempt to discourage research fraud (2).

3. Use correct grammar and punctuation.

Grammatical constructions and punctuation provide important information to your readers about the relationships between words and ideas in your writing.

Consider this dedication found in the front page of a book:

To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

Wow, what a pedigree! In this instance adding the serial comma changes the meaning significantly: To my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.

Here’s a headline that illustrates further the way punctuation can affect meaning:

Teacher strikes idle kids.

Well, perhaps the idle kids deserved what they got, but adding a comma or a semicolon makes a world of difference: Teacher strikes; idle kids.

Or, for a more mundane example, consider:

These particles do not bind nucleic acid and plasmid DNA remains in the supernatant.

To be grammatically correct, this compound sentence needs a comma before “and”. Otherwise, your reader trips on the first read, thinking that the particles do not bind nucleic acid and plasmid DNA, but hey, wait, isn’t plasmid DNA a nucleic acid? The reader is forced to reread the sentence in order to understand that it contains two independent thoughts.

Don’t make your readers work that hard.

4. Do the Math.

You may be asked to write information that involves calculations or statistics. Check and recheck your math. Consider this slogan on a bottle of grape soda:

Two liters, 50% more than one liter!

Although it’s easy to shake our heads and lament the prevalence of such “marketing math” in our society, these errors are easy to make. So, when you give the volumes of individual components used in a reaction, make sure that they actually add up to the final reaction volume that you provide.

When reporting statistics, know whether or not your data are normally distributed and what that means for reporting the statistics. If you are reporting a linear regression value and are providing a graph of the same data, make sure your line is a curve-fit and not a point-to-point line. If your data are categorical, do not plot them as a continuous line. I highly recommend How to Report Statistics in Medicine by Lang and Secic as a resource for anyone reporting statistical analyses of data (3).

5. Use, but do not trust, spell-check programs.

Spell-check programs are wonderful things for lousy typists like me. These programs are great at pointing out missed “opportunities”. However, these programs cannot replace a thorough proofreading. They will not catch problems with “their, there and they’re”, and they will not understand the difference between a “serial dilution” (a series of solutions, each one more dilute by a specific amount) and “cereal dilution” (too much milk).

Consider this gem that was published in a prominent biotech trade publication:

…if the reaction lights up within five to ten seconds, the probe matches the DNA. The system’s thermostable enemas allow reactions to occur at elevated temperatures, thus helping to reduce background noise.

The desired word was “enzymes”. The typo was “enazymes”, and the spell-check choices were enzymes, enamels and enemas. The copy editor chose “enemas”. Go figure.

Or there is this sentence from an e-mail that came my way:

The steam will be shut off on Friday afternoon April 1st. Sorry for incontinence this may cause. We will be in full operation on Tuesday.

The desired word, inconvenience, had been misspelled by the typist. The spell-check program automatically corrected it to incontinence.

And beware of dueling luciferases…

At 40 hours post-transfection, the cells were collected for duel luciferase assays (Promega).

The moral of the story is this. Use spell-check programs; they eliminate many errors, but do not rely on them. Nothing replaces thorough review and proofreading.

6. Use words that you understand.

Nothing will undermine your credibility as a scientist among your peers like misusing terms in your writing. When you write, avoid the temptation to pull out the Roget’s Thesaurus and use the synonym with the most syllables. Also, just because your advisor used a term in a seminar doesn’t mean it’s correct. If you do not know with certainty the exact meaning and connotation of a word, do not use it.

Consider these examples of often misused terms:

Initially the transformed E. coli cells were reticent to express the seven-pass transmembrane protein.

Who knew that bacteria were capable of self-awareness and reflection? “Reluctant” won’t work here either. Try something like: Initially, the seven-pass transmembrane protein could not be expressed in E. coli.

We used subtractive hybridization to hone in on genes that were shut down by drug treatment.

The correct word is “home”. “Hone” means to sharpen.

If you are writing information that will reach an audience for whom English is not the first language, watch the temptation to add interest to your writing by varying the word you use to describe a specific action or object. For instance don’t use “negative control”, “blank”, and “minus-treatment control” in one document to refer to the same thing. Translators may translate each phrase differently, creating a whole new meaning by the time they figure out a third term to use, and even native English speakers may wonder what the differences are among the three terms.

Watch the tendency to coin new phrases, particularly noun strings. Avoid phrases like “cell-death-causing mechanism” or the “fusion protein-containing medium”. Say it simply: “the mechanism of cell death”, the “medium containing the fusion protein.”

7. Use parallel structure.

Items and ideas of equal importance should be presented using equivalent grammatical structures. Notice that the tips for successful writing presented in this article are all presented as short phrases, beginning with verbs in the imperative voice. Items in a bulleted list should be parallel: all verbal phrases, all nouns, etc. Sentences, too, benefit from parallel construction. The construction signals to the reader that two things are of equal importance.

For instance consider this particularly bad sentence:

“Technical writing ranges from editing of online help files, document engineering, user's manual for software and hardware, to writing of product sheets and other product pertaining instructions.”

This sentence contains four items, presumably all of equal importance, yet two are presented as participles, one as a gerund, and one as noun. The reader has to strain to figure out what the writer is saying.

“Technical writing involves editing and writing many kinds of documents including online help files, user’s manuals, product information sheets, and product instructions.”

Or for a simpler example, consider:

The competitor’s protocol is both a long procedure and very tedious. Using parallel construction the sentence might read: The competitor’s protocol is both long and tedious.

8. Avoid unnecessary use of the passive voice.

In active voice writing, the subject of the sentence is performing the action. (The dog chased the ball). In passive voice, the subject is acted upon by the verb. (The ball was chased.) Active voice is more engaging than passive voice, and the actor and action are clearly stated for your reader. So, to borrow from Strunk and White (4), “prefer the active voice” when you write. However, passive voice is appropriate in certain situations. Materials and methods are often written in the passive voice, and sometimes when you wish to avoid assigning blame, passive voice is useful.

9. Rescue the verb!

Nominalizations, nouns made from verbs, dominate scholarly writing, and they are often associated with awkward passive constructions. Some nominalizations, like “drug discovery” are so much a part of the vernacular of a field that they should be left alone. However, writing often benefits from looking at nominalizations and “rescuing” the verb.

Consider the following examples:

Often, the challenge is selection of the best assay for inclusion into the secondary screening program.” (Selection and inclusion are both nouns made from verbs).

Rewrite: Often, the challenge is selecting the best assay to include in the secondary screening program.

A luminometer is therefore required for measurement of luciferase and subsequent establishment of ATP levels.

Rewrite: You will need a luminometer to measure luciferase activity and establish ATP levels.

This sentence was in a protocol, so in addition to fixing the nominalizations, I edited it to speak directly to the reader. I also corrected a minor error. The luminometer does not measure luciferase; it measures luciferase activity as indicated by light output. Good science writing is both clear and accurate.

10. Proofread and review your work.

Your first draft will need editing. All first drafts need editing. Let someone representative of your target audience read your writing. Tell that person what you hope to accomplish with the document, and ask for feedback. In the end, your writing will be more effective after careful proofreading and review.

References

Plain Language. http://www.plainlanguage.gov/resources/quotes/science.cfm (accessed June 22, 2007)
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Preparing initial figures for efficient submission. http://www.sciencemag.org/about/authors/prep/prep_subfigs.dtl (accessed June 22, 2007)
Lang, T.A. and Secic, M. (1997) How to Report Statistics in Medicine: Annotated Guidelines for Authors, Editors, and Reviewers. American College of Physicians, Philadephia, PA.
Strunk, W. and White, E.B. (1979) The Elements of Style, 3rd. edition, Boston, MA, Allyn and Bacon.

Focus: Science Writing