Scientific Writing

Recently, I took an online class-“Writing in the Sciences” in Coursera lectured by Kristin Sainani at Stanford University; the class focuses on how to write a scientific paper effectively. In the first half of the eight-week class, Dr. Sainani encourages good writing by giving tips on grammar, explaining how to cut the clutter, reviewing examples, and using an active voice. In the second half, topics such as original manuscripts, the review process, authorship, and communication with non-science folks are examined. I strongly recommend the course not only because it is easy to kill your academic career by poor writing, but also because it is hard to excel in writing.

A series of articles-“Guide to Scientific Writing“-by Clinical Chemistry also provides an A to Z approach to scientific paper writing. The series explains how to write different sections of a paper: introduction, methods, results, and discussion, together with advice on how to make good figures and tables. The articles are short (4-6 pages) and publicly available.

Posted 20th November 2012 by Ozgur Keles