Scientific writing

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Scientific writing
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• Scientific writing in a broad sense
• Have you ever written a scientific document?
• Have you ever written a non-scientific document?
• Was there a difference between the two?
• Was there any similarity between the two?

Scientific writing is harder because of the
technical nature of the topics (there are tips to
work on this)
Scientific writing also involves telling a story
(non-fiction) with a beginning, middle and end
and connected by logical flow of thoughts
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• When you wrote a scientific paper, what were the
  problems you faced?

• English language and grammar
• What should I include in the paper?
• What should I not include?
• Should I organize my paper or simply vomit out
  all my knowledge on the page?
• Am I telling a story?
• Am I aware of my audience?
• Why cant I seem to get started???

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English Grammar if you submit a document with
grammar/spelling mistakes, the reader cannot
focus on the science

• How many times have you given the first draft of
  a writing assignment to your advisor?
• Are you satisfied if the write-up is corrected
  for spelling and grammar mistakes and not much
  else?
• What to do?
• Wren and Martin
• Microsoft Word spell check (be careful)
• Exercises on the internet
• http//www.writing.eng.vt.edu/exercises/
• Many others
• Ask your friends to read your assignments

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Why bother?

• Communication of your results
• Poor communication can screw up the most
  fascinating scientific findings
• Most common excuse You would have understood it
  if you knew Chemical Engineering (or Biophysics
  or Behavioral Biology or Psycho-neuro-immunology)
  
• Communication!

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• THE EASY WAY OUT OF SCIENTIFIC WRITING
  DIFFICULTIES PLAGIARISM!!!
• What is it?
• Have you ever done it? Ctrl C Ctrl V
• Why is it bad?

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Some ways to avoid plagiarism Understand and
paraphrase
Say it in your own words

• Three blind mice, three blind mice
• See how they run, see how they run
• They all ran after the farmers wife
• Who cut off their tails with a carving knife
• Did you ever see such a thing in your life?
• As three blind mice.
• Also check out http//owl.english.purdue.edu/hand
  outs/research/r_paraphr.html

Use quotes 10 max (cant do this for entire
paragraphs!)
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How is a scientific paper usually organized?

• Introduction
• Materials Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• References

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Why this organization?

• It is based on the scientific method
• Asking questions based on observations
• Looking for sources that might help answer the
  questions
• Developing possible explanations (hypotheses)
• Designing experiments to test the hypotheses

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Predicting what the outcome of the experiment
will be if the hypothesis is correct Collecting
data Organizing data to help interpret
results Developing possible explanations for the
experimental results Revising original
hypotheses to take into account new findings
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Designing new experiments to test the new
hypotheses (or other expts to support old
hypothesis) Sharing findings with other
scientists
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The scientific method Non-linear and dynamic A
theory must be falsifiable It is easy to prove
a theory wrong but very difficult to prove it
correct (this often shows up in scientific
writing style ..use of this suggests)
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The biggest benefit of good scientific
writingBecause scientific writing is based on
the scientific method and logical flow of ideas,
improving the quality of writing actually
improves the quality of thought.
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The paper could be organized
Introduction Materials and Methods Results
Discussion
Start off with the big picture broad Narrow
down the focus Extremely narrow Broaden the
focus
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Introduction

• Background (how much?) enough for the reader to
  understand the rest of the paper
• Why is this topic interesting?
• What are objectives of the study?
• Why were these objectives chosen?

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Methods

• What is the purpose of the Methods section? To
  provide enough information for another researcher
  to repeat the experiment
• A careful balance between excessive detail and
  not enough detail
• What are standard techniques?
• If you have a writing block, write this section
  first because it is easy

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Results

• Description of the experimental findings
• Depiction of data in ways that are easy to
  understand (Tables, figures, graphs, etc)
• Dealing with variability (statistics)
• No interpretation of data at this stage unless it
  is Results Discussion
• If you are still in state of writers block, do
  results section after methods. It is simply a
  description of your results

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Discussion

• For many first time science writers, this is
  simply the Results section paraphrased
• Discussion has to go beyond the results
• Interpretation of data
• Comparison with other peoples findings
• Is my work consistent/inconsistent with previous
  work?
• What new ideas and future prospects can be
  envisioned?

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Abstract

• Advertisement for the paper
• Short and snappy
• Interesting
• Summarize the entire paper in a very limited
  number of words
• Tough! Do it last

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References

• Use reference manager software
• Use reference manager software
• Use reference manager software
• Reference wherever you are stating information
  from a source

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Characteristics of Effective Technical
Communicationhttp//www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/tsw
/eff-char.htm
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• Good technical communication is
• accurate,
• clear,
• concise,
• coherent, and
• appropriate.

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Accuracy

• Accuracy, which is the careful conforming to
  truth or fact, has three main aspects
• Document accuracy
• the proper coverage of your topics in appropriate
  detail
• focus clearly on a problem
• a clear problem statement and by a preliminary
  outline
• Stylistic accuracy
• careful use of language to express meaning
  (paragraph and sentence structure and word
  choice)
• drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading
• Technical accuracy
• a technically accurate understanding and
  representation of the subject
• the writer's conceptual mastery of the subject
  and its vocabulary, as well as on his or her
  ability to analyze and shape data with a minimum
  of distortion

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Clarity

• Clarity, which refers to ease of understanding,
  is a special problem in science and technology
  writing.
• Document clarity
• make it easy for the reader to get the large
  picture
• use abstracts and other forecasting strategies
  such as introductions that state the purpose and
  scope of the document
• tables of contents, problem statements, and even
  strategic repetition
• graphs and tables
• descriptive titles and frequent subject headings
  guide readers and help keep the large picture in
  focus
• Stylistic clarity is promoted by simple, direct
  language.
• Contextual clarity
• the importance and implications of your work
• What prompts you to write? What is your purpose?
  Whose work precedes or has influenced yours? What
  is the organizational and intellectual context of
  your problem?

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Conciseness

• The concise document is a piece of writing that
  conveys only the needed material.
• Document conciseness
• focus, the narrowing of document scope to a
  manageable problem and response
• preparing a clear introduction and developing a
  detailed outline are two strategies that give you
  control over document length and scope.
• graphics are powerful aids to conciseness
• Conciseness requires careful revising. Look for
  ways of cutting useless words, sentences, and
  sections from the document.

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Appropriateness

• Make your document appropriate to your goals in
  writing it, your audience's purpose in reading
  it, and the specific institutional contexts in
  which it is written and read.

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Coherence

• Coherence is the quality of hanging together, of
  providing the reader an easily followed path.
• easy to understand, having a good flow or
  readability
• make the material logically and stylistically
  consistent by organizing and expressing ideas in
  specific patterns
• efforts to emphasize the relationships among the
  elements of a document strengthen its impact
• coherence is especially valued in science and
  technology because of the inherent complexity of
  the subjects

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OUTLINE

• Before you start writing the document
• Helps in almost all the points of clarity,
  coherence, accuracy, etc
• It is in short sentences and points so gives a
  start for writers block
• Useful for getting feedback from others (short
  so easy to evaluate and if there are huge
  problems, can be rectified before writing 40
  pages)

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• The Science of Scientific Writing
• If the reader is to grasp what the writer
  means, the writer must understand what the reader
  needs.
• George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan
• American Scientist (Nov-Dec 1990), Volume 78,
  550-558.

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Coherence or flow

• Readers do not simply read they interpret.
• e.g. a simple table
• t (time)15', T (temperature)32º, t0', T25º
  t6', T29º t3', T27º t12', T32º t9'
  T31º
• time (min) temperature(ºC)
• 0 25
• 27
• 29
• 9 31
• 12 32
• 15 32

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What happens when we invert the columns of the
table?

• Temperature (ºC) time (min)
• 25 0
• 27 3
• 29 6
• 31 9
• 32 12
• 15
• Is it harder to read? Why?

Expectation
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Sentences should have an ordered flow to convey
meaning
Did you ever see such a thing in your life? As
three blind mice. They all ran after the farmers
wife Three blind mice, three blind mice Who cut
off their tails with a carving knife See how they
run, see how they run
Three blind mice, three blind mice See how they
run, see how they run They all ran after the
farmers wife Who cut off their tails with a
carving knife Did you ever see such a thing in
your life? As three blind mice.
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Evaluate these paragraphs for the topics we
discussed

• The flow of electrical current can induce the
  migration of impurities or other defects through
  the bulk of a solid. This process is called
  electromigration. In simple electromigration, the
  force on the defect is thought to have two
  components. The first component is the force
  created by direct interaction between the
  effective charge of the defect and the electric
  field that drives the current. The second
  component, called the "wind force," is the force
  caused by the scattering of electrons at the
  defect.
• --J.A. Stroscio and D.M. Eigler, "Atomic and
  Molecular Manipulation with the Scanning
  Tunneling Microscope," Science

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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. The functional significance of the other
URF's has been, on the contrary, elusive.
Recently, however, immunoprecipitation
experiments with antibodies to purified,
rotenone-sensitive NADH-ubiquinone
oxido-reductase hereafter referred to as
respiratory chain NADH dehydrogenase or complex
I from bovine heart, as well as enzyme
fractionation studies, have indicated that six
human URF's (that is, URF1, URF2, URF3, URF4,
URF4L, and URF5, hereafter referred to as ND1,
ND2, ND3, ND4, ND4L, and ND5) encode subunits of
complex I. This is a large complex that also
contains many subunits synthesized in the
cytoplasm.
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Coherence throughout the document

• Individual sentences in each paragraph should
  flow
• Paragraphs should flow
• Sections should flow
• Then the entire document will flow

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Writing a scientific document

• Outline
• Get feedback on your outline from friends/advisor
• Start writing the MM and Results
• Write the Intro, Discussion and Abstract
• Give the document to friends for initial feedback
  and spelling/grammar corrections
• Give document to advisor for comments
• Revise, correct, edit
• When you cant stand looking at it any more, put
  it away for a few days
• Revise, correct, edit
• When you are sick to death of the document,
  submit it
• Whole process can take a month or more. Last
  minute write-ups are bad and it shows!

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Some useful websites

• http//classweb.gmu.edu/biologyresources/writinggu
  ide/ScientificPaper.htm
• http//www.amstat.org/publications/jcgs/sci.pdf
• http//www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/research/pap
  er.html
• http//members.verizon.net/vze3fs8i/air/airpaper.
  html (funny!)
• How to write your PhD thesis
• http//www.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/thesis.html