Scientific Writing Style: Ten Tips

Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing

Tip One: Reduce passive voice to increase clarity and conciseness.

● “It was found that” vs. “I/We found”

● “Lactate was produced by S. Aureus” vs. “S. Aureus produced lactate”

Note: Examples adapted from Robert A. Day. How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper. Fifth Edition.

Tip Two: Watch out for tenses.

Present tense if you are quoting published research results: “Streptomycin inhibits the growth of M. Tuberculosis.”

Past tense if you are citing your (as yet) unpublished research results: “Streptomycin inhibited the growth of M. Tuberculosis.”

Tip Three: Avoid nominaphilia (unnatural love of nouns).

Turn abstract nouns into verbs: (“separation of the compounds was accomplished” vs. “the compounds were separated.”)

Rewrite adjective noun strings into active sentences: “Infected tissue culture response” vs. “the culture of infected tissue responded to X.” or “the tissue culture responded to X by becoming infected.”

Tip Four: Transitions are your friends.

To show cause (thus, consequently, therefore, as a result)

To show contrast (conversely, on the other hand, in contrast, on the contrary, but, however)

To show chronology (then, next, after, before, while) To show addition (in addition, likewise, similarly) To introduce the last or most important item (finally,

moreover, furthermore). To introduce an example (for example, specifically,

namely, for instance)

Tip Five: Embedded transitions are your best buddies.

Smith found X: 1) “Extending Smith’s work, our study suggests that…” 2) “Building on Smith’s work, we can extrapolate that…”3) “We can extrapolate from Smith’s findings that…”4) “In contrast to Smith, we found…”

Tip Six: Unnecessary words are your enemies.

“has been engaged in a study of” vs. “has studied”

“are of the same opinion” vs. “agree” “at some future time” vs. “later” “because of the fact that” vs. “because” “it was observed in the course of experiments

that” vs. “we observed that”

Tip Seven: Use subheadings and topic sentences to clarify your organization.

Ask yourself:

Can my readers get the point of my article by

reading the subheadings and the first

sentences of every paragraph?

Tip Eight: Vary your sentences.

1) “Too many short sentences can decrease

readability. Short sentences often begin with a

subject and verb. You can increase readability

by varying how you start your sentences. You

can also increase readability by combining

sentences.”

2) “To increase readability, a writer should reduce the

number of monotonous sentences by combining sentences and by varying sentence beginnings.”

Tip Nine: Read your work aloud.

If it’s hard to say, it’s hard to read!

Tip Ten: Make your copy editor happy!

Always follow a journal’s particularstyle and documentation rules.