How to write science?

I'm lucky to have access to great teaching at the University and to receive comments from colleagues along the way. I hope I'll be able to make use of all this information!

At first it seems quite a challenge starting to write a scientific article. What makes it scientific and how can you write so that my message will be understood? I thought I'd list here some of my favorite writing tips I've gotten so far. What are your tips? I'd be happy to hear them.

Getting to the point

It seems to be common among researchers to write long (and often, to be honest, boring) texts. In my opinion, if you want to write descriptive stories you should perhaps sign up a creative writing class, not a doctoral school in science.

Whether I will remember to follow this tip in my own article, of course, remains to be seen... Easily I can write several paragraphs to describe something - just as I think it's so interesting what I'm working on. But the truth is that not everyone thinks that way. To be scientific one should be precise and to the point, at least that's what they say.

 

Well planned is half-way done

To be honest, I did not really follow this one through. I started my PhD in a research group with a ready-made research plan where I could just jump in and bring in some of my own thoughts while most of the plan was already "carved in stone" when I started.

If I could start over, I would first sit down and think what topic fascinates me the most in the field, and I'd pick a research idea that is truly something I'm ready to put all the hours in for. However, I still think it's good to be part of a group. You get to share ideas and work on things together. That's what I personally like a lot - you know you are not alone even when you get stuck.

 

Correcting the "speling mistakes"

To be able to follow one's text, and to be taken seriously, it's important to write in proper English. It's surprising but I have found myself reading (even published) work that's really hard to follow. No matter how exciting the topic would be, I will probably stop reading before reaching the main point of the text.

Learn from the experienced

I have read several articles by an evolutionary biologist in my field, Andrew Hendry, based in McGill, Canada. He has published his tips about writing and I like his ideas. They can be found here: http://redpath-staff.mcgill.ca/hendry/writingtips.pdf