If you read my posts regularly, you know my opinion of the importance of style when writing. To create a good manuscript, it is insufficient to merely convey information; you also need to make your paper strong stylistically. This entails different tasks for different types of work; however, regarding scientific documents, there are standards you as a writer are expected to meet.
There are many reasons for rules in scientific writing. Sometimes they are intended to enhance comprehension, sometimes to increase formality, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. Nevertheless, when writing to a scientific audience, these standards are expected, and if you want your work to be published, you are well-advised to follow them. I made posts about this subject before, and here I intend to expand upon them. Here are the things to avoid when writing a formal paper.
There’s No ‘I’ in Science (and No ‘You,’ Either)
That title might not be 100% accurate, but when it comes to academic writing about science, this is a fundamental rule. It is poor form in a manuscript either to speak in the first person (“I write about proper word usage”) or directly to your reader in the second person (“You read my articles”). I can write directly to you here because this is not a formal piece, but academic writing demands a higher level of impersonal seriousness. Writing as yourself to the reader adds a level of subjectivity that is frowned upon in formal writing.
When some form of the pronoun must be used, the generally accepted format for a scientific manuscript is the perspective of the team conducting the research. For example, while it would be best to say, “The data were sufficient to reject the null hypothesis,” it would also be correct to say “We found the data sufficient to reject the null hypothesis.” On the other hand, it would be incorrect to say “I found the data sufficient to reject the null hypothesis.”
Avoid (Non-Scientific) Abbreviations
Another element of the formality demanded by scientific manuscripts is to avoid colloquially shortened language. In the post I linked above, I talk about how you should avoid contractions like isn’t for is not, can’t for can not, or it’s for it is. However, that is not the whole story. There is also an entire category of shortened words that even many native English speakers do not necessarily recognize as informal shortened language. Words like photo, phone, and flu are shortened versions of photograph, telephone, and influenza. It is essential to use the most exact word for what you are describing in a scientific manuscript.
Now, this does not mean abbreviated language is never allowed. Writing deoxyribonucleic acid instead of DNA would make your writing difficult to read and increase your word count needlessly. How do you balance specificity and efficiency in scientific writing? The best practice is to write out the full term the first time, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses. From then on in the paper, the abbreviation can be used alone.
Example:
“Our research concerned the examination of a new technique for sequencing deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). This method for sequencing DNA is expected to be far faster than any current procedure.”
Formal Does Not Mean Short
While formal writing means avoiding verbosity, figurative language, and unnecessary filler words, it does not mean you should write short, choppy sentences. Using too many short sentences can make your writing sound simplistic and informal. It is challenging to communicate complex subjects in short sentences as well. Respecting your reader’s ability to follow more complicated sentences (within reason) will make your formal writing easier to understand and sound more professional. That is not to say you should use jargon for jargon’s sake, but you can expect them to keep up if you are writing for an advanced audience.
This is all to say that, while writing formally and writing with good style are not the same, a good piece of academic writing needs to have a good style. This cannot be circumvented with verbosity or jargon. It merely takes practice. Writing frequently for various audiences is probably the best way to improve your style, as it forces you to focus more on your flow than following a template. For a longer piece on writing with good flow, read my previous post here.
Naturally, this is not an exhaustive guide for formal writing. It is only a few rules of thumb to keep in mind that will make your work more robust and more publishable.
To read more about grammar, style, and the ins and outs of scientific papers, visit my blog.
To get your scientific manuscript professionally edited and ready for publication, contact me.