Scientists are rarely taught how to write. Most science programs in university do not include writing courses, and few classes include much writing outside of lab reports. However, your communication skills are vital no matter which path you take in your career. Improving your science writing is one of the best steps you can take to power-up your career.
Here are five ways to improve your science writing skills.
Table of Contents
Research Your Science Writing a Ton
No matter where you are in your science career, what you are writing, or who you are writing for, you should probably be doing more research. Getting deeper into the field helps you sharpen your understanding, leading to more exact writing.
Where can you look to get deeper into the background? Here are a few ideas:
References section of academic papers: any time you read an academic paper that you like, make sure you look over the papers they reference. If you want to go further, you can pick out the names of authors who are referenced, and see if they have written anything recently.
“Cited by” tool: did you know that Google Scholar (and other scholarly search engines) shows you the academic papers that have cited a specific paper? Use this to find the most up-to-date articles on any topic!
YouTube: there are ton of webinars on YouTube in the post-pandemic era. You may not find anything, but if you do get lucky you could get high quality video content that is both engaging and informative.
As a note of caution, don’t use more research as a reason to write more. An introduction that is twice as long because it contains a long list of loosely related facts isn’t helping anyone. Stay focused!
Talk to Real Experts
Beyond reading a pile of academic papers there is another step you can take to get deeper into a topic: interviews! Actually, let’s not call it interviews, as that can feel formal or intimidating. Instead, let’s just call it a conversation with a subject matter expert. These discussions improve the accuracy of the content, add personality, and reinforce authority.
What about writing academic papers or a thesis? Is it still acceptable to reach out to other experts in the field and ask them for a virtual (or in person) chit-chat? Absolutely! This is particularly helpful for understanding the history of a field, or methodological points that are often not explained well. Conversations like this also has the secondary benefit of developing your network too!
Academics are often worried about being scooped for a paper, though I think this worry is mostly overhyped. There are a few sleaze bags who will do anything for a publication, but you would usually request interviews either at the beginning or the end of your experimental work. If you are at the beginning, there is no work to scoop. If you are at the end, you should be close enough to publication that they don’t have time to scoop you. Obviously be thoughtful about this if there are some intellectual property concerns, but the range of situations where you have to worry is relatively small.
Reaching out to other researchers is not something I did during my graduate work, and I regret it. I know I learn best when I have a person explaining a concept to me. A few emails and phone calls could have saved me so many hours scouring Google Scholar.
One tip: give plenty of time for response. Scientists are miserable at responding to their email in a timely fashion. There have been a couple I’ve worked with who were extremely rapid in getting back to me, but you will be lucky to get a call scheduled in less than a week. Don’t feel afraid to send a follow-up email a couple of weeks after the first one you send – you may feel like you are imposing, but they often just didn’t see the first one, or didn’t get around to responding.
More tips on how to interview a scientist.
Simplify Jargon, Sentences, and Paragraphs
One of the most common problems with scientific writing is the clunky and difficult-to-read. Scientists tend to complexify their writing to make them seem serious and intelligent, but it mostly makes for bad style. If you want people to actually read your work, especially people outside of your specialized field, focus on simplifying your writing.
Jargon and nonsense acronyms are a the most obvious problem. Most scientists feel like the jargon they use is more widely recognized than it is, which means they stack their publications with terms that are unfamiliar, even to other scientists. After you are done your first draft, read through the text and find any jargon or technical terms that you can avoid. If there are any terms that are unavoidable, try to incorporate definitions into the text.
Run-on sentences are another major problem in scientific writing (and are one of my personal pet peeves). These are an issue for several reasons:
- When reading a long sentence, your audience is forced to keep a lot of information in their brain at once, which is cognitively taxing. This leaves readers feeling either confused or bored (or both).
- Long sentences feel sloppy, and give the impression that your thoughts are disordered.
- As a worst case scenario, the subject of the sentence or meaning of pronouns can become unclear, so readers will misunderstand the point you are trying to make.
As a rule of thumb, avoid sentences that are 25 words or more, and never write a sentence that is more than 40 words long. These numbers may seem absurdly high, but I literally just picked a random academic paper and found two sentences that were 40 words in less than 5 minutes. There are some famous defences of longer sentences in a more literary context, but for science writing please stick to shorter sentences unless absolutely necessary.
How to cut sentences down will depend on the circumstances. Keep an eye out for commas, and transition words like “and,” “that,” and “which”.
Short paragraphs are another way to improve readability. Think of it as cutting up a piece of food into small chunks – it is the same content, but it is much easier to digest. This is not as essential as removing jargon and eliminating run-on sentences, but it is also easy the easiest to implement in most cases.
Take the Time to Edit Your Science Writing
Ask any experienced writer, and they will tell you that a good editor is worth their weight in gold.
However, most science writers either don’t have an editor, or it is their professor. While some professors edit for style and clarity, many are just looking for scientific veracity. You sometimes see situations where a supervisor “improves” a paper by stuffing it with more jargon and references to other work. While their expertise can be helpful, they are not “editing” in the way I am describing here.
More often than not, you will have to edit yourself. Beyond looking for jargon and breaking up long sentences/paragraphs, how can you improve your science editing? Here are some tips:
- It is not sufficient to edit right after writing. Wait at least 8 hours, preferably >24 hours.
- Machine editing (like Grammarly) are extremely helpful, but not sufficient. Do not take their suggestions blindly, and do another round of editing afterwards.
- Once you complete a first edit, read the whole draft out loud. This is great for catching clunky grammar and unnecessary words.
- Is your conclusion clear? Have you laid out the logical steps to arrive at that conclusion? Would this be obvious even to someone who wasn’t an expert in the field?
- Think about structure. “Should I move this?” or “Do I need this paragraph?” are good questions. Obviously academic papers follow a fairly rigid structure already, but you still have some leeway in how you sequence your ideas.
Get a Science Writing Coach
Building your writing skills on your own is hard. Your words may look clear and coherent when you are putting them on the page, but they sound silly when you come back to read them later. There are plenty of automated tools these days to help your grammar and spelling, but almost none to help you with your communication.
One of the best ways to improve your writing is to get feedback from others, but that often isn’t possible with science writing. When you are writing about gene sequencing or quantum mechanics you can’t just hand your draft to a roommate or spouse for proofreading. Most scientists learn to write from professors, which is how bad habits like jargon-stuffing and clunky structure get passed down.
Writing coaches are folks who help others improve their writing through a combination of advice, feedback, and recommended practice. Not only can they point out areas for improvement, but they can also explain why your writing is or is not working. Science writing coaches also have training in science and science writing, so they can engage with hardcore academic research.
Even a few sessions with a science writing coach will upgrade your writing quality, while simplifying the writing process. Learn more about science writing coaching.
How is a science writing coach different from a science writing editor?
As a quick aside, let’s answer a common question: how are writing coaches different from editors?
Editors focus on improving written content. They suggest changes based on what makes the content better, but are not focused on teaching the writer. They often don’t offer detailed explanations about why they make the changes they do. Writers can learn a lot from strong editors, but the editor is ultimately graded on the quality of content they publish, so they tend not to educate much.
A writing coach is hired to help the writer learn and is not as invested in the final content. Editors are also most involved once a first draft is complete, while a writing coach can be involved at any stage of the process. If you are having trouble getting started or your writing is not having the impact that you want, you should get a coach.
Practice Makes Perfect: Improve Your Science Writing
Ultimately, there is no substitute for putting in the hours. Sitting in front of a keyboard and wrestling with words isn’t always fun, but it is how you get better. To improve your science writing takes time, and you need to be patient with yourself.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you should mindlessly grind out words. Take the time to reread your work, both right after you write it, and days or months later – you will notice different things every time! Look at other papers and learn from their strengths or weaknesses. Anyone can improve their scientific writing by continually practicing and analyzing their work.
