Scientific writing

1. Scientific writing A scorecard

2. CANONS In scientific writing, inaccuracy can be fatal. Say something wide of the mark and you’re likely to lose the reader’s trust. Where might there be inaccuracies in your writing? Check those facts where: • you relied on your memory • you didn’t check the source • you relayed a supposed fact because “everybody knows” it’s true Accuracy (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

3. CANONS Scientific writing does not necessarily have be perfect. A thesis has to be good enough to pass. Even a grant bid needs to be only good enough to win the grant (though usually that means extremely good). Is the text you are writing fit for purpose? Does it do the job? If you continued to improve it, how great would be the benefits? Evaluate your text in relation to your goal. Adequacy (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

4. CANONS In writing, it isn’t enough for you to know what you mean: the reader too needs to know what you mean. The responsibility for getting things clear is the writer’s, not the reader’s. Where might you text be unintentionally ambiguous? Where does obscurity or, worse, confusion lurk? Where possible, test your text with a variety of critical friends – specialists, yes, but not only them. Clarity (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

5. CANONS May be each part of your text is fine in itself. But do the parts all hang together? Where in your text are there tangents, detours, or irrelevancies? Look, in particular, for passages that would come better in some other text for example, in a paper that you have yet to write. Coherence Note: Though ‘coherence’ and ‘cohesion’ are often spoken of as if they are the same thing this resource distinguishes between them. For a rationale, see Cheng Xiaotang, A functional approach to discourse coherence (Beijing: FLTRP, 2005). (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

6. CANONS To make a smooth path, you need to fill in the gaps between the paving slabs. How can you help the reader to get from one part of your text to another? How can you use tools such as vocabulary, pronouns, connecting words, and signposting sentences to help you? Mind the gap. Cohesion Note: Though ‘coherence’ and ‘cohesion’ are often spoken of as if they are the same thing this resource distinguishes between them. For a rationale, see Cheng Xiaotang, A functional approach to discourse coherence (Beijing: FLTRP, 2005). (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

7. CANONS The canon of completeness doesn’t require you to cram everything into one text. If, for example, you’re written a thesis and are now writing a paper, you don’t need to get the whole of the former into the latter. ‘Completeness’, here, just means remembering to include everything required to tell a good story. In Murder on the Orient Express, we do need to hear who did the murder, but not what happened on the train on the parallel track. Ensure you’ve included everything that the reader requires in order to understand the extent to which, and the grounds on which, you’ve: • solved your research problem • answered your research question • achieved your aim; and/or • supported or disproved your hypothesis. Completeness (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

8. CANONS Generally, readers of text don’t like to have their time wasted. They don’t want to read more than is necessary. Verbosity is poorly received. If, however, you make your writing too concise, it will become offputtingly dense and unclear. Where can you delete words or phrases without serious loss of meaning or communication? Where can you save, say, a few words in every hundred, simply by tightening up the prose? Overall, aim to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the need to be concise and, on the other, the need to be clear and communicative. Concision (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

9. CANONS Scientific writing shouldn’t contain contradictions or inconsistencies. If a and b can’t be simultaneously true, you better check that you’ve not claimed both. This is most likely to happen when you’ve written a piece over a long period of time. Where are the facts at variance? Where do the arguments point in different directions? Consistency (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

10. CANONS Scientific writing is not (usually) poetry. It doesn’t necessarily have to sound great. But if you can make it pleasing to the ear, so much the better. Where does the writing sound awkward or ugly? Can you hear a voice in the writing? Try either reading your text aloud or listening to your computer reading it aloud. Elegance, euphony, and grace (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

11. CANONS Scientific writing certainly needs to be logical. But sometimes, merely being logical isn’t enough: where the logic is not self-evident, you may need to display or explain the logic. What arguments does your text contain? Where is the logic hazy? Where is the argumentation least convincing? Check the logic of each argument. Where the logic isn’t obvious, spell it out. Logic (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

12. CANONS Scientific writing needs at times to be precise – though not at all times. Are there any places in your text in which more precision would be welcome? Are there any places where its over-precise? For example, do we really need all the stats? To two decimal places? Precision (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk

13. CANONS A text can be good according to many of the canons identified in this resource, but if it doesn’t actually matter, nobody will take much notice. How much does your text matter? How well have you brought out its significance? Consider: significant in what way? for whom? for what reason(s)? Significance (c) Frontinus Ltd: frontinus.org.uk