Scientific Writing Skills Presented by Prof. Leon de Stadler US Writing Centre

But in science the credit goes to the man (or woman) who convinces the world, not to the man (or woman) to whom the idea first occurs Sir Francis Darwin

Topics for discussion -The writing task and the writing process -What makes it “scientific”? -Scientific writing = Structured writing -Kinds of structure

Topics for discussion -Problem statements and hypotheses -Coherence -Scientific style -The US Writing Centre

Task vs. process -How do you go about the writing task? -Why the process is important -It is about organisation, avoiding frustration, finding your focus, productive writing and … -… a final product to be proud of

Steps in the process -Invention: Coming up with a topic and a clear focus on the topic -Collecting the data -Organising the document: the outline -Drafting - writing, writing and writing again...

Steps in the process -Revising: Focusing on higher-order concerns -Proofreading: Focusing on the lower- order concerns

Scientific Writing -… is as much about science as it is about writing... -… but for some reason we tend to forget about the latter -That’s why our goal should be to change the mindset about writing

“Scientific”? -Contributing to the world of knowledge -Originality -Critical thinking and insight -A clear focus … but on what?

“Scientific”? -Insights, theories, assumptions, jargon, etc. of the field -No unnecessary baggage -Relevant... -… to the defense of a view point

“Scientific”? -Coherent -Structured -Scientific style -No mistakes

Scientific = Structured -Content structure -External structure

Content structure -Content organisation -Content hierarchy -The role of a good introduction -A clear topic -A well-focused problem statement -Well-defined hypotheses -Clear aims and objectives

Writing an introduction -An important structuring mechanism -Anouncing the topic -Motivation to undertake the study -Most important findings in the published literature -Research problem and hypotheses -Brief review of following chapters

Problem statement -Specific -Highly focused, clear -As concrete as possible -Preferably one problem statement; may be broken up into a number of subproblems

Problem statement Discussion of the problem statement in the example text: Can you find a single sentence denoting the problem statement? Where exactly is the focal element in the section? Another example on the overhead...

Hypothesis -The answer to your problem statement -Should be refutable -Should not be negative

Other components -Theoretical framework -Literature review -Research design: Problem statement(s), hypotheses, pilot study, sample taking, sample size, measuring instruments, statistical techniques, etc.

Other components -Presentation of findings -Discussion of findings -Conclusions

External structure -The so-called “entry structures” for the reader -Divisions into chapters, sections and paragraphs -The importance of headings

Coherence -Logical build-up of ideas -Paragraph structure -Coherence relationships -Markers of coherence -Problems with coherence

Paragraph structure -A unit of thought -One (sub)theme described in the theme sentence -Supported by other sentences

Paragraph problems -Paragraphs that do not link properly -Too long: more than one theme -Too short: one theme dealt with in more than one paragraph

Coherence -Between paragraphs and between sentences -Logical flow of thought -One thought following from or building upon another: conceptual links; relevance -Different kinds of relationships

Markers of coherence -Words and frases that signal the existence of a coherence relationship -Pronouns, conjunctions, repeated thematic elements, related words, etc. -Examples in the example text

Scientific style -Formality: creating distance between writer and reader -Goal: objectivity -But style and formulation should not make the reading task impossible -In this section: a few problems related to style and formulation

Style: Problems -Passive voice -Referring to the writer? -Difficult sentences -Short sentences -Nominalisations -Dangling constructions

Style: Problems -Unnecessary qualifiers -Pronouns and their antecedents

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