How to Write Science

PREFACE

Crafting great research questions is hard. Even once you've got one, designing great studies to answer it is hard. Once you've set up a great study, though, gathering and analyzing data is hard. Then, after all that, communicating what you’ve found is hard.

While everyone can be a scientist, not everyone would enjoy being one! Science is confusing, tedious, and frustrating sometimes. There is rarely an obvious “right” way to move forward. In my experience, the only guaranteed way to learn how to do science is to do it (and fail a few times)! Not exactly a comforting prospect.

My Masters was my first independent research project. I know now that I spent lots of my energy as a graduate student learning how to do what many of my peers already knew (leading to an imposture syndrome I still grapple with!).

It's not like I was disinterested in research before then—I attended a large University as an undergrad, with so many students relative to research opportunities that such opportunities only went to those who really sought them out, and I…didn’t. I didn’t even know I should!

So, much of what I now know about being a scientist I learned the “hard way.” There are many things I wish I’d learned sooner. That's especially true for science writing. I think I’m a competent science writer today. Not perfect, but solid. Writing is enjoyable for me, and words usually come easily to me, which I am very thankful for.

Imagine my disbelief, then, when my first few attempts to write scientifically were bad. I'm sure it’d hurt me physically to read them now! What I didn't know then about science writing and have since had to learn is that: 

1.    Science writing is very different from other writing styles we’re taught. While great science writers can use certain aspects of creative, journalistic, or argumentative writing in their science writing, many aspects of other writing types don’t work for science writing.

2.    Science writing is very formulaic (by design). If you deviate from the "formula" of science writing without reason, or, worse, you don’t even recognize there is one, your science writing will usually fall short.

3.    Good science writing is collaborative, iterative, and public-facing. This is true for all writing, of course! But, unlike a paper you might write by yourself for a class, which may take a week or less and never be read by anyone other than a teacher, a scientific manuscript typically goes through many (perhaps dozens of) drafts, and it’s the expectation that many of your peers will review it before it's published (and many more will read it after that too).
This is me saying that science writing is professional writing. While we’re taught other writing forms without the expectation that we’ll someday write that way professionally, scientists are expected to be both professional scientists and professional science writers, whether we receive sufficient practice or not!

4.    Science writing is brief and direct. Other writing forms can employ tricks that provoke emotions or excitement but that may introduce “extra” words—there’s rarely a place for these in science writing. Additionally, in science, we don't "foreshadow" or "misdirect" or "build suspense." Instead, we spoil our own stories early and often.

5.    Science writing isn't taught enough because it’s hard to teach. Plus, great science writers can be bad teachers and vice versa (teaching is also hard!). So, if you want to develop as a science writer, you’ll have to go out of your way to get that practice and mentorship.

In this guide, I’ll try to demystify science writing—I’ll tell you everything about it I wish I’d learned sooner. In particular, I’ll explain the “formula” of a scientific manuscript (as I know it, at least!) so that, when you sit down to write, your focus can be “How do I say this well?” instead of “What do I even say??”

In this guide, you’ll find four pages corresponding to the four sections of a typical scientific manuscript in the order I prefer write to them: RESULTS, METHODS, DISCUSSION, and INTRODUCTION. Yes, I prefer to write papers “out of order,” and I'll explain why.

I also have a page for the ABSTRACT and TITLE—I have a bit less to say about these, but what I do want to say is passionate. There's also a page with a “Top 10 List” of science writing tips—things that didn't fit into the other pages and that have steered me back on track when I’ve lost my way. 

The last page in this guide, meanwhile, covers how to generate a research project in the first place. It’s totally “off-topic” here, but the whole point of a research paper is to communicate the findings of a research project, so thinking through building a good project makes writing about one easier. If you’re here because you need to write a white paper, proposal, or policy brief and not a research paper, it’s this page of the guide you might benefit most from. Plus, if you're an undergraduate or first-time graduate student doing their very first research project, I recommend starting with that page too. It'll help a lot with your writing, once you get that far!

Oh, one last thing before cracking on: The system for writing scientific manuscripts I cover here took me many years of floundering to discover—it makes sense to me, I recognize its parts in many of the papers I admire, and it makes the writing process feel approachable for me, if not enjoyable.

....But it isn’t the "One True Way" to write science. There is no such thing. Let nobody (including me) tell you otherwise! Science should be as diverse and creative as the people doing it. That’s how the magic happens!

So, if you’ve already got a system that works for you, great—no need to convert to mine unless you think it’ll help. If my system doesn't feel right, feel encouraged to try others or invent your own—maybe you’ll be the one to revolutionize science writing.

But if you’re without a system or mired in one that isn’t clicking for you, definitely give mine a try. I’m confident it’ll be much better than nothing! It would’ve been for me.