Writing Science Right: Why it Matters
The United States alone is home to over 10,000 peer-reviewed journals, 7,000 degree-granting institutions, and over 10 million working scientists. In a bustling marketplace of competitive ideas, the best minds can only be heard above the din if their voices are the strongest. That is where solid scientific writing comes in.
Thousands of articles containing valid scientific content are rejected from major publishers due to language quality issues or failure to adhere to basic scientific writing conventions. Elsevier, a leading academic publishing company (home to 2,000 journals with a yearly output of 250,000 articles), will not even pass a submission to the Editor-in-Chief if the English is deemed insufficient, if it lacks elements such as appropriate title and reference styles, or if the Author Guidelines are not followed. This first hurdle in the publication process is called the "Technical Screening", and any article, regardless of scientific merit, can be rejected at this step if the writing is not up to snuff.
After the hours you've put into your experiments, the long days slaving over technical details, the toiling in front of the computer to get the last figure just perfect... remember to also put the energy into writing your work up in a professional, coherent, and compelling package. It can be the deciding factor between a project impacting the field at large, or fading away into relative obscurity.
After the hours you've put into your experiments, the long days slaving over technical details, the toiling in front of the computer to get the last figure just perfect... remember to also put the energy into writing your work up in a professional, coherent, and compelling package. It can be the deciding factor between a project impacting the field at large, or fading away into relative obscurity.