Style in writing a scientific article

1Professor Tarek Tawfik Amin

Scientific writing I

Professor Tarek Tawfik Amin

Epidemiology and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University

Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Training

Asian Pacific Organization for Cancer Prevention

International Osteoporosis Foundation Wiley Innovative Panel

[email protected] [email protected]

MEDC April 2016

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mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Professor Tarek Tawfik Amin 2

ILOs • To explore motives/drives for scientific writing.• To define requirements of the three main domain

of scientific writing of an original contribution: components, language and style

• To identify the functionality of the different components of an article.

• To criticize the published literature (the writing component) and suggesting solutions.

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3

Contents and plan Session title Duration Methods Activities Authors and

readers perspectives

9:00-9:30

Interactive session

Components of scientific writing

Writing a text

9:30-11:00

Interactive Individual/group work

Activity IActivity II

Break 1 11:00-11:30

Article structure The methods

section

11:30-12:30


Activity III

Introduction 1:00: 1:30

Interactive Hands-on

Activity IV

Break 2 1:30-1:45

Title and abstract 1:45-3:00


Activity V, VI

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Scientific writing : general rules

Why writing a scientific paper?

Give three reasons.

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Background: Author’s Perspective

Motivation to publish:– Dissemination (54% 1st choice)– Career prospects (20% 1st choice)– Improved funding (13% 1st choice)– Ego (9% 1st choice)– Patent protection (4% 1st choice)– Other (5% 1st choice)

Bryan Coles (ed.) The STM Information System in the UK, BL Report 6123, Royal

Society, BL, ALPSP, 1993

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Author versus Reader Behaviour

• Author behaviour– Want to publish more– Peer review essential– Other journal functions

crucial– Wider dissemination

• Reader behaviour– Want integrated

system– Browsing is crucial– Quality information

important– Want to read less

Elsevier study of 36,000 authors (1999-2002) presented by Michael Mabe at ALPSP Seminar on “Learning from users” 2003; www.alpsp.org

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Reader’s priorities• Authoritative quality articles• Ease of access• Rapid delivery• Convenient format• Linking of information - clustering• Low or no cost• Up-to-date information

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Answer (modest) • Science is the orderly collection of

observations about the natural world made via well-defined procedures, and modern science is an archive of scientific papers.

• A research project has not contributed to science until its results have been reported in a paper.9/27/20153


Contents

Style Language

Components of writing

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The writing approach

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In writing a scientific paper: Where to start?

• Writing a good scientific paper takes time. • Writing will seem endless if you begin with the title and slog straight through to the last reference. • This approach is difficult, wearing, and inefficient.

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The inside-out approach Important recipes

• Materials the core

• Methods

Data collected

• Analysis the core

• Results

Discussion • Of the results your

skills • Here comes the conclusion

Historical context

• The introduction The

perspective

• The title and the abstract the fore front

Time /research

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Scientific writing Writing a manuscript should be

initiated:A- after completion of the projectB- concurrent with project

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I- Setting a standard • AIMRaD• Predicable to the readers

Stereotyped format

• Clean• Clear• Unemotional (impartial)• No colorful words or ambiguity

Precise language

• Single theme throughout (from the title to the conclusion)

Single clear directionReviewed

and available

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II-Words and Text in Scientific writing

Exactness and clarity

• Straight forward message

• Remove vagaries, emotions, indirectness and redundancy

• Clean forward sentence, no hedging or hinting

Write with

precision • Each

sentence must present an idea in an unequivocal vocabulary

Numbers

• The natural words of science

• Define critical adjectives (tall/ >3 cm)

• Use scales for subjective adjective (pain)

Objective words • Define

your words

Intrinsically vague terms

• Avoid subjective terms

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Define your words: Don't use• Expressions with no clear limits: a

lot, fairly, long term, quite, really, short term, slightly, somewhat, sort of, very

• Words of personal judgment: assuredly, beautiful, certainly, disappointing, disturbing, exquisite, fortuitous, hopefully, inconvenient, intriguing, luckily, miraculously, nice, obviously, of course, regrettable, remarkable, sadly, surely, unfortunately.

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Continue • Words that are only fillers: alright,

basically, in a sense, indeed, in effect, in fact, in terms of, it goes without saying, one of the things, with regard to

• Casual colorful catch-words and phrases: agree to disagree, bottom line, brute force, cutting edge, easier said than done, fell through the cracks, few and far between, food for thought, leaps and bounds, no nonsense, okay, quibble, seat of the pants, sketchy, snafu, tad, tidbit, tip of the iceberg

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Group work I• Group work : these

paragraphs are short, clear, logical, complete, and directed to a single point.

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III-Use of Tenses: helps scientific readers • The general case:

statements already known

• General knowledge, standards, widely accepted statements and facts

Present

• Referring to specific events already happened [Historical]

• Your research is history [methods and results sections]

Past

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IV- Active and Passive Voice

Dr Roy wrote the abstract:

Active voice gives a sense of : strength, energy, vitality and

motion.

The abstract was written by Dr Roy:

Passive voice slows things down, and it’s shorter 9/27/20153


Active vs. Passive voice • Active: self-promoting and lacking

humility • Passive: not

• Active: Scientist should stay out of the work

• Passive: overuse is confusing, promotes misplaced modifiers

• Passive : makes the writers less

accountable• Active : it does not make you less

accountable

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Factors influencing the choice of an active or passive verb

• First, does the reader need to know who or what carried out the action? If this information is unimportant, use a passive verb.

Example.• The researchers collected data from all sites

weekly.• It is not important who collected the data,

so the sentence may be better in the passive:

• Data* were collected weekly from all sites.

• Second, does it sound repetitive (or immodest) to use a personal pronoun subject?

Example:• We calculated least significant

differences (l.s.d.) to compare means.This may sound more appropriate in the passive:• Least significant differences (l.s.d.)

were calculated to compare means.

Points in relation to active/passive choice• The need to avoid repetition: in the active, the

subject of nearly every sentence would be ‘‘we’’. . • Discipline where single-authored papers are

common, check in whether it is appropriate to use ‘‘I’’; this usage is quite rare in science writing, especially in Methods sections.

• Does it help the information flow to choose either the active or passive voice?

• In English sentences, effective writers generally connect their sentences to each other by putting old information, which the reader already knows something about, before new information (the linking strategy).

• Sometimes writers may choose a passive verb so that they can use this strategy.

Example: Linkage strategy • We used [active] the results of these analyses

to inform the construction of mechanistic candidate functions for the relationship between propagule input, space availability and recruitment. These candidate functions were compared [passive] using differences in the Akaike information criteria (AIC differences; Burnham and Anderson 2002). We then used model averaging [active] .... (Britton-Simmons & Abbott 2008, p. 137)


V- Long Sentences• Science is complex enough without using

overly complicated sentences to explain it• One enemy to clarity is long sentences• Meaning can get lost because too much is

going on in one sentence• Do not ask your sentences to do more than

they can

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Guidelines

1) Lack of clarity is No.1 problem for editors

2) Wordiness is an obstacle to readers

3) Write to communicate NOT to impress

4) Keep sentences short (> 17 words discourage readers)

5) Avoid colorful/impartial language

6)Use specific words (preferably numbers)

7)Reduce no. of words in a phrase

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Excessive wording

In the near future soon is of the opinion believes a sizable percentage of manyOwing to the fact that since in spite of the fact that although

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Guidelines: more • Don’t repeat words or ideas (a

palliative, non-curative treatment)• Be aware of: who, which, and that

(clutter the sentences) • Avoid the careless use of the word

this• Sharpen your words with precise

meaning (Not infrequently ????)• Get rid of excess words• Limit “To Be” phrases (is lacking

replace it simply with lacks)9/27/20153


Writing a text List of ideas, notes

and facts Transform into

sentences

Assemble paragrap

hs

Organize them

Rewriting

Re-assemble

Write fearlessly

Polish

Polish

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The writing: the journey The Skeletal

Outline

Pile in Ideas (lists)

Collect Information from

Outside Resources

Make the Lists into Rough Paragraphs

Arrange the Sentences into

Themes

Form Rough Sentences

Put Things Aside. Clear Your Mind

Put Together One Paragraph for Each

Topic

Shaping a Working Draft

Remove non-essentials

Lists of Simple Sentences

Rearrange Your sentences into a

Natural Sequence

Reassemble Paragraphs

Smooth Transitions

Polishing 10 times

End (none)

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For the non-English Speaking 1- Use simple verbs 2- Turn adjectives into numbers 3- Do not use metaphors 4- Make each sentence short5- Only one idea into each sentence 6- Make paragraphs short7- Consult English speaking editor

for help 9/27/20153


Look at it with a critical editor’s eye

A) Wording precise and clear: “good stain,” replace it by the particular wording “easily visible,” “cell-specific,” “resistant to fading,” “highly reproducible,” “safe to use,” or “easily applied.”

B) Cut non-essential words: “He thoroughly investigated many avenues of staining,” trim it to “He tried many stains.”

C) Simplify: Make your sentences read smoothly, so that the wording does not distract from the content.

D) Focus: Putting too many ideas in one, long paragraph. Keep each paragraph focused on a single point

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Group work II• Replace the tangents and

redundant words.

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Replace With

a considerable amount of many, muchabsolutely essential essentialalmost unique rare, uncommonan order of magnitude more than ten timesas to whether whethercompletely full fullconsidered as consideredconsidering the fact that although, becausedecline decreasedifferent than different from, unlikedue to the fact that becauseeach and every eachend result resultequally as equallyexact same identicalexhibit a tendency tendfinal outcome outcomefirstly firstfirst of all firstforegone conclusion expectedforeseeable future futurehave a tendency tendhaving gotten having gothigher in comparison to higher thanif and when if, whenin close proximity to near

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Health & Medicine

Style in writing a scientific article