Science Writing

Hello Writing Friends!

Are you faced with writing a lab report? You are not alone - remember that professional scientists (your professors and TAs) are writing lab reports all the time, only we call them "journal articles". I am here to tell you some trade secrets about writing your very own journal articles to turn in to class. (I think you should consider your lab reports to be journal articles... "lab report" is so high-school.)

Science writing is certainly its own genre. It is part storytelling and part argument; the search for observable truths in the natural world around us. So many of us have learned in our early years of writing that science writing is cold and impersonal, the Mr. Spock of the literary world. What deception! What lies! While writing a journal article, it is important to be concise and direct, but you don't have to remove all of your personality from your writing. Use active voice! Be confrontational! Be heard! (Okay, don't get carried away...)

Writing journal articles serve two purposes: 1) to help you understand the implications of the work that you've done and 2) communicate to others what you've found out so that they can understand those same implications. This allows science to build on itself. By reading your work, others will think of questions and ideas that you haven't and your work will continue on.

So, how does one write a journal article? Here's the secret: start with your results. Don't write your article in the order of the sections by any means! This order is normally as follows: abstract (a summary of your whole article), introduction (background material and identification of the problem, question, and/or hypothesis), methods (how you conducted your experiment/observations), results (figures, tables, and text highlighting the most important results), discussion (an explanation on the "why" of your results and reflection of how this fits in with our current understanding of the world), literature cited (a list of all of the references you used in your paper).

So why results first? Results are the basis of your story. By deciding what tables and figures you are going to use in your paper, you can then build the rest of the paper around these concepts so that everything flows together as a cohesive unit. Once you decide how to display your results, you can describe the methods you used to achieve those results and only those results. After results and methods, you will want to set up your argument in the introduction. The introduction should start with broad, global concepts and move toward the specific ideas behind your experiment or observations. Move on to your discussion next. Make sure you explain your data and back up your ideas with evidence from other scientists who have done work in similar areas. If your data disagree with another scientist's findings, explain why. Finish your discussion with the broad implication of your findings and/or additional work that could or should be done. The discussion mirrors the introduction in that we go from specific concepts to broad ones.

Finally you are ready to write your abstract. The abstract should be no more than about 250 words and include important (summarized) information from each section of your paper. This is the writing that most scientists will read to decide whether or not they want to read your paper.

So. This is the way that professional scientists write journal articles. We also go through a pretty rigorous process called "peer review", which not so unlike being graded! Because we need for the peer reviewers to approve our articles before publication, we have our coauthors and colleagues read them several times before we submit them to a journal. We go over and over the rules and requirements of the journal so that we have our paper formatted just right.

You should have your classmates and colleagues read your writing too. I will be more than happy to help you with this as well. That is why I sit behind the Bedrock Cafe in Sarkeys Energy Center. I am waiting to read your journal articles you've prepared for class. (I also read articles for other courses and scholarship/graduate school applications too! Whatever you want.)

Looking forward to seeing you at Science Fridays in Sarkeys!

Happy writing,

Your Science Writing Consultant

Carrie Miller-DeBoer