Scientific Research and Communication — Scientific Writing Guidebooks

A concise and accessible primer on the scientific writer's craft The ability to write clearly is critical to any scientific career. The Scientist's Guide to Writing provides practical advice to help scientists become more effective writers so that their ideas have the greatest possible impact. Drawing on his own experience as a scientist, graduate adviser, and editor, Stephen Heard emphasizes that the goal of all scientific writing should be absolute clarity; that good writing takes deliberate practice; and that what many scientists need are not long lists of prescriptive rules but rather direct engagement with their behaviors and attitudes when they write.

Publications are the currency of academia. And yet, many people in the sciences, and especially mathematics, are never actually taught how to write. More specifically, they are not taught how to edit, redraft and revise their material so that the presentation is optimal for the reader. Most academic articles are appallingly written, even by native English speakers. One of the core problems is that most scientists hate writing and put only the bare minimum of effort into it. Furthermore, academic articles too often read like a first draft, with little understanding that all writing is editing. However, academic writing is a skill like any other that can be broken down into stages. This book will go through the detailed process of assembling an article, from first drafts to writing abstracts to revision to responding to reviewers, illustrated with multiple versions of worked examples as well as what not to do.

This book is a personal, practical, and inspirational guide for scientists and other technically trained professionals who seek to be more effective and empathetic in their writings for professional and nontechnical audiences

New digital technologies have transformed how scientific information is created, disseminated--and discovered. The emergence of new forms of scientific publishing based on open science and open access have caused a major shift in scientific communication and a restructuring of the flow of information. Specialized indexing services and search engines are trying to get into information seekers' minds to understand what users are actually looking for when typing all these keywords or drawing chemical structures. Using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and semantic indexing, these "discovery agents" are trying to anticipate users' information needs. In this highly competitive environment, authors should not sit and rely only on publishers, search engines, and indexing services to make their works visible. They need to communicate about their research and reach out to a larger audience.

As a scientist, you are a professional writer: your career is built on successful proposals and papers. Success isn't defined by getting papers into print, but by getting them into the reader's consciousness. Writing Science is built upon the idea that successful science writing tells a story. It uses that insight to discuss how to write more effectively.

Case studies and pedagogical strategies to help science and engineering students improve their writing and speaking skills while developing professional identities.

An authoritative how-to guide that explains every aspect of science proposal writing. This fully revised edition of the authoritative guide to science proposal writing is an essential tool for any researcher embarking on a grant or thesis application. In accessible steps, the authors detail every stage of proposal writing, from conceiving and designing a project to analyzing data, synthesizing results, estimating a budget, addressing reviewer comments, and resubmitting. This new edition is updated to address changes and developments over the past decade, including identifying opportunities and navigating the challenging proposal-funding environment.

This book enables STEM researchers to write effective papers for publication as well as other research-related texts such as a doctoral thesis, technical report, or conference abstract.Science Research Writing uses a reverse-engineering approach to writing developed from extensive work with STEM researchers at Imperial College London.

Being a Scientist is a comprehensive introduction to the many aspects of scientific life beyond the classroom and laboratory. Written with undergraduate science majors in mind, the book covers the scientific method, ethics, library research, reading, peer review, creativity, proposal and paper writing, and oral and poster presentations. In contrast to other texts in the field, which often take a simple prescriptive approach to these topics, Being a Scientist connects them to the historical and philosophical roots of modern science, as well as the common experiences of all people

The Craft of Scientific Writing is designed to help scientists and engineers - both professionals already active in the disciplines as well as students preparing to enter the professions - write about their work clearly and effectively. Written for use as a text in courses on scientific writing, the book includes many useful suggestions about approaching a wide variety of writing tasks from journal papers to grant proposals and from emails to formal reports, as well as a concise guide to style and usage appropriate for scientific writing. Also useful for self-study, the book will be an important reference for all scientists and engineers who need to write about their work.

The third edition of this book aims to equip both young and experienced researchers with all the tools and strategy they will need for their papers to not just be accepted, but stand out in the crowded field of academic publishing. It seeks to question and deconstruct the legacy of existing science writing, replacing or supporting historically existing practices with principle- and evidence-driven styles of effective writing. It encourages a reader-centric approach to writing, satisfying reader-scientists at large, but also the paper's most powerful readers, the reviewer and editor. Going beyond the baseline of well-structured scientific writing, this book leverages an understanding of human physiological limitations (memory, attention, time) to help the author craft a document that is optimized for readability.

Among this work's strengths are the straightforward, discrete examples of language and phrasing at the sentence level--from research questions to various statements that are part of the writing process, with equally precise feedback on such examples. This not only helps novice writers assess their science communication skills but also those who are more experienced scientists. It should be noted that the book will not be helpful for science writers who are writing for a general audience; the main focus is on all aspects of technical writing, from business to patents to scholarship, and even basic correspondence that will be useful on the job hunt.

What started out as a communications workshop tailored for undergraduate and graduate students in atmospheric science evolved into a book that will benefit scientists at any stage in their careers. Eloquent Science draws on Schultz’s experience as a journal editor and prolific writer, the insight of his colleagues, and the best advice from hundreds of sources. This must-have reference is loaded with tips for writing and reviewing scientific journal articles and creating and delivering scientific presentations, and features: Help for the entire writing process from planning to proofing, including dealing with writer’s block, creating effective figures, advice for non-native speakers of English, and an appendix of commonly misused scientific concepts, and more

While teaching writing to undergraduate science students, Gilpin and Patchet-Golubev discovered that although many relatively sophisticated manuals for scientific writing exist, most are aimed at mainly professionals or specialists and are of little practical use to the majority of students. This introductory guide fills that large gap. Direct and friendly in tone the book provides clear and concise explanations of the basic elements of scientific writing required of students. The various genres are detailed - in particular lab reports and research essays - as well as scientific articles, poster presentations, proposals, and even essay exams. Similarities and differences among these genres are underlined in order to illustrate structural principles and to provide practical writing tips.

A clear, practical, first-of-its-kind guide to communicating and understanding numbers and data--from bestselling business author Chip Heath.Understanding numbers is essential - but humans aren't built to understand them. In this book, the authors outline specific principles that reveal how to translate a number into our brain's language. This book will help math-lovers and math-haters alike translate the numbers that animate our world - allowing us to bring more data, more naturally, into decisions in our schools, our workplaces, and our society

The Scientist's Guide to Writing explains the essential techniques that students, postdocs, and early-career scientists need to write more clearly, efficiently, and easily. Now fully updated and expanded, this incisive primer offers practical advice on such topics as generating and maintaining writing momentum, structuring a scientific paper, revising a first draft, handling citations, responding to peer reviews, managing coauthorships, and more.

Scientific writing is often dry, wordy, and difficult to understand. But, as Anne E. Greene shows in Writing Science in Plain English,writers from all scientific disciplines can learn to produce clear, concise prose by mastering just a few simple principles.   This short, focused guide presents a dozen such principles based on what readers need in order to understand complex information, including concrete subjects, strong verbs, consistent terms, and organized paragraphs.

Most scientists live in a "publish or perish" environment, but few would describe themselves as brilliant (or enthusiastic) writers. Coming to the aid of all those wishing to improve the quality of their scientific writing -- established researchers and aspiring students alike -- three experienced authors/scientists from differing backgrounds and cultures have compiled this classic guide.