Transcript Good Writing Skills for Scientists Dr. David Schultz Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies, University of Oklahoma, and NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~schultz/communication.html [email protected].

Good Writing Skills for
Scientists
Dr. David Schultz
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies,
University of Oklahoma, and NOAA/National Severe
Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma
http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~schultz/communication.html
[email protected]
Caveats
• There are many ways to write a paper. I
am providing some generalities that
appear to work.
• My opinion is just that. Others may
have other approaches that work for
them. Feel free to comment.
• My primary qualifications?
The Importance of Good
Scientific Communication
• “Too frequently, published papers contain
fundamental errors.
• The presentation in many papers is careless.
• Some papers abound in unsupported claims stated
as facts.
• The unnamed papers. . . are not obscure articles. .
. . Both editors and authors have told me that some
of these articles have sailed through the review
process.”
Ron Errico (2000)
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
The Importance of Good
Scientific Communication
• “The truth is that badly written papers
are most often written by people who
are not clear in their own minds what
they want to say . . . .”
John Maddox (1990)
The Importance of Good
Scientific Communication
• “Papers of poor quality do more than waste
printing and publishing resources; they
mislead and confuse inexperienced readers,
they waste and distract the attention of
experienced scientists, and by their existence
they lead future authors to be content with
second rate work.”
G. K. Batchelor (1981)
The Importance of Good
Scientific Communication
• Being a good scientist means being a
good communicator.
• Even if you don’t choose a traditional
career path, you will still need to write
and speak well in nearly any kind of job.
Concise Writing
• “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence
should contain no unnecessary words, a
paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for
the same reason that a drawing should
contain no unnecessary lines and a
machine no unnecessary parts. This
requires not that a writer make all his
sentences short, or that he avoid all detail
and treat his subject only in outline, but that
every word tell.”
Strunk and White: The Elements of
How Do You Attract an Audience?
• Title
– Informative, accurate, clear, concise, and
attention commanding
– What are the minimum number of words
that describe what you’re doing?
• Abstract
– Principal objectives and scope of research
– Methodology, summarize results
– Principal conclusions
• Introduction and/or Conclusions
• Body of paper
Title-Writing Exercise
• The Use and Misuse of Conditional
Symmetric Instability
Title-Writing Exercise
• Polar Low Dynamics
Title-Writing Exercise
• Is the Tropical Atmosphere Conditionally
Unstable?
Title-Writing Exercise
• A Double-Moment Multiple-Phase FourClass Bulk Ice Scheme: Part II:
Simulations of Convective Storms in
Different Large-Scale Environments and
Comparisons with Other Bulk
Parameterizations
Title-Writing Exercise
• Evaluation of Fractional Cloudiness
Parameterizations for Use in a
Mesoscale Model
Title-Writing Exercise
• The Structure and Evolution of a
Continental Winter Cyclone. Part I:
Frontal Structure and the Classical
Occlusion Process
Title-Writing Exercise
• Diagnostic Verification of Temperature
Forecasts
Parts and Organization of a
Scientific Paper
• See the handout.
• Introduction: hook to grab reader’s
attention (paradox, lack of knowledge of
subject, debate among experts, etc.)
• Discussion section
• Conclusion/Conclusion(s)/Summary
Figures and Tables
• Don’t skimp on the figure. Clearly define as
much as possible on the figure so that the
figure is self-explanatory.
• Don’t skimp on the captions. Take care to
write them clearly. Don’t leave them until the
end when you are exhausted and nearing
completion of the paper.
Figures
• In these days of electronic figure preparation, limit
the number of figures to the minimum necessary to
make your point in the paper.
• Don’t leave excessive white space around edges.
• Make all axes uniform in size and scale, wherever
possible.
• Reducing multiple figures to a multipaneled figure
can aid in comparing results.
• Make lines thick---avoid dotted lines, which may
not survive reproduction.
References
• How to Cite Skillfully and Avoid
Plagiarizing (John Rogers)
• Most of the cost of copy-editing journals
is in correctly formatting the reference
list.
• References and Unreferences (Duncan
Blanchard)
Writing Techniques
The Science of Science Writing
• “Readers expect a grammatical subject
to be followed immediately by the verb.”
• “Every unit of discourse, no matter the
size, should serve a single function or
make a single point.”
• “The information that begins a sentence
establishes for the reader a perspective
for viewing the sentence as a unit.”
(topic position)
Writing Techniques
The Science of Science Writing
• “It is a linguistic commonplace that
readers naturally emphasize the material
that arrives at the end. We refer to that
location as a stress position.”
• “Readers also expect the material
occupying the topic position to provide
them with linkage (looking backward) and
context (looking forward).”
• “Articulate the action of every clause or
sentence in its verb.”
Writing Techniques
The Science of Science Writing
• “By following our knowledge of reader
expectations, we have been able to spot
discontinuities, to suggest strategies for
bridging gaps, and to rearrange the
structure of the prose, thereby
increasing the accessibility of the
scientific content.”
Concise Writing
• Words and Expressions to Avoid (Day)
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
despite the fact that
it is apparent that
in order to
it may be that
it should be noted that
with respect to
smaller in size
the period 1977–1999
thunderstorm activity
acts to dry out
over the Mongolia region
although
apparently
to
I think
(omit)
about
smaller
1977–1999
thunderstorms
dries out
over Mongolia
Concise Writing
• Meteorological terms requiring care (e.g.,
http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/peeves/peeves.html)
– propagate
• movement = advection + propagation
– correlate vs. relate
– utilize vs. use
– “Time evolution” is redundant.
Getting Started
• Begin writing before the research is
finished. Writing should force you to
strengthen your arguments. Also, sections
like the literature review and methodology
are best written while thinking about that
material.
• Outline the text, know the goals/purpose of
paper, list of figures you need to show.
• Allow the development of the paper to flesh
out weaknesses in your argument that
suggest further sections or figures.
In the Midst of Writing
• If you start to get bogged down, step back
and take a look at the big picture. What is
the logical progression of ideas (modeling
studies, then obs; synoptic to mesoscale)?
Classify your statements, then look for
common themes to group together.
• Observations ->conclusions->implication->
speculation
• Make sure you have proper transition.
• Follow good style (AMS Authors’ Guide).
• Avoid colloquialisms, jargon, and
abbreviations.
In the Midst of Writing
• Redundancy in your terminology will help the
reader follow your train of thought.
• Describe the science, not the figures.
“Figure 5 shows. . . .” vs. “. . . (Fig. 5).”
• Spell out acronyms on first usage.
In the Midst of Writing
• When injecting opinion/speculation, be clear
to your audience that it is not fact. Do not
expect the paper to stand on speculation
alone.
• Avoid “motherhood” statements calling for
more research/data/etc. If you wish to make
such statements, offer specific objectives,
tests of your theory, etc.
Finishing Up
• Always perform near-final edits on paper.
• Begin to recognize your weaknesses and
search them out systematically throughout
the manuscript.
• Perform near-final edits when you are fresh
and undistracted (e.g., morning).
• Read your paper out loud. Does it make
sense?
• Send it out informally to friends, experts,
and enemies for their comments.
The Advantages of Short Papers
• Everyone likes to read shorter papers.
• Shorter papers usually garner more favorable
reviews.
• Shorter papers keep your name in the spotlight.
• Funding agencies are happy because their
money leads to nuggets of information reaching
the public.
• It is easier to get small bits of published
research right.
• Shorter papers prevent you from
overgeneralizing your research.
13 Deadly Sins in Manuscripts
• See handout.
•
•
•
•
Statements in text contradict data/tables
Unclear/imprecise/incorrect statements
Inconsistencies in terminology
Literature citations missing or incorrect
format
• Methodology not described adequately
The Two Most Common Writing
Problems That Inhibit
Communication
• Organization
• Transition
(handouts on Sentence Variety,
Transitional Devices, Writing Effective
Transitions)
What You Can Do To Improve
• Learn from positive and negative role models.
• “A severe critic is your best friend in learning
how to write well.” - Chuck Doswell
• Reading, reviewing, and critiquing others’
articles is good practice.
• Form an informal reading group.
• The more you write, the less writer’s block
becomes a problem.
• First efforts do not need to be perfect.
Revise, revise, revise!