Communicating Chemistry
The following article is by John Garratt and Brian Mattinson. It has been copied from Education in Chemistry, 32(5), 1995
(with permission of the authors and the Royal Society of Chemistry).
A general guide to science writing
No one who has something original or important to say will
willingly run the risk of being misunderstood; people who write
obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief [1].
THERE ARE THREE fundamental aspects to good science writing -
planning the structure, thinking about your reader, and choosing
your words.
Writing is one of our indispensable means of communication. But
it is more than this: it helps us to formulate ideas, and provides
us with a permanent record of them. For undergraduates it is also
one of the means by which their understanding of their subject
is assessed. Effective writing is therefore an invaluable skill.
You can learn something of the skill by following the advice of
experienced practitioners [2]. You can also learn by reading widely
and thinking critically about the quality of what you are reading.
But you need constant practice to develop the clarity and conciseness
of style that is essential to good scientific writing.
Structure
When you have thought clearly, you have never had any difficulty
in saying what you thought. And when you cannot expressyourself,
depend upon it that you have nothing precise to express, and that
what incommodes you is not the vain desire to express, but the
vain desire to think more clearly [3].
All writing needs a structure whether or not this is made explicit
by the use of identified sections. In scientific writing, the
use of formal devices like subheadings, tables, figures and diagrams
is nearly always appropriate. Sensible use of subheadings not
only helps you to define the structure of your work, but also
makes it easier to avoid dumsy linking sentences, such as 'I will
now go on to discuss the second aspect ...'. However, subheadings
cannot create a structure where none exists. For this reason,
whether or not you use subheadings, it is sensible to check your
coverage against a list of potential subsections to make sure
that you have not forgotten anything you want to include (see
Box 1).
Tables, figures and diagrams, collectively referred to here as
illustrations, should always be used where they will save words
or make your argument clearer. However, you must make sure that
your reader does not need to refer to them in order to follow
the general flow of your arguments. For example, do not write
'The rate of reaction was measured at different temperatures and
the results are shown in a table', but 'Table 1 shows that the
rate of reaction increases with temperature'. Box 2 lists the
main points you need to think about when including illustrations
in your text.
The reader
If we put ourselves in the other mans shoes, we shall speedily
detect haw unconvincing our letters can seem, or how much we may
be taking for granted [4a].
It is unlikely that what you write will be read, as a novel is,
for pleasure during leisure time. Your reader will be reading
your work as a duty, and will almost certainly be under pressure,
and may be tired. You will create a better impression by making
the task as easy and agreeable as possible.
Think first about your objectives in terms of the effect you want
to have on your reader. Box 3 gives examples of objectives. Having
clarified your objectives you need to check them against your
perception of your reader's requirements and make sure that they
match. In particular, you need to assess your reader's technical
background so that your terms and concepts are appropriately presented.
In much of the writing that you do, you will think that your reader
already has a clear idea of what is the 'correct' response. Take
this into account in your assessment of reader requirements, but
do not allow it to dominate your work to the extent that it encourages
you to write something that you either do not believe or do not
understand. When you have planned your objectives and assessed
your readers requirements, then present your own ideas clearly;
you are not writing as the secretary to a committee
Racking his brains to record and report
What he thinks that they think that they ought to have thought [6].
There is no recipe for writing first class prose. This section
offers 10 suggestions which may help you to avoid some common
mistakes and to write clearly.
- Be concise. Clear thinking and careful planning lead to economy
of expression and avoidance of repetition and padding.
- Use simple words. Good style does not require you to be pompous
or flamboyant; 'purple passages' rarely enhance your arguments.
- Write short sentences. Some experienced writers can write
comprehensible long sentences; most cannot. If you find yourself
writing a sentence of more than about 40 words, consider ways
in which you could divide it.
- Take care with your grammar. Incorrect or slipshod grammar
often obscures your meaning and can irritate your reader even
when the sense is clear. Here is what Gowers has to say on this
subject:
-
There are rules of grammar. But one cannot write good
English merely by keeping the rules. On the whole they are aids
to writing intelligibly, for they are in the main no more than
the distillation af successful experiments in how best to handle
words so as to make a writers meaning plain. Some are arbitrary.
One or two actually increase the difficulty of clear expression,
but these too should nevertheless be respected because lapses
irritate the educated reader and so make him the less likely to
be affected precisely as you wish [4b].
- Beware of fashion. Words and phrases can become fashionable
and over-used, and their meaning often becomes uncertain.
- Use your own words. Copying other people's words (or original
ideas) without acknowledgement is plagiarism. This is always dishonest
and wrong, and in the university context it can lead to severe
penalties. Sometimes it may be useful to quote passages from someone
else's work, but in most of your work it is unlikely to be either
necessary or desirable. If you really believe that someone else
has said exactly what you want to say then do not make minimum
alterations and pretend you are using your own words; quote verbatim
using quotation marks and acknowledging your source.
- Use words correctly. Always write with a good dictionary at
hand and check whether a word means exactly what you think it
means. If you have a word whose meaning is not quite right you
might find it useful to use a thesaurus. Avoid using inverted
commas when you want to indicate to your reader that you have
used an inappropriate word which needs translating.
- Use words that your reader will understand. Remember that
knowledge of technical expressions (jargon) is often limited to
a comparatively small group of experts. You should avoid using
such expressions unless they provide the only sensible means of
saying what you want to say. If you do use them, explain their
meaning if there is a risk that your reader will not understand
them. Avoid trying to impress by using grandiose words that your
reader (and even you yourself) may not fully understand.
- Spell correctly. Bad spelling may distract and irritate your
reader. Use your dictionary.
- Take care with the use of 'I'. It is a difficult pronoun for
most inexperienced writers of science to use confidently and without
causing annoyance (particularly to members of an older generation
who were brought up with the mistaken belief that impersonality
confers impartiality). However, never go to such lengths to avoid
'I' that your prose becomes ugly and clumsy. Try, for example,
ways of eliminating the 'I' from this memorable sentence:
-
... Watson and I, sitting in the Eagle at Cambridge, drew
up the list of twenty (amino acids) which we have today [7].
This is an excellent example of how to write a serious and valuable
scientific review which makes frequent use of 'I'.
to
Communicating Chemistry page.
Box 1
Subheadings
Sections for possible inclusion in a report or article.
- Title (informative and concise).
- Summary or abstract .*
- Conclusions or recommendations (may be one sentence).*
- Background information, or introduction, or aims of the paper
(to set the scene).
- Main body of text, which may include method of study, findings
or results, or presentation of different aspects of the general
topic.
- Discussion of results in the context of other work, or drawing
together different aspects of the topic.
- References, properly cited.
- Appendices, clarifying or supporting points in the main text.
- * Depending on circumstances, these sections may go at the end
of the article.
to text.
Box 2
Illustrations
A check-list for users of illustrations.
- Each should save words or make a point clearer.
- Each needs a number and an informative title.
- Each must be intelligible to the reader without reference
to the text (if necessary give it a legend as well as a title).
- Each must be referred to, in the text, by its number.
- The sense of the text must be intelligible without reference
to the illustrations.
- Acknowledge sources of material adapted or copied from elsewhere.
to text.
Box 3
Objectives
Possible objectives in scientific writing.
- To display knowledge and understanding of a topic; or to
expose misconceptions so that they can be corrected.
- To demonstrate that a task has been completed effectively.
- To present a convincing case.
- To bring about a particular action possibly contrary to your
reader's inclinations.
- To stimulate a controversy.
- To explain an unfamiliar idea.
to text.
References
- P. Medawar, Encounter, 1969, 32(i) -
reprinted in Pluto's republic. Oxford: OUP, 1984.
- See references 1,3 and 4 also, H.W. Fowler, A dictionary
of modern English usage, 2nd edn, revised by Sir Ernest Gowers.
Oxford: OUP, 1983; G. Orwell, Horizon 1946, no. 76,
reprinted as Politics and the English language in Inside
the whale and other essays. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1967;
- A. Bennett, Literary taste, chap 6. London: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1912.
- E. Gowers, The complete plain words, chap 3. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1974; (b) ibid, Prologue.
- A. Bryant, The turn of the tide, p320. London: Collins,
1957.
- SSCbook news, July 1981.
- F. Crick, Cold Spring Harbor Symposium on Quantitative
biology, 1966, 31, 3-9.
Dr John Garratt is a senior lecturer and Brian Mattinson is a
senior visiting fellow in the department of chemistry at the University of York, Heslington, York YOl 5DD.
If you have any comments on this guide or suggestions for improvement
please get in touch with Paul Wyeth.
