Scientific Writing Style Guide

Based on common mistakes

1. Revise, revise, revise! No writing is ever perfect the first time through; write, read, and revise!

2. Make your report thorough yet concise.

3. Be specific.

   • Bad: Samples were heated in an oven overnight.
   • Good: Samples were placed in an 80°C oven for 8 hours.

4. Avoid unnecessary words and phrases.

   • Bad: It has been reported that air pollution 7 million deaths per year.
   • Good: Air pollution causes 7 million deaths per year [Ref 1].

5. Avoid too many/uncommon abbreviations, and define abbreviations the first time used (with a few exceptions, below); abbreviations should be appropriate for your audience.

   • Abbreviations that do not need to be defined: Element names (Cu) and well-known units (m, ml, °C, K, etc.)
   • Good abbreviations, when defined: Instrumental techniques, certain chemicals that are more commonly/easily known by their abbreviation (e.g. 4-MP).
   • Bad abbreviations: Tylenol (T-ol), acetaminophen (AM)

6. Use first-person active voice.

   • Bad: A GC-MS was used to perform a scent analysis on garlic. Samples were prepared for analysis thusly: To a sample vial, 1 g of garlic was chopped and added.
   • Good: We analyzed the scent of garlic using GC-MS. We chopped 1 g of garlic and placed it in a sample vial for analysis.

7. Use past tense for observations and methods.

   • Bad: Tylenol-brand tablets contain 5% less acetaminophen than advertised.
   • Good: Tylenol-brand tablets contained 5% less acetaminophen than advertised.

8. Use present tense for accepted facts.

   • Bad: Tylenol helped relieve headaches.
   • Good: Tylenol helps relieve headaches.

9. Avoid faulty or incomplete comparisons.

   • Bad: These results are similar to previous studies.
   • Good: These results are similar to the results of previous studies
   • Bad: Fractional distillation worked better.
   • Good: Fractional distillation worked better than simple distillation.

10. Use the correct suffix: The suffixes -graphy or -metry typically indicate techniques; -er and -ist indicate people; -ometer and -graph typically instruments; and -um and -am indicate data.

    • Bad: The gas chromatography was used to analyze the samples.
    • Good: Gas chromatography was used to analyze the samples.
    • Bad: The chromatograph has two peaks.
    • Good: The chromatogram has two peaks.

11. Species names and Latin words are written in italic (e.g. Allium sativum, in-vivo).

12. Use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation. See Elements of Styles (Strunk and White) for more detail.

Examples adapted from: Writing Papers in the Biological Sciences and Scientific Writing and Communication by Angelika H. Hofmann. Oxford University Press. (Hardcopies are available in the WCU library.)

---