• Winning the publications game (2nd edition), by Tim Albert, Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2000. Modesty forbids ... but this book takes the line that writing scientific papers is not as hard as many people make out. It goes through the process in 10 easy stages.
• How to publish in biomedicine, by Jane Fraser, Abingdon: Radcliffe Medical Press, 1997. Five hundred tips for success from an author who comes from the UK (as opposed to US) tradition of science writing.
• Publishing your medical research paper, by Daniel W Byrne, Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1998. This book promises ‘over 200 expert tips’. It is written from the US perspective and has some interesting data about what reviewers think.
• Biomedical research, by William F Whimster, London: Springer, 1996. A broad sweep through many aspects of planning, publishing and presenting research. Includes some useful chapters on the changes brought by electronic publishing. • How to write and publish a scientific paper (3rd edition), by
Robert A Day, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. One of the few books on this topic that is genuinely funny.
Scientific words
Some words are truly scientific, in that they describe precise things or concepts, such as ‘tyrosine’, ‘auto- somal dominant transmission’ or ‘multivariate logistic regression’. Other words, such as ‘approximately’ (instead of ‘about’), ‘elevated’ (instead of ‘raised’) and ‘demonstrated’ (instead of ‘showed’) are merely pompous words. Avoid them, even when writing scientific papers.Semicolons
If you are having to look this up, don’t use them (see full stops).Sentences
Keep them short, simple and active. Put the verbs in early. Keep out subsidiary clauses and phrases; otherwise you will end up with something like this: ‘These results, on the effects of treatments and risk factors in determining trends in coronary heart attack rates and mortality, which include some early surprises, will create considerable discussion and controversy amongst the world’s experts, although further analyses remain to be done.’Or this: ‘To ensure that evidence from systematic reviews informs clinical practice in district general hospitals, we believe that those professionals who lead clinical departments should appreciate evidence-based medicine and how to incorporate review evidence into effective implementation methods to influence their staff, such as wall posters or practice guidelines.’ See also final sentence; first
sentence; topic sentence.
Sexist language
See political correctness.Short articles
Do not assume that they take less time than long articles. The reverse will usually be true.Shuffling data around
One of the main preoccupations of those writing scientific papers. There is a better way (see setting thebrief).
Simplicity
A virtue in writing.Slander
A defamation which is spoken (as opposed to libel, which is written).Spacing after a full stop
Many who trained as typists on mechanical typewriters were instructed to leave two spaces after the full stop. Word processors are more flexible when it comes to spacing, and now the convention is to have one space only.Spelling
This gives rise to all kinds of difficulties, mainly because people love finding other people’s spelling mistakes and using them to imply that they are uneducated, ignorant and no longer a rival for the next job (see politics of writing). One of the problems is that English spelling has few rules, and those that do exist have exceptions.Computerized spelling checks do help, and there is no excuse for not switching them on. However, they tell us only that we have a properly spelt word, and do not tell us if we have a good word in the wrong place. (While revising early drafts of this book, for instance, I came across ‘a strong of nouns’, ‘collecting the date’, ‘piss the buck’ and ‘subsequent grips from rivals’).
One of the best ways of improving your spelling is to read clear English. I don’t necessarily mean the classics: airport novels, news- papers and magazines are quite good enough for this purpose. You need to be familiar with the shape of words, because alarm bells will start to ring when you see an aberration. You then need a good dictionary, and the energy and self discipline to use it.
Meanwhile, here are 10 commonly misspelt words (UK version). Get them right and you are already doing better than others: accom-
modation, corollary, diarrhoea, inoculate, occurred, ophthalmology, publicly, resuscitate, separate, unnecessary.
Split infinitives
This is where the two parts of the ‘infinitive’ form of a verb are split by an adverb, as in (and now famously) ‘to boldly go’ rather than ‘to go boldly’. This practice causes some people to get upset. All writers on style, however, seem to agree that this rule is based on Latin grammar and was misguided from the start. If you want to split an infinitive and it sounds right, most modern authorities say, then go ahead and split it. If anyone complains, pass them a reference book and challenge them to find support for their position.Starting
See getting started.Statisticians
Most scientific journals now take statistics very seriously, with professional statisticians advising them at the highest level. We need to take this into account when writing for journals and involve a statistician at an early stage. Establish before you startwhether you will have enough numbers from which to draw any meaningful conclusions.
But keep a sense of proportion. Endless statistics can impede communications. Unfortunately much modern science writing has become a succession of statistics that only the statistician and his mate understand. Use statistics to support the message, not to drown it (see leaf shuffling).
Stereotyping
In writing, and in life, a great evil. Listen, and then report accurately.Stet
Latin for ‘let it stand’. A common proofreading mark which means – ignore the ‘correction’.Structure
It is easy to get so caught up in the meaning of a piece of writing that we take for granted the way the writing has been constructed – in other words the structure. Variables are likely to include: how long will the piece of writing be (length)? How will it be organized (paragraphs; sentences)? Should the message be at the start, or buried at the end (inverted triangle)? Will it follow the scien- tific IMRAD structure? How will it be labelled (headlines; titles)?The structure to use is the one that your target audience likes and knows (see evidence-based writing).