{"id":3891,"date":"2018-09-15T14:54:47","date_gmt":"2018-09-15T14:54:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/?p=3891"},"modified":"2019-11-13T13:55:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-13T13:55:19","slug":"write-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/2018\/09\/15\/write-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Write away!"},"content":{"rendered":"

You picked Imperial to become a scientist, engineer or a medical doctor. What do these careers have in common? You\u2019ll need to write a lot: scientific\u00a0papers, grant applications, lecture notes,\u00a0popular science articles.\u00a0Unfortunately,\u00a0university curricula lack writing courses, so we end up with thousands of unreadable scientific papers. In my research I\u2019ve chosen some mathematical methods just because the authors made them easy to understand; nobody has time or energy to look for interesting science hiding behind word clutter.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Some scientific papers look like this…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m a mathematician, not a writer, and my writing is far from perfect. Let me share five tips to improve your writing so that you can learn from my mistakes.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Keep it simple.<\/b>\u00a0You won\u2019t impress the reader\u00a0by\u00a0sophisticated vocabulary or complicated sentence structures.\u00a0To be a better researcher, you don\u2019t have to\u00a0utilise<\/i>\u00a0instead of\u00a0use<\/i>\u00a0or\u00a0terminate<\/i>\u00a0instead of\u00a0stop<\/i>.\u00a0Nevertheless<\/i>\u00a0doesn\u2019t sound smarter than\u00a0but, by way of example<\/i>\u00a0more elegant than\u00a0such as.\u00a0<\/i>In fact, in most cases you won\u2019t even need the transition word as a logical paragraph construction will suffice.<\/li>\n
  2. Use verbs, avoid nouns.<\/b>\u00a0Don\u2019t get me wrong, we need nouns. But please\u00a0decide<\/i>, don’t\u00a0make decisions<\/i>;\u00a0conclude<\/i>, don’t\u00a0reach conclusions; estimate<\/i>, don\u2019t\u00a0obtain estimates<\/i>. Strong verbs drive the language and make\u00a0your paper lively. Just ensure you pick the correct, precise verb. For example, instead of\u00a0XYZ predicts that approximately…<\/i>, you can write\u00a0XYZ estimates…\u00a0<\/i>And when you find a nice verb, don\u2019t turn it into a noun:\u00a0We rejected the hypothesis<\/i>\u00a0sounds better than\u00a0Our study has resulted in the rejection of the hypothesis<\/i>.<\/li>\n
  3. Use active voice.<\/span><\/span><\/strong>\u00a0Treatments aren\u2019t found, phenomena\u00a0<\/span><\/span>observed<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and theorems proven \u2013 someone finds, observes or proves them. Own\u00a0<\/span><\/span>your<\/span><\/span>\u00a0achievement, announce proudly what you\u2019ve done! But also take the responsibility, don\u2019t hope that if\u00a0<\/span><\/span>the mistake has been made<\/span><\/span>, nobody will\u00a0<\/span><\/span>realise<\/span><\/span>\u00a0it was you who made it!<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\n

    \"\"
    Research isn’t ‘being done’ – someone works really hard to make it happen!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n
  4. Be direct.<\/b>\u00a0Instead of writing\u00a0It was found that drinking\u00a0<\/i>gummiberry<\/i>\u00a0juice twice a day reduces the headaches by 30%<\/i>\u00a0you can just state: Drinking\u00a0<\/i>gummiberry<\/i>\u00a0juice twice a day reduces the headaches by 30%<\/i>.<\/i>\u00a0Focus on the facts, don\u2019t pack them into\u00a0it seems that<\/i>,\u00a0the study shows<\/i>,\u00a0it is believed that<\/i>\u00a0– it\u2019s usually clear from the context which study you\u2019re talking about.\n

    \"\"
    This elongated yellow fruit has a name: BANANA.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n
  5. Watch out for repetitions.\u00a0<\/b>You learned at school to reach for thesaurus whenever you\u2019re about to repeat the word. In most cases you can avoid this word altogether, for example\u00a0In<\/i>\u00a0this article I share some tips on scientific writing and provide guidance on avoiding common mistakes<\/i>\u00a0could easily become\u00a0I<\/i>n<\/i>\u00a0this article I\u00a0<\/i>share\u00a0<\/i>some tips on scientific writing and\u00a0avoiding common mistakes<\/i>.\u00a0<\/i>But when you really need to repeat a word, just do it. Please don\u2019t call a banana an\u00a0elongated yellow fruit<\/i>. Just don\u2019t.<\/li>\n
  6. Bonus tip: write!\u00a0<\/b>The more you do it, the easier it becomes. Check out my first articles on this blog, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll notice an improvement in my writing. Seriously, give it a go!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    You picked Imperial to become a scientist, engineer or a medical doctor. What do these careers have in common? You\u2019ll need to write a lot: scientific\u00a0papers, grant applications, lecture notes,\u00a0popular science articles.\u00a0Unfortunately,\u00a0university curricula lack writing courses, so we end up with thousands of unreadable scientific papers. In my research I\u2019ve chosen some mathematical methods just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1026,"featured_media":3892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127224,385,169,625,163723,127784,3203,13056,612],"tags":[58070],"class_list":["post-3891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communicating-science","category-imperial","category-outreach","category-phd","category-potentially-actually-useful-stuff","category-practical-advice","category-science","category-scientists","category-study","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1026"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3891"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4871,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions\/4871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/student-blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}