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Word choice directly impacts the readability of your writing. I do so in the hope that this will inspire a few more young scientists to develop their own effective styles. This, though, is perfectly fine: my goal is not to convince you that I have found the one true way, but instead simply to get people thinking and talking about writing. Indeed, you (or your mentor) may disagree strongly with many of the suggestions I make below. Thus, while I present here some of my most cherished writing conventions (i.e., the rules that I force on my own students), I do not mean to imply that they represent the only acceptable approach.
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The trick, then, is not to copy someone else's voice, but rather to study what works-and what does not-in your own writing and that of others to formulate your own guide to effective communication. In fact, there are a myriad of solutions to the problem of writing well (see, e.g., Refs. Before I share my hard-won tips, though, I have an admission: there is no single, correct way to write.
#Chimpanzee hand writing how to#
Thus inspired, I set out to teach myself how to communicate more effectively, an effort that, some fifteen years later, I am still pursuing.Īlong the way I have learned a thing or two that I believe make my papers easier to read, a few of which I am pleased to share with you here. But I had the good fortune to postdoc under an outstanding scientific communicator, who taught me the above-described lesson that writing well is worth the considerable effort it demands. I, for one, was not a natural-born writer as a graduate student, my writing was weak and rambling, taking forever to get to the point. Realizing this goal, though, is not so simple. The goal of good writing is straightforward: to make your reader's job as easy as possible. That is, while even the most skillful writing cannot turn bad science into good science, clear and compelling writing makes good science more impactful, and thus more valuable. Which are you more likely to read, understand, and cite? The answer to this question hits directly at the value of good writing: writing well leverages your work. The other is concise, engaging, and easy to follow.
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One is long, dense, and filled with jargon. Imagine, for example, that you hold in your hand two papers, both of which describe precisely the same set of experimental results. The value of writing well should not be underestimated.