The Craft of Scientific Writing

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Michael AlleyThe Craft of Scientific Writinghttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8288-9_1

1. Analyzing the Audience, Purpose, and Occasion

Michael Alley¹  

(1)

College of Engineering, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16803, USA

Michael Alley

Email: mpa13@psu.edu

The major weakness that I see in papers by young researchers is that they organize their writing to parallel the time and effort required for the various aspects of the research. So, if they spent 90 percent of their time doing X, they seem to almost inevitably organize the paper so that 90 percent of the paper is focused on X—even when the most interesting and significant results are in the other 10 percent [1].

—Andrew Zydney

The original version of this chapter was revised: Belated correction has been incorporated. The erratum to this chapter is available at https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​978-1-4419-8288-9_​11

An erratum to this publication is available online at https://​doi.​org/​10.​1007/​978-1-4419-8288-9_​11

On the morning of January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. On board were seven astronauts, including the first civilian in space: the middle school teacher Christa McAuliffe. Because this launch included the first teacher in space, many school children across the country watched on television. Tragically, the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after takeoff, killing all seven astronauts on board. About 60 seconds into the launch, as captured on film, a flame emerged from the middle portion of the right solid rocket booster. Over the next 3 seconds, the flame expanded into an explosion. Because of this photographic evidence, the investigating board quickly focused on the solid rocket boosters as the source for the explosion. One of the board’s conclusions was that two O-rings, which were secondary seals to prevent the fuel from escaping, had failed [2].

Seven years before that fateful launch, a NASA engineer had reservations about the O-ring design of the shuttle’s solid rocket boosters. After learning about those reservations, NASA management requested that the engineer seek opinions from O-ring experts about the design. From visits to two large manufacturers of O-rings, the engineer found that both manufacturers also held serious concerns about the design [2]. In fact, one manufacturer expressed surprise that the O-ring design had performed so well. To document the trip, the engineer wrote a short report to NASA management with the following title:

This title is weak. Why? Put simply, this title did not reveal to the audience what the report was about.

A careful author would have thought more deeply about the audience. For example, would NASA managers have remembered their request 3 weeks before to seek opinions from O-ring experts? Perhaps. Would this audience have recognized those two companies as large manufacturers of O-rings? Probably not. Would the audience have realized the connection between those two companies and the concern raised about the O-ring design in the shuttle’s solid rocket booster? Doubtful.

Someone attuned to the audience of this report would have crafted a much different title:

Giving such care to the titles of scientific documents is important. Titles strongly influence whether the audience will read, file, or discard the document. We do not know whether a stronger title would have made a difference with this short report. What we do know was that this report was the end of the paper trail for NASA’s concern about this O-ring design. In other words, no one responded in writing to this report, even though the report contained strong warnings about the design [2].

Your understanding of the audience is essential for your success as an author.

Before spending the energy to write sentences in a scientific document, you should analyze the document’s audience. In addition, you should analyze two other constraints of the document: purpose and occasion. These three constraints—audience, purpose, and occasion—greatly affect the style of scientific writing . For instance, audience affects which terms you define, what background information you provide, and which details you emphasize. Likewise, the purpose shapes your sentences and paragraphs. If you are simply informing such as in a set of instructions , you might arrange the ideas in a numbered list. However, if you are fashioning an argument such as in a proposal, you would want to connect the ideas in full-fledged paragraphs. Occasion also affects the style of your writing. For instance, the writing style of a researcher in medicine who has only two pages to write a paper will differ significantly from the writing style of a geologist who has twenty.

Analyze who your audience is, why they are reading, and what they know

In a scientific document, the audience affects every sentence and image. Compared with other types of writing such as journalism , scientific writing targets audiences with much wider ranges of familiarity with the content. In other words, while a sports reporter for a newspaper targets an audience with the same general understanding of a sport, an engineer or scientist often faces audiences with widely different levels of understanding about the subject.

Assume for the moment that you are an engineer who has used electronics from space exploration to design an implant to deliver insulin to diabetics [3]. You might write one document to other engineers who are familiar with the electronics of your design but not with its application to combatting diabetes. You might then write a second document to medical doctors who are familiar with diabetes but not with the electronics of your design. In yet a third document, your audience might be managers who hold the purse strings for your project but who are unfamiliar with both diabetes and electronics. Here you have essentially the same content but three different audiences and three distinctly different documents.

With each document, you should assess the following three questions about audience:

(1)

who is the audience?

(2)

why is the audience reading?

(3)

what does the audience know?

Answering the first question of who the audience is reveals how challenging the document will be to write. In more straightforward cases, you have only one type of reader , such as a technical manager. In more difficult situations, you have a mixture of audiences : engineers and scientists in your field, engineers and scientists from other fields, and managers. In still more difficult documents, that varied audience might include people with no background in science—politicians, for example.

Answering the second question of why the audience is reading tells you what information the audience needs or wants. Knowing that, you can define the document’s scope: what work to include and what to leave out. In addition, you can determine which findings to emphasize. As Professor Andrew Zydney pointed out in the chapter’s opening quotation, many engineers and scientists neglect to address this question. For that reason, many documents are doomed from the start because the author buries or perhaps does not even discuss what the audience considers most important.

Answering the third question of what the audience knows about the content helps you decide which order to arrange the content, which terms to define, and what background to include. When you have a mixture of audiences , you should assess which readers are your primary audience. That assessment is important for structuring the document. For instance, in a formal report, you target the primary audience in the main sections and then use appendices and perhaps a glossary to reach secondary audiences.

For documents that contain unexpected or controversial findings, you should explore this third question at a deeper level by also considering what the audience believes about the content. In particular, you should consider the audience’s initial bias toward your conclusions. With an audience holding a neutral stance about your conclusions, an assertion-evidence approach works well [4]. In this approach, you build an argument on assertions (or claims) that are supported by evidence from your theories, computations, and experiments. However, relying solely on an assertion-evidence approach often falters if the audience holds a deep-seated biased against your conclusions. In such cases, you would do better to craft an argument that first shows your understanding of the audience’s initial position on the question [5]. Then you present your evidence for the question, before revealing your stance (or assertion) on the question. Ideally, the evidence reveals not only the weaknesses of the audience’s initial position but also the logic of your conclusion. Although this second evidence-assertion strategy will not necessarily win over opponents with strong biases [5], those opponents are more likely to read further in the document. In addition, those readers are more likely to appreciate your position.

Analyze how much persuasion your document requires

Besides audience, another important constraint for a scientific document is the purpose. In scientific writing, you write for two specific goals : to inform and to persuade. All scientific documents have the first goal: to inform. Concerning the second goal, the level of persuasion varies widely across documents. For instance, a set of instructions carries relatively little persuasion, while a proposal carries a high degree of persuasion.

To understand the role of purpose in scientific writing , a helpful analogy is to think of your scientific documents as paths up your mountain of expertise. Here, you as the author try to lead audiences to vistas of understanding about your work. In this analogy, depicted in Figure 1-1 when the purpose of the writing is purely informative, you can think of the trail as a smooth dirt path, such as through a meadow. When the process is complex, the trail might be steep but the path remains smooth. No matter whether the slope is gentle or steep, with purely informative writing, your goal is straightforward: to provide the what, where, when, and how of the content so that the audience can follow your path. In such writing, the key measure for success is efficiency , which is how quickly your writing leads the audience from one point to another.

Figure 1-1.

Mountain path as an analogy of the author’s path in an informative document [6]. In this analogy, the more technical the content, the steeper the slope of the path.

When the purpose of your writing includes persuasion , another measure for success comes into play: your credibility. For such writing, it is not enough that the audience simply understands your content. In such writing, the audience continually questions your content and therefore is interested not only in the what, where, when, and how but also the why. For that reason, persuasive writing calls on you to balance being efficient with being credible. Put another way, in persuasive writing, you spend additional words to build your credibility with the audience. In our analogy, depicted in Figure 1-2, a persuasive portion of a trail would be rocky, such as a boulder field. In a boulder field, a hiker does not take every step in the direction of the summit. Rather, the hiker takes additional steps to navigate around the boulders. Likewise, in a persuasive document, some sentences that you write are not to aid the audience’s understanding but to build your credibility.

Figure 1-2.

Boulder field as an analogy of the author’s path in a persuasive document [7]. Just as a hiker in a boulder field chooses paths around the steep rocks, an author in a persuasive document spends words to build credibility with the reader.

In a similar way that audience affects the style of writing, so does purpose. For instance, consider the style of instructions , which are predominantly informative with relatively little persuasion . This writing style often reduces to numbered lists of steps that are separated by white space and arranged vertically down the page. How does this choppy style serve instructions? When reading instructions, the reader typically reads a step, turns from the document, and then performs the step. In a vertical list of steps, the reader can quickly find the next numbered step because it stands apart from the others.

While the style of having vertical lists serves the purpose of instructions , this style is not effective in persuasive documents. When reading an argument, the audience expects strong links between the ideas. For that reason, persuasive writing calls for full-fledged paragraphs. Unfortunately, many engineers and scientists fail to realize this difference in style. Rather, these authors litter their persuasive reports with vertical lists that disrupt the continuity and do not show the connections.

In addition, the paragraphs of persuasive writing are typically longer than paragraphs of primarily informative writing. One reason is that in persuasive writing, the author addresses the question of why. For instance, in a proposal for an experiment that measures blood flow through a heart valve, the reader cares deeply not only about what measurement technique the author has chosen but also why the author selected that technique. Such a choice warrants an explanation, which leads to longer paragraphs.

Account for the document’s occasion: the form, formality, and politics

Just as audience and purpose often vary from document to document, so does occasion. Occasion encompasses the form of the document, the document’s formality , and the politics surrounding the content. Each of these three aspects can significantly affect the writing.

Form. In scientific writing, form comprises not only the rules of grammar, punctuation, usage , and spelling but also the guidelines for length and format. Among these aspects of form, one category that invokes fear in many authors, but should not, is grammar. Essentially, grammar concerns the rules for arranging words into meaningful sentences. Compared with other languages such as Polish, English has relatively few grammatical rules. In English, the most important rule of grammar is the definition of a sentence: a group of words with a subject and verb that gives a complete thought.

Certainly, engineers and scientists should know grammar well enough that they do not make grammatical mistakes, such as a fragment or run - on sentence. However , another important goal is to understand grammar well enough to write sophisticated sentences—sentences that connect ideas in efficient ways, that emphasize important details, and that produce enough variety to drive readers through longer documents. For such an understanding of grammar, you should be able to recognize the basic parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, and conjunction. If you can recognize these parts in sentences, you are in a position to analyze your own writing of sentences to achieve a sophisticated style . Presented in Appendix A is a synopsis of grammar for such an understanding.

Although the grammar of English has relatively few rules , the punctuation of English contains many. Each piece of punctuation, be it a comma , period , colon , or em - dash, carries its own set of rules. For a comma, not only do many rules exist but a good portion of those rules fall into a gray area. In other words, in many situations, whether to insert a comma is optional. Presented in Appendix B are the most important rules for punctuation in scientific writing.

Even more rules exist for English usage , which concerns the way we use words. Usage encompasses which word (for example, affect or effect) to use, whether to use a singular or plural, and which verb tense to select. Because English contains words from so many different languages, many exceptions for these decisions exist, and these exceptions lead to common misconceptions. As one small example, the word plethora does not mean an abundance, as many authors assume, but an overabundance. To become sensitive to the most common usage mistakes in scientific writing, see Appendix C.

In English, confusion about punctuation and usage sometimes arises because of location. For example, in the United States, end quotation marks appear outside of periods and commas. However, in Great Britain, end quotation marks usually appear inside periods and commas. Likewise, in most publications such as Scientific American, the years from 1990 until 1999 are written as the 1990s, while in The New York Times , those years are written as the 1990’s. A third challenge for punctuation and usage in English is that rules sometimes change with time. For instance, in the 1920s, Roentgen rays were written as X rays. Today, however, x-rays is proper. In addition, because of changes in pronunciation, while an historical was proper form in the 1700s, a historical is proper today. No simple advice exists to handle the maze of punctuation and usage rules in English. As a writer, you have to distinguish between rules without exceptions, such as the spelling of the word separate, and rules with exceptions such as when to use numerals and when to write out numbers.

The effect of document length, which is another aspect of form, is relatively straightforward. The shorter the document is, the less depth that you can achieve. For instance, the page limits of a journal paper might allow you only one sentence to justify the importance of your work:

The cooling of blades in gas turbine engines is important because the combustion gases that flow over the blades are more than 500 °C hotter than the blades’ melting temperature [8].

In a report or thesis, though, you would likely have more space to make this same argument:

The cooling of blades in gas turbine engines is important because the combustion gases that flow over the blades are more than 500 °C hotter than the blades’ melting temperature [8]. In addition, these blades are expensive, often costing more than $25,000 for the replacement of each blade. Moreover, cooling can make a significant difference in a blade’s life. For instance, reducing the temperature on a gas turbine blade by just 25 °C doubles the blade’s life [9].

In this second argument, the additional space allowed the author to deepen the argument.

Format, which is yet another perspective on form, is the way that you arrange the type on the page. Format includes such decisions as the typeface selected, the number of columns, the way to number the pages, and the way to reference sources. No universal format exists for scientific writing. Because journals, laboratories, and corporations establish their own formats, the formats of science vary widely. A number of engineers and scientists fret over things such as why Journal A has one type of referencing system, while Journal B uses another. Instead of worrying about a journal’s format, over which you have no control, you should worry about style , which is something you do control. For example, you should worry about your word choices , the complexity of your illustrations , and the way you emphasize your results .

In many situations such as writing a journal paper, the format is set. In other words, you are expected to follow the established guidelines. However, situations arise such as an unsolicited proposal in which you select the format. For such situations, you should consult a graphic designer. For situations in which no graphic designer is available, Appendix D presents general recommendations for formatting scientific documents to achieve a professional look.

Formality. In addition to form, the formality of an occasion influences the way that you write. Compared with fiction and journalism , scientific writing is formal . Presented in Table 1-1 are words and expressions that many scientific readers see as too informal. For instance, while the expressions a lot and get are fine when spoken, these expressions when written unsettle some readers. As another example, while beginning a sentence with the conjunction but is now allowed by many newspapers, the practice is still too informal for scientific writing. Most scientific editors would expect that you select the adverb however (followed by a comma ) to begin such sentences.

Table 1-1.

Expressions considered to be too informal for scientific writing.

Other expressions such as vs., &, and you are accepted on certain occasions but not in others. While the abbreviation vs. is appropriate in a table column that has limited space, you should write out the abbreviation when space allows. Likewise, while an ampersand is fine to use when part of a company name (PG&E, for instance), you should not substitute it for the word and in a sentence. Such a substitution borders on graffiti. Finally, while the word you is appropriate in correspondence and instructions (including this book), readers consider the use too informal for a journal article, formal report, or dissertation.

Politics. Yet a third way that occasion influences scientific writing is through politics. In an ideal world, politics would reduce to the simple statement that you remain honest. Staying honest is straightforward enough. For instance, if you know that your vacuum pumps have coated your experiment with mercury vapor and you suspect that the vapor has altered the results, then you would be dishonest if you did not state your suspicion.

Unfortunately, the world is not ideal, and engineers and scientists are often constrained in their writing not only by the need to remain honest but also by the need to satisfy administrators. Illustrating this point is the poor communication between engineers and NASA the day preceding the fateful launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger . Months before the accident, engineers at Morton Thiokol International, a contractor for the shuttle, not only knew about the erosion of the O-rings in the solid rocket booster’s joints but also had evidence that lower temperatures would exacerbate this problem [2]. When temperatures plunged below freezing the day before the fateful launch, the engineers tried to have the launch stopped. However, they were rebuffed by NASA officials at Marshall Space Center. Why? One reason was the politics surrounding the shuttle launches at that time. Because of delays in previous launch attempts, NASA was under political pressure to launch. In addition, because NASA had a reputation for firing contractors who admitted the technical problems in their designs , Morton-Thiokol had avoided informing NASA about their concerns with the O-ring erosion.

Political pressures affect most documents to some degree. In dramatic cases, such as the Space Shuttle Challenger , the political constraints force you to face your ethical responsibilities as an engineer or scientist and to act accordingly. In most cases, the stakes are not nearly so high. In cases with lower stakes, the important thing is that you distinguish between the political constraints imposed on that document and the stylistic goals desired for the rest of your writing. For instance, just because a company lawyer insists that you be wordy in a report’s disclaimer does not mean that wordiness is desired in the rest of your writing.

References

1.

Andrew Zydney, Professor of Chemical Engineering, Penn State, email to author (12 Mar 2007).

2.

Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1996), pp. 104–111, 249.

3.

Gary Carlson, Implantable Insulin Delivery System, Sandia Technology, vol. 6, no. 2 (Jun 1992), pp. 12–21.

4.

Michael Alley, The Craft of Scientific Presentations, 2nd ed. (New York: Springer-Verlag, 2013), chap. 4.

5.

Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person (Boston: Houghton, 1961).

6.

United States Geological Survey, Long’s Peak in Colorado, photograph (Washington, D.C.: United States Geological Survey, 2002).

7.

KatrinS83, Boulder Field, photograph, CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://​creativecommons.​org/​licenses/​by-sa/​3.​0 via Wikimedia Commons).

8.

H. Cohen, F. G. Rogers, and H. I. Saravanamuttoo, Gas Turbine Theory, 3rd ed. (New York: Longman Scientific and Technical, 1987).

9.

David G. Bogard and Karen A. Thole, Gas Turbine Film Cooling, Journal of Propulsion and Power, vol. 21, no. 6 (31 Dec 2005).

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Michael AlleyThe Craft of Scientific Writinghttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8288-9_2

2. Balancing Precision with Clarity

Michael Alley¹  

(1)

College of Engineering, Penn State University, University Park, PA 16803, USA

Michael Alley

Email: mpa13@psu.edu

In scientific writing, keep things as simple as possible, yet no simpler [1].

—Albert Einstein

Einstein’s advice to keep the language as simple as possible, yet no simpler, calls for a balance between being precise and being clear. Foremost, your scientific writing has to be precise. Otherwise, you are not communicating the work. While being precise requires you to convey what you mean, clarity calls on you to avoid things that you do not mean. Achieving this balance begins with choosing the right word. As Mark Twain said, The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between ‘lightning’ and ‘lightning-bug’ [2]. In addition, achieving this balance of precision and clarity requires you to find the appropriate level of detail for the audience and then, as Einstein said, avoid any complexity above that level. Moreover, this balance should apply not only to your language but also to your illustrations .

Choose the right word

As an engineer or scientist, you would not choose the word weight when you mean mass. Technical terms