How can I sound professional?

“Microcrystals (average size, 5 × 5 × 2 mm³; fig. S1) of the A2AAR with apocytochrome b562RIL (BRIL) fused into its third intracellular loop (A2AAR-BRIL) (25) in complex with the antagonist ZM241385 were grown (26) and delivered inside LCP using a viscous medium microinjector (7). An x-ray energy of 6 keV (wavelength, 2.07 Å) was used as a compromise between the strength of anomalous scattering from sulfur atoms (K-edge, 2.472 keV), the efficiencies of the Kirkpatrick-Baez mirrors and of the detector, as well as the detector-size and wavelength limits on resolution.” (Adapted from Batyuk et al. 2016)

If the language in this passage seems daunting at first, don’t worry—you’re not alone! To the unaccustomed eye, professional scientific writing often appears dense and awkward; however, when we parse out the writing techniques from the scientific jargon, it becomes clear that scientific writing is not so different from any other type of academic writing.

Hopefully it sounds familiar when we say that in your writing you should be accurate, provide evidence for your claims, and be specific in its examples. These guidelines are true across disciplines, genres, audiences and purposes. Mostly, it’s only the technical content of scientific writing that makes it look so different.

a. The IPCC projected in its 2001 report that sea level will rise anywhere between 4 and 35 inches (10 and 89 centimeters) by the end of the century. The high end of that projection—nearly three feet (a meter)—would be “an unmitigated disaster,” according to Douglas. (Adapted from a National Geographic article)

b. Over the last 50 years a total area of 28,000 km² of ice shelf has been lost, in connection to an increase of about 2.5 °C of the mean annual temperature (Cook and Vaughan 2010). (Adapted from Frezzotti and Orombelli 2013)

Notice that in both of the above examples, the authors cite evidence (the IPCC report; a paper by Cook and Vaughan) and are specific in their examples, despite the fact that the National Geographic article is intended for a general audience while the Frezzotti and Orombelli article is intended for a scientific audience.

So—what can you do to sound more professional?

Conciseness

Conciseness—the ability to say a lot in as few words as possible—is one of the most important parts of writing publishable-quality papers and is covered in detail on this page.

Effectiveness of visuals

Because of the complexity of constructing visuals such as figures and tables, we cover them in detail on this page.

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Clarity and specificity

When the content of your paper is technically complex, it can be very challenging to get your ideas across clearly. In this section we will cover how to convey this type of information in a straightforward, thorough, and effective way.

Using quantitative terms

In science, the numbers are often what matter most. For example, by knowing not only that “the yield of product A was higher than that of product B” but also that it was “23% higher,” we can quantitatively compare a reaction resulting in A and B to similar reactions to help determine which might be most useful for future experiments.

You should report a quantitative result over a qualitative description of the result whenever it is appropriate. An example of when it might be inappropriate is if a quantity has no scientific significance, such as:

“The value was 3.4% below the limit of detection (LOD).”

If a value is below a limit of detection or quantification, it cannot be quantified and should therefore be reported as:

“The value was below LOD.”

When you can report exact values, only do so to the correct level of confidence. This means that you need to know how to correctly calculate significant figures, the number of digits in a number that carry meaning. Reporting a datum to the correct number of significant figures is important because it conveys the amount of precision of that value and is the only accurate way to report the value. Here we provide a cursory review of significant figures; for a more detailed resource, try this guide from Rice University.

It is also important that you are able to communicate statistical significance appropriately. You should become familiar with many of the statistical tests you can perform on data and how to calculate them (which won’t be covered in this writing guide). Once you have conducted a statistical analysis of your data, you also must be able effectively translate it into your report. Usually, statistics are reported both in a figure or table as well as in the body of your Results section text.

Unless your paper is focused on mathematical or statistical operations and manipulations of data, you should keep discussion of statistics to a minimum. Statistical values are useful because they convey the amount of confidence you can have in your data often in a single number. In general, standard statistical analyses do not require explanation of how you performed them or what they mean. Here we provide examples of how statistics are discussed in the context of a results section.

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Click to see examples

Results with error and/or significance reporting	Reference
On some dates, the AAT recorded multiple consecutive exposures of HD 4732 (Table 3)…. On the four dates that had multiple exposures, the mean velocity spread is 2.9 m s-1.	Sato et al. (2013)
The velocities with respect to North America have gradients that vary across eastern Nevada and western Utah (Figure 3). In western Utah, the velocity gradient across the Wasatch, Oquirrh, and Stansbury ranges is similar to that previously reported in several GPS studies [22-24], achieving a mean of 2.8 mm yr-1 west at the Nevada border and mean south rate for Utah stations west of -112° longitude of 0.8 mm yr-1…. West of the NV/UT state line, the velocity gradients change character, with a near-zero increase in east component and an increase of ~1 mm yr-1 when moving west from -114° to -117° longitude. A component of this gradient west of -114° describes clockwise rotation and not deformation.	Hammond, Blewitt, and Kreemer (2014)
A xylitol-dependent glucose 6-phosphate accumulation through the pentose phosphate pathway and gluconeogenesis was detectable only for much higher xylitol concentrations (Table I).	Doiron et al. (1996)
Table 1 displays results from each treatment of the present study. The hatch rates of each replicate (indicated by SD) clearly show the variability within individual spawns; such variability is common in commercial hatcheries.	Straus et al. (2012)
There were no detectable differences between the populations originating in Georgia or North Carolina at the Georgia location; therefore, data were combined for analysis (Figure 2). At initiation of the study, seed viability averaged 86%, declining to 63 and 33% at 12 and 24 mo, respectively. Burial of 36 mo or longer reduced seed viability to, 2%. The relationship between Benghal dayflower seed viability and burial time was described by a sigmoidal regression model (R2 = 0.89, P < 0.0001).	Riar et al. (2012)
Subchronic inhalation of ultrafine and fine TiO2 particles resulted in a significant impairment of AM-mediated test particle clearance (Figure 5). Control animals had a clearance rate of the test particles of approximately 1% per day, for the animals exposed to the fine particles, the clearance rate was reduced to 0.6% per day; and for those exposed to the ultrafine particles, it was even further reduced, to 0.13% per day.	Oberdörster, Ferin, and Lehnert (1994)

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Using verb tenses appropriately

You might be thinking that it seems mundane to be thinking about the difference between verb tenses, but in science, it can be a little tricky. For example, which of the following two statements do you think would be appropriate to use in your discussion section?

a. Changing connectivity between active and isolated components of the subglacial drainage system does not drive seasonal trends in ice velocity on alpine glaciers owing to the dominant control of subglacial channels. (Adapted from Andrews et al. 2014)

b. Changing connectivity between active and isoalted components of the subglacial drainage system did not drive seasonal trends in ice velocity on alpine glaciers owing to the dominant control of subglacial channels.

Actually, the tense you should use depends on the context. If the assertion is something that is widely accepted by scientists in the field of alpine glaciers, then sentence (a) would appropriately use the present tense. However, sentence (b) would be more appropriate this assertion had been shown, only once or so, by a particular published work. In the latter case, past tense communicates that the phenomenon did happen in a study but not necessarily that it is true.

Hopefully, you can begin to see how your choice of tense can greatly impact the meaning of your sentence. Is your statement true for all time, or just in the context of your paper? In this sense, your verb tense can also help convey how much confidence you have in a statement. Compare:

a. Dogs have tails.

b. Dogs were reported to have tails.

c. Dogs have been reported to have tails.

These statements seem to have very different connotations. (a) shows complete confidence in the assertion–present tense shows that something is true. In (b), the past tense used shows that dogs did have tails in one case but that this might no longer hold true. This is the case in (c), as well, but the statement is less definitive and therefore even seems to suggests that the author might doubt the idea that dogs have tails. Clearly, it is important to choose your verb tense carefully!

As you can see from the table above, the future tense is rarely used in journal articles, which should make sense since journals are used to report what has happened whereas research proposals are for proposing a future endeavor.

In sum, it is best to use the present tense for facts and interpretations; use the past tense for results.

Being unambiguous

It is easy to accidentally introduce ambiguity into your writing by using words like this, that, or it without enough context to make it clear what these pronouns refer to. For example, try to distinguish what “it” refers to in the following sentence:

A large channel feature (channel1; Figs. 8b and 9b) was identified immediately north of the dam. It measures approximately 100 m wide on either side of the river with 2–3 m relief. (Adapted from Steelman, Kennedy, and Parker 2015).

What measures approximately 100 m: the dam or the channel feature? In order to make the meaning of the second sentence clear, specificity is imperative:

A large channel feature (channel1; Figs. 8b and 9b) was identified immediately north of the dam. This suspected feature measures approximately 100 m wide on either side of the river with 2–3 m relief.

We also could have written, “The channel feature measures….” in the second sentence, but that sounds a little more redundant. While specificity is important, try to be somewhat creative to avoid being repetitive.

Double check your usage of these types of pronouns in your own writing to ensure that they are completely unambiguous.

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Objectivity

When you conduct scientific research, it is critical to make as unbiased choices, observations, and interpretations as possible, which would otherwise affect the accuracy and meaningfulness of your conclusions. Likewise, even if you’ve managed to stay objective during the research phase, subjectivity in your written document will make your work seem nonscientific and untrustworthy. It is therefore crucial to know how to make your writing sound objective, which we will guide you through in the sections below.

Using personal pronouns sparingly

When you think about the purpose of your paper or poster, is it usually to talk about you (doing the science) or about the science (that you did)? In most cases once you get to the undergraduate level and beyond, the science is the most important part of the project. For that reason, scientific writing should usually focus on what was done rather than who did it.

Furthermore, some things happened during your project (such as getting results) while other things are true about your project (such as a comparison of your results to someone else’s). This section will guide you through how to best convey actions so that who did it, what happened, and whether or not it is enduring is accurate and clear.

Using personal pronouns puts us, the scientists, into the project. This might be helpful for a reader to understand why you undertook a project, but is it critical for them to know who was involved in mixing two reagents together? Or to know that you did the data analysis? Not so much. In general, it is best to avoid using personal pronouns whenever possible in scientific writing.

This applies to words like “we,” “they,” and “I,” as well as to the names of other researchers when you cite them. Take, for example, the following statements:

Are any of the people necessary in these statements? What if we said, instead:

All of the same information is given, but it sounds more formal and objective. As a bonus, in the second case, the version without “Truan & Canto” is more concise!

If there are no people to have opinions about or introduce human error into an experiment, then these things theoretically can’t affect an experiment. Of course, we know that scientists are involved, but their opinions and errors are assumed to be (hopefully minor) factors in all science; they shouldn’t be especially significant in your particular project.

“We” is appropriate in some instances, but not in others. Taking the scientists out of the science helps a statement become more objective, but taking them out of a personal insight or decision can be downright confusing. For example, saying, “It is expected that this method will become routine” isn’t any more objective than saying “We believe that this method will become routine,” but the latter statement is less awkward and more straightforward. Below are some examples of some appropriate and inappropriate times to use the word “we.”

Notice that “we” is used most frequently in the discussion section. This should make sense, considering that the discussion section is about interpretation, which unavoidably involves scientists and their personal influence on the project. However, you should use “we” minimally in the other sections, especially the Methods and Results, in which objectivity is most important.

In addition, it is sometimes appropriate to refer to other authors by their names. This is usually the case when referencing someone else’s methodology, such as:

“Proteins were extracted acording to the protocol of Raymond et al,¹³“

if it is important to draw attention to that work itself. Other times, a finding or insight that is widely attributed to a specific paper may warrant an explicit reference to the authors in order for your reader to better recognize the finding/insight/idea you are referring to.

Using appropriate voice

When you successfully avoid using personal pronouns, do you notice how your sentence structure changes? For example:

a. We analyzed the data.

b. The data were analyzed.

The sentence changed from active to passive voice. You may have learned in other, non-science classes that the passive voice is weak and should be avoided at all costs. In science, it is perfectly OK! The meaning of this sentence wasn’t changed at all, but the scientists, who weren’t contributing much valuable information to this statement, were removed. In fact, passive voice is used commonly in scientific writing to enhance objectivity and aid conciseness.

Alternatively, you may have learned that you should always use the passive voice in science. This isn’t necessarily true, either. It is perfectly valid to say something like, “ascorbic acid reduces the complex.” Chemicals, enzymes, bacteria, robots…. lots of scientific things do things, and there is no reason to pretend that they don’t by trying to stick strictly to passive voice. The key is to use it when it is preferable to the active voice to aid objectivity and conciseness, which happens to be quite frequently.

Passive voice is often tied with use of the past tense, especially in the Methods section of a journal article or poster. This is because it is most important to maintain objectivity about something that happened (even though you did it) in this section. (You can read more about using the past tense under “Clarity and specificity,” above.) Some common passive-voice–past-tense combinations used in published journal article Methods sections as listed in the table below, which is adapted from Robinson et al. (2008).

Using phrasing to help tell a story

You can maintain formal objectivity while still priming your reader for the conclusions you ultimately intend to draw. For example, compare the following results reportings:

a. Later sowing altered rutin content in herb by 0.001% on average.

b. Later sowing had essentially no impact on rutin content in herb.

c. Later sowing altered rutin content by no more than 0.0014%.

Each version communicates information about the same set of results, yet they convey different meanings. In (a), the reader is told that an average value of rutin content is of note–in other words, that the presence of rutin is important. The phrasing in (b), on the other hand, communicates that this average value, though still existent, is unimportant and that later sowing is probably similar to whatever the other condition in the experiment was (e.g. earlier sowing). Finally, in (c), the phrasing tells us that although there was rutin content, we don’t find this amount to be very large.

As you write, pay attention to the meaning of the information you write about and how it relates to the goals of your project. Try to construct sentences in a way that are consistent with the story you are telling.

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Accuracy

There is more to reporting information accurately than not presenting false data (although that, of course, is extremely important, too!). Your language is a key factor in avoiding unintentionally faulty or unreliable messages. Novice writers tend to overstate the meaning of their results, which we will help you learn to avoid in these next two sections.

Avoiding “hand-waving” arguments

When you interpret your data in a way that is not supported by evidence, scientists say that you are making a “hand-waving” argument. You can imagine the origin of this term being someone gesturing wildly with their hands while they make a point in order to make it seem more convincing, even though they aren’t backing their argument up with sufficient details. Below is an example of a result followed by a hand-waving interpretation:

Result: Neither strain grew by utilizing organic substrates in the absence of iron, and their growth on iron was not stimulated by the presence of acetate. (Adapted from Emerson and Moyer 1997)

Discussion: This result suggests that organic substrates are complexed with high concentrations of iron in all life forms.

 As we know, a result from two bacterial strains does not suggest a conclusion about “all life forms,” nor does how an absence of iron impacts bacterial growth indicate anything about how organic substrates interact with iron. This discussion point is an extreme example of a hand-waving argument because it draws large, far-reaching, and irrelevant conclusions from a single result.

Although you are unlikely to hand-wave in your papers to the same extent as in the example above, it can be very tempting to stretch the meaning of your data at least a little. After all, the results of the experiments you do in class are usually not incredibly exciting, and it can be nice to imagine that they might mean something significant. But be careful! If you make an assertion that reaches beyond the scope of your data, you will lessen your credibility as a scientist and an author. It is always better to exercise restraint when discussing your data so that the conclusions you do draw are more trustworthy and powerful.

Using hedging language

Hedging is the use of qualifiers to acknowledge that a statement is not absolute fact. The results you obtain in an experiment may suggest a certain conclusion, but they are not absolute truths. It may seem, at first, like hedging makes your argument sound weaker, but it actually makes you more trustworthy.  Take, for example, the following weather prediction:

“Temperatures this summer will be 3 ˚F higher than average. Rainfall will be 1 inch.”

How likely does it seem that this will be true? If the forecaster is wrong, how would that affect how much you trust him? To avoid being wrong repeatedly, forecasters often show more caution by saying things more like,

“Temperatures this summer are likely to be 2-4 ˚F higher than average. Rainfall may reach up to 1 inch.”

By using the words “likely,” “may,” and “up to,” the weather forecaster is showing restraint and, by doing so, sounds more credible. The same is true in scientific writing.

“Thus, it remains possible that particle size may be one of the largest contributing factors to the decrease in absorption observed.”

The words “possible” and “may be” are used intentionally to show that we cannot prove that particle size is one of the largest contributing factors, but that it is what our current scientific knowledge has led us to believe. Alternatively, trying to convince your audience of an idea makes you appear biased and therefore not an objective scientist. (Read more about objectivity here.)

In scientific writing, hedging is a critical tool to ensure that you don’t overstate your knowledge and to what extent it applies.

This is list is not exhaustive but it should help you identify and construct statements that don’t inaccurately overstate what science can tell us. Never use the word “prove” in scientific writing–experiments can “demonstrate” or “suggest” an explanation, but they can never prove that something is true.

Below we provide examples of hedging from published articles. Note which words they use to hedge their arguments and how frequently they are used.

You should be sure to hedge your statements whenever your point is not an absolute fact. Hedging is used most often in the discussion section of a paper or poster because the authors are speculating about, but cannot be certain of, the meaning of their results. Hedging is also commonly used in introductions (to indicate the uncertainty associated with talking about others’ results) and in results sections (to describe findings without making them sound like universal truths).

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Fluidity

You want your thoughts and ideas to flow smoothly so that someone doesn’t have to re-read each of your sentences multiple times to understand what you’re saying. But sometimes it can be hard to figure out why something you’ve written sounds awkward, so you don’t know what to do to fix it. This section outlines a couple of techniques you can use to try to make your writing more fluid.

Sentence structure can be a particularly important thing to think about in professional writing. First, know that a sentence is often easier to understand if the part of the sentence before the verb is shorter than the part after the verb. For example, compare the following 2 sentences:

a. Radiative transfer modeling, with kinematic data from millimeter interferometers, provides a more correct treatment. (Adapted from Downes and Soloman 1998)

b. A more correct treatment requires radiative transfer modeling, with kinematic data from millimeter interferometers.

Because (a) leaves the verb off until near the end of the sentence, it sounds more awkward than (b).

A second good rule of thumb is to provide given information before new information in a sentence that includes both new information and something that has already been mentioned. This concept is illustrated in the following 2 examples:

a. The highest PM concentrations of all hopanes and steranes were measured in Sacramento during the evening hours. Measured traffic markers are dominated by the urban background traffic signal since samples were not collected adjacent to roadways, which is is reflected by this trend. (Adapted from Kleeman, Riddle, and Jakober 2008)

b. The highest PM concentrations of all hopanes and steranes were measured in Sacramento during the evening hours. This trend reflects the fact that samples were not collected adjacent to roadways, and so the measured traffic markers are dominated by the urban background traffic signal.

Example (b) is easier to understand since we encounter more familiar information (i.e. the “trend”) first.

Using formal vocabulary

Be sure to always use scientific words and phrases in place of colloquial ones. For example, instead of saying, “we did a graph,” it is better to say that “a graph was constructed.” This might seem obvious in some contexts, but certain words that we’re highly accustomed to can be hard to notice. For instance, the word “experiment” should be avoided in most cases because it suggests a very short-term, single-outcome procedure; instead, it is more formal to refer to your “work” or “project.”

Look out for these types of informalities in your writing and try to replace them using more formal language. This will also help maintain an air of objectivity (see above) by removing your personal voice from the science.

Using parallelism

Under dry conditions the principal controls on evapotranspiration are plant-available water and canopy resistance. Under wet conditions the dominant controls are advection, net radiation, and turbulent transport. Under intermediate conditions the relative importance of these factors varies depending on climate, soil, and vegetation. (Adapted from Zhang, Dawes, and Walker 2001)

The statement above is easy to read and flows nicely because it was constructed using parallel structure–the repetition of a chosen grammatical form among phrases, sentences, or even paragraphs. In this example, the three sentences were constructed in parallel. You might be able to see this more easily if we line up the corresponding parts of each sentence:

The sentence is constructed in such a way that the same parts of speech (or sometimes the same words!) are strung together in almost exactly the same order. By doing so, the authors made the distinctions between each of 3 conditions in one study very easy to compare.

You can avoid redundancy and make sets of information flow more smoothly by using parallel structure and the word “respectively” to connect different pieces. “Respectively” indicates that listed items connect in the same order to nearby listed attributes of the items. Let’s apply this concept to the following paragraph:

a. The FcH⁺/FcH oxidation potential was negatively shifted by 110 mV upon addition of an excess of pyridine, moved in the negative direction by 140 mV with excess imidazole addition, or, with the addition of excess 2-methylimidazole, shifted negatively by 150 mV. (Adapted from Vecchi et al. 2015)

This statement can be made much more clear if we first rearrange the ideas into parallel form, placing all the parts of speech in the same part of each section of the sentence.

b. The FcH⁺/FcH oxidation potential was negatively shifted by 110 mV upon addition of an excess of pyridine, negatively moved by 140 mV with addition of excess imidazole, or shifted negatively by 150 mV with the addition of excess 2-methylimidazole.

Now we can see that a lot of this sentence just repeats some minor variation of the phrase “shifted X mV upon addition of an excess of Y.” So, using the word “respectively,” we can condense this into one single phrase:

c. The FcH⁺/FcH oxidation potential was negatively shifted by 110, 140, or 150 mV upon addition of an excess of pyridine, imidazole or 2-methylimidazole, respectively.

This version is not only the most fluid but also the most concise. However, note that it is also cumbersome to overuse “respectively.” This word is not necessary if the associations among parts of the sentence are obvious without it. Using it superfluously ultimately detracts from conciseness.

Information should also be organized so that it has conceptual parallelism, in which ideas on either side of connecting words like and or or have the same level of importance.

a. Peracetic acid (PAA; CH₃CO₃H) is an antimicrobial disinfectant registered by the US Environmental Protection Agency for use in agriculture, cooling towers, and medicine. (Adapted from Straus et al. 2012)

b. Peracetic acid (PAA; CH₃CO₃H) is an antimicrobial disinfectant registered by the US Environmental Protection Agency for use in agriculture and medicine, though it is also commonly used to prevent bio film formation in cooling towers.

In (a), “agriculture” and “medicine” are both broad concepts, whereas “cooling towers” are a very specific area of use. To make the sentence conceptually parallel, we grouped the broader terms together in (b) and separated the specific idea.

Sometimes, in posters or research proposals, lists are a useful way to organize information. It is important that you maintain both structural and conceptual parallelism in addition to formatting parallelism, in which heading identifiers have the same capitalization and punctuation. Compare the following two sets of lists:

Rock core analysis:

1. Sample locations

2. Classifications

acquiring the GPS data.

Signal Processing

In the above example, the numbering scheme, uses of capitalization and punctuation, and grammatical structure are inconsistent. Instead, we should construct it more like the following:

1. Rock core analysis

1.1. Sample locations

1.2 Classifications

2. GPS data acquisition

3. Signal processing

Transforming parts of speech

A nominalization is a noun formed from a verb or an adjective—for example, the noun “distillation” is a nominalization of the verb “distill.” Using nominalizations can help relieve awkwardness in some sentences and improve the clarity of your writing. Compare the following 2 sentences:

a. The ability of the metals to bond to one another is critical for the substances to completely react.

b. Metal-to-metal bonding is critical for reaction completion.

Not only is (b) more straightforward and clear, it is also more concise! We made it this way by forming the nominalizations “bonding” from “to bond,” “reaction” from “react,” and “completion” from “completely.” In addition, we also made an adjective out of “metals… to one another”: “metal-to-metal.” If you find that a section of your writing is very wordy and jumbled, try rearranging some of your ideas using nominalizations of some of your adjectives, adverbs, and verbs to make it more fluid. Nominalizations can also work in reverse, such as in the following sentences:

a. It is always important to do a preliminary mass measurement of a product before doing an analysis of it.

b. It is always important to preliminarily measure the mass a product before analyzing it.

The take-away is that changing the structure of your sentences by playing with parts of speech can aid their clarity and fluidity.

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