Resource of the Week #157: “The Science of Scientific Writing”

Hello again. This week’s resource was mentioned by Alex Arreola, who does the translations for AuthorAID’s Spanish-language website.

The resource is an article titled “The Science of Scientific Writing”. I first read this article in the early 1990s, shortly after it was published. This article, which is widely cited, remains relevant and useful today.

The main point of the article is that to write clearly, one should understand how readers expect writing to be structured and then write accordingly.

Therefore the authors of this article describe how readers expect writing to be structured. And, based on these expectations, they present principles for writing clearly.

The authors also present examples of unclear writing and show how applying these principles can make the writing easier to understand. Thus, the article can aid editors as well as writers.

I found this article somewhat difficult the first time I read it. And I still find it somewhat difficult. However, I consider this article worth reading.

I wonder how much the principles in this article apply to languages other than English. If you have thoughts in this regard, I hope you’ll post a comment.

Thanks, Alex, for reminding me about this resource.

Until the next post—

Barbara