Writing science in plain English

Scientific writing is often dry, wordy, and difficult to understand. But, as Anne E. Greene shows in Writing Science in Plain English ,writers from all scientific disciplines can learn to produce clear, concise prose by mastering just a few simple principles.
This short, focused guide presents a dozen such principles based on what readers need in order to understand complex information, including concrete subjects, strong verbs, consistent terms, and organized paragraphs. The author, a biologist and an experienced teacher of scientific writing, illustrates each principle with real-life examples of both good and bad writing and shows how to revise bad writing to make it clearer and more concise. She ends each chapter with practice exercises so that readers can come away with new writing skills after just one sitting.
Writing Science in Plain English can help writers at all levels of their academic and professional careers--undergraduate students working on research reports, established scientists writing articles and grant proposals, or agency employees working to follow the Plain Writing Act. This essential resource is the perfect companion for all who seek to write science effectively.

Author Notes

Anne E. Greene is a biologist by training and teaches scientific writing in the Wildlife Biology Program at The University of Montana.

Reviews 1

Choice Review

Greene, a biologist and educator, offers readers an integral guide to writing clear and concise scientific documents. She presents 12 principles for authors to improve their writing, ranging from understanding one's audience (chapter 2) to paragraph design and arrangement (chapters 10 and 11). The various chapter titles reflect the book's useful content: "Tell a Story" (chapter 3); "Favor the Active Voice" (chapter 4); "Choose Your Words with Care" (chapter 5); "Omit Needless Words" (chapter 6); "Old Information and New Information" (chapter 7); and "Make Lists Parallel" (chapter 8). By offering in-text examples of both good and bad (in some cases, nearly incomprehensible) scientific writing, the author illustrates her writing principles and how to work through them to improve one's own writing. She follows her own advice, presenting these principles in the same clear, concise manner that her book suggests scientific writers should use. Overall, this is a great resource for anyone preparing to embark on scientific writing--whether a paper for class or a research article submitted for publication. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through researchers/faculty. J. K. Oleen Kansas State University

Acknowledgments	p. xi
1 Why Write Science in Plain English?	p. 1
2 Before You Write	p. 6
Audience	p. 6
Register	p. 7
Tone	p. 10
3 Tell a Story	p. 12
Make Characters Subjects and Their Actions Verbs	p. 12
Use Strong Verbs	p. 16
Place Subjects and Verbs Close Together	p. 18
4 Favor the Active Voice	p. 22
Benefits of Active Voice	p. 22
Proper Uses of Passive Voice	p. 25
5 Choose Your Words with Care	p. 29
Use Short Words Instead of Long Ones	p. 30
Keep Terms the Same	p. 32
Breakup Noun Strings	p. 35
Rethink Technical Terms	p. 36
6 Omit Needless Words	p. 40
Redundancy	p. 41
Metadiscourse and Transition Words	p. 44
Affirmatives and Negatives	p. 48
7 Old Information and New Information	p. 52
Put Old Information at Beginnings of Sentences	p. 52
Put New Information at Ends of Sentences	p. 53
8 Make Lists Parallel	p. 60
9 Vary the Length of Your Sentences	p. 63
10 Design Your Paragraphs	p. 67
Issue	p. 67
Development	p. 68
Conclusion	p. 69
Point	p. 71
11 Arrange Your Paragraphs	p. 75
Chronological Order	p. 75
General to Specific	p. 76
Least Important to Most Important	p. 78
Problem to Solution	p. 79
Compare and Contrast	p. 81
Transition Words Revisited	p. 83
Appendix 1 Basic Writing Concepts	p. 87
Appendix 2 Exercise Key	p. 92
Index	p. 121

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