Archive by category | Writing

Making research papers clearer

Professor Linda Cooper writes at her Time for a Change blog on Nature Network about initiatives in which authors write a one-page initial summary to explain their research paper to a wide audience. She makes the argument that clearer writing of the paper itself serves a better purpose, for the following reasons:  … Read more

Language of scientific publishing

Frank Gannon in his EMBO Reports editorial this month (9, 207; 2008), Language barriers, writes about the stark contrast between his own ability to write in English and “the difficulties faced by scientists for whom English is a second language, and who have to cope with the much more restricted style of a scientific report.” Dr Gannon goes on to discuss the differences between standard English language and the arcane, depersonalised style favoured by (or taught to) many when writing scientific reports, quoting the view that “the public would not bother to read scientific papers even if the journals were lying around for free, simply because scientific prose is largely unreadable for the non-expert—and often only barely readable for the expert.”  … Read more

What’s in a Jane?

Martijn J. Schuemie and Jan A. Kors (Bioinformatics doi:10.1093/bioinformatics/btn006 ) have created a freely available web-based application that, on the basis of a sample text, can suggest “journals and experts who have published similar articles”. Their aim is to help scientists to determine which journal is most appropriate for publishing their results, and which other scientists can be called upon to review their work. The application is called Jane (for journal/author name estimator).  Read more