Performing research in one language and having to write manuscripts in another—nearly always English—is not an easy task, according to Sonia M.R. Vasconcelos et al. in the latest issue of EMBO Reports (9, 700-702; 2008).Yet, they write, "Publishing in high-quality international journals is part of today’s scientific zeitgeist and a challenge for researchers from developed and developing countries alike. However, competition to attract an editor’s attention and to convince reviewers might be tougher for scientists from non-English speaking (NES) countries. As various authors have pointed out, the proficiency of the English language among a country’s scientists could influence its scientific output (Man et al, 2004; Victora & Moreira, 2006; Meneghini & Packer, 2007; Vasconcelos et al, 2007). A recent econometric study, for example, stated that English proficiency is a significant factor for the performance of European science (Bauwens et al, 2007).

Some NES authors argue that they “don’t compete on a level playing field when it comes to international science” and that “language and cultural barriers may be partly to blame” (Anon, 2002). However, it is not clear how much linguistic competence affects the visibility of research in NES countries. In particular, it is difficult to assess the link between a researcher’s writing competence and established indicators of research output such as the number of publications and citations. Most countries do not maintain databases with comprehensive information about a researcher’s academic profile and publication record, or they do not make this information publicly accessible."

Brazil, however, is an exception, and the EMBO Reports article presents some of the available statistics about communication skills from that country. One of the authors’ conclusions is that governments and their research councils should invest more in training researchers to be fully competent in the English language.

Nature journals provide writing guidance at the author and reviewers’ website in an article that provides links to various services and resources.

See here for a discussion at Nature Network about regional and minority languages in science communication.

The paragraph reproduced below is the Abstract of the article ‘Writing a clear and engaging paper for all astronomers’ in Astronomy Communication, 290 221 (2003), by Leslie Sage, a senior editor at Nature who handles manuscript submissions in astronomy, planetary science and physics.

Scientists usually receive no formal training in how to communicate effectively scientific information. What little training we do get comes from our PhD supervisors, who may or may not be good communicators themselves. Moreover, too many scientists seem to feel that the goal of scientific writing is to impress others with the author’s intelligence, and most of the rest forget that even people in closely related fields may not be aware of the jargon, background and technical details specific to each subfield. Yet the principles of clear writing are easily grasped, and with a little practice will become natural to implement. Even in a technical journal the audience is not restricted simply to a few direct competitors, so you need to explain why the general topic is interesting, what problems there are in the field, what you have done and how it has helped advance us towards the resolution of one or more of the problems.

The publisher, Springer Science and Business Media, has kindly given us permission to reproduce the author’s version of this paper here, for the personal use only of those downloading it. We hope you enjoy reading it, and find it helpful in preparing your papers for submission to a Nature journal, whether in the field of astronomy or any other scientific discipline.

Download the article here; Word document

In his Thesis article The literature of promises (Nat. Nanotech. 3, 180 – 181; 2008), Chris Toumey asks how science fiction has been influenced by nanotechnology, and why so many reports about the possibilities of nanotechnology read like science fiction. The article covers ideas discussed at and arising after a conference on nanotechnology, literature and society in December 2007. Professor Toumey writes: “Steve Lynn, my colleague in the English department at South Carolina, has been saying for years that the purpose of science fiction is not to predict the future, but rather to put science and technology in a new and different light so that we can explore their place in our lives. Nanotechnology endures a great deal of prognostication, prophecy and prediction in government documents, social-science journals and humanities conferences. It can be difficult to resist the urge to predict the future, but nanotechnology needs to be examined in terms of how it affects our lives today. Science fiction is hardly the only way to do so, but it has a rightful place among the humanistic perspectives on nanotechnology. Sometimes it treats nanotech lovingly and sometimes rudely, but nanotechnology and science fiction could have a long and beneficial friendship.”

Read the rest of the Thesis article at Nature Nanotechnology, April 2008 issue.

The Nature Network journal club for well written papers, called the good paper journal club, has received seven nominations of papers in its first three weeks. The papers are each listed at the Nature Network group’s forum, so you can comment on each one and how well or badly you feel it succeeds in conveying its message. In addition, the papers are collected as Connotea online bookmarks, using the tag “good paper journal club”. We welcome your own nominations, both at Connotea and at the Nature Network journal club. Here’s an example:

Functional genomic Analysis of C. elegans Molting

“I like both the Introduction and Discussion of this paper because they lead the reader logically through several facets of the study – in the Introduction, moving from general information to specific finding, and in the Discussion, moving from important finding to the new significance of the study. (While closer editing would sharpen the sentences, on the structural level I think that the paper works well.)”

The Nature Network good paper journal club forum is here, with all nominated papers listed and open for your comments.

Connotea tag for good paper journal club is here. Please add your own examples of well-written papers as online bookmarks, so others can access and read them.

Time for a Change blog is here, containing examples of good and poor writing style, and related discussion.

Striking a balance between the need to allocate credit fairly and the need to be readable can be a challenge for editors and journalists when writing about research papers, according to this month’s (April) Editorial in Nature Nanotechnology (3, 179; 2008). Every week, editors at the Nature journals write 200-word articles about a research paper that explains the main results of the paper — why the work is interesting or important, how the results were obtained, what they mean for that area of research and beyond, and who did the work. Such articles appear every week as ‘research highlights’ at the website of each Nature journal. The Nature Nanotechnology Editorial discusses the challenges in writing these articles : what is interesting or important to one reader might be of little interest or import to another, for instance, and it may be impossible to say anything meaningful about the significance of the results, other than stating that they are indeed significant, in 200 or fewer words. Even awarding appropriate credit is hard in such limited space, as most papers have four or more authors, often from two or more institutions. The Editorial goes on to discuss some of the ways the journal deals with these problems, and contrasts research highlights with full scientific research papers.

This is a paper under discussion at the Nature Network forum for good, clearly written papers.

Inhibition of prostaglandin synthesis as a mechanism of action for aspirin-like drugs

by J R Vane

Nature New Biology 231, 232-235 (1971). Download PDF

Experiments with guinea-pig lung suggest that some of the therapeutic effects of sodium salicylate and aspirin-like drugs are due to inhibition of the synthesis of prostaglandins.

To discuss this paper, please visit the Nature Network good paper journal club.

We have created Connotea tags for the journal club, so you can view all the selections, and add your own, here.