A Short Guide on Scientific Writing

Scientific writing is both an art and a skill that must be learned through repeated practice in reading, writing, and revising. A well-written manuscript not only has a better chance of being published, but also goes a long way towards increasing the potential impact of your work within the scientific community.

The task of converting scientific results into a peer-reviewed publication can be daunting for both native and non-native English speakers. The following style guide contains simple recommendations and conventions that may help you avoid some of the most common pitfalls when writing a scientific text.

Introduction

Why Scientific Writing?

Before embarking on your first manuscript, you need to understand the purpose of scientific writing and your target audience. Communicating research results to fellow scientists is a vital component of the scientific process, and scientists do this through peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations, and reports. By publishing your results, you enable others to build upon your work, just as you have built on the work of others, and your findings can become part of the body of scientific knowledge.

Plagiarism and Scientific Misconduct

The mounting pressure on scientists to publish may tempt some individuals to “recycle” their own text or “borrow” from others. Irrespective of whether this occurs intentionally or accidentally, repetition of existing work, either verbatim or in a slightly altered form, is classified as plagiarism and considered a serious form of academic misconduct. An increasing number of journals use automated systems to detect plagiarism, and authors may inadvertently end up on internal blacklists. To avoid being accused of plagiarism, never copy phrases or paragraphs verbatim from a published source (article, book, website, or report). If you paraphrase the work of others, always provide an appropriate reference to the original source from which you derived your insights or knowledge.

Structuring Your Content

The IMRaD Structure

Most journals require you to follow the so-called IMRaD structure. IMRaD stands for Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. This structure is meant to reflect the scientific process of discovery, although in reality this process is, of course, by no means as linear as suggested by the well-structured logical flow of a manuscript. Each IMRaD element is discussed in a little more detail below. If you are already familiar with the IMRaD structure, you may skip to our section on style.

The Introduction

The introduction to your manuscript sets the stage for your research and broadly serves three purposes:

1. To introduce the background of your study through a short literature review
2. To state the research question, aim, or hypothesis of your study
3. To outline the approach taken to address the research question

The literature review allows you to demonstrate that you are aware of the relevant research in your field and to place your own work within this context. You can explain what motivated your research and why your topic is relevant and deserves to be in the public domain.

An important part of the introduction is the final paragraph, where you introduce the research question with a phrase such as “The aim of the present study was to determine …/test the hypothesis that …”. This paragraph should end with a sentence such as “We approached this problem through … (modelling/field sampling/a particular technique or method/etc.).” Do not explain the entire method; merely provide the necessary keywords.

By adhering to this convention, readers can quickly skip to the final paragraph of your introduction and decide whether your paper is relevant to them.

The Methods Section

In this section, you describe the study area, laboratory procedures, numerical procedures, and analyses used—in short, every relevant part of the protocol you followed, from sample collection to obtaining the final data point. This serves two purposes:

1. If you are using a new method or if your results turn out to be surprising or controversial, a meticulous description of your methods will allow others to repeat your steps and thereby either confirm or disprove your findings.
2. By demonstrating that you followed best practices in your methodology, you can protect yourself from unwarranted criticism.

The Results Section

Here, you report the findings of your work. Maintain a neutral and factual tone, and avoid exaggeration or qualitative adjectives such as “great” or “fantastic”. Do not bury your results in the main text; instead, present them prominently in figures and tables so that readers browsing through your manuscript can quickly see what you found.

The Discussion

Start this section with a short summary of your main findings from the Results section, ideally no more than two or three sentences. This sets the scene and allows readers who have only skimmed the Results section to understand what you are discussing. In this section, you should critically discuss your results and:

• Mention possible limitations, flaws, or uncertainties in your study design or method, for example if you could not collect all the data you needed or if the accuracy of your instrument or model was limiting.
• Identify your sources of error and, where possible, quantify them.
• Place your findings within the wider scientific context, for example by explaining how your results compare to previous studies, whether they contradict or confirm previous findings, and what the consequences are.
• Suggest possible remedies for the identified limitations or errors, and provide suggestions for future work.

The Conclusion (optional)

Some journals allow or require a separate conclusion section. If you need to provide such a section, use it to give a concise two- or three-sentence summary of your work and explain whether and how you answered your initial research question, and what this means in the broader context. Do not repeat points from the Discussion; instead, move the relevant points from the Discussion to the Conclusion.

Other Structural Elements

The Title

The title should reflect the content of the manuscript. It should be concise and engaging but remain factual. Avoid redundant phrases such as “A study of …” and, in general, avoid starting the title with an article.

The Abstract

This is arguably one of the most important parts of your manuscript. Not only will the abstract be read by the journal editor during the initial assessment of your manuscript, but it is also typically freely available on the web, even if the remainder of the article is behind a paywall.

The abstract should be able to stand on its own: avoid citations, and explain all abbreviations and acronyms. It should contain the same IMRaD structure as the full manuscript, but condensed to about 250 words. Briefly, in about one sentence each, summarise the context, outline the research aim or question, describe the research approach (methods and materials), and identify the main findings and conclusions, in this order. Inform the reader about the highlights of your work and encourage them to continue reading.

The Acknowledgements

This is an important section where, in accordance with the requirement for full disclosure and transparency in scientific writing, you should mention anyone who contributed to the manuscript or associated project. This can include individual author contributions, non-authors (e.g., technicians or collaborating scientists), reviewers (if they improved your manuscript), funding sources, editing services, or even administrative staff, but usually not your parents. Keep this section brief, but do not omit anything important.

A journal may require you to provide details regarding the role of each author in your Acknowledgements section. To do so, you typically use the initials from the names on the title page. For example, if the authors are Paul S. Smith and Marta G. Gonzalez Garcia, such a statement could read: “PSS carried out the data analysis and prepared the figures and tables. MGGG conceived the original project, obtained the funding, and helped edit the manuscript.”

To acknowledge XpertScientific as your editing service, we typically recommend a phrase such as “Editorial assistance, in the form of language editing and correction, was provided by XpertScientific Editing and Consulting Services.” If we also performed other services, such as creating figures or helping to formulate the abstract or the reply to the reviewers, this should be explicitly mentioned. If you are worried that acknowledging an editing or consulting service may appear as a weakness, you can take some comfort from the fact that native speakers and scientists publishing in top journals such as Nature also use our services. Many journals even require authors whose native language is not English to use an editing service, so this is quite common. Also bear in mind that you maintain full control over the content at all times, so this is still entirely your work.

The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has created useful guidelines on what constitutes an author, what constitutes a contributor, and how each should be properly acknowledged.

The References

Your reference list contains all the references cited in the main text. It should be neither too long, unless you are writing a review, nor too short. Find a healthy middle ground by citing only the most relevant work, for example the publication in which a new method was first introduced and the most important revisions or applications. As a rule of thumb, try not to exceed three references per topic. Using phrases such as “and references therein” can considerably reduce your reference list.

Different journals require different citation styles (e.g., [1], Smith et al. (2010), or superscript citations¹) and different reference-list formats (e.g., “Smith MC” vs “M. C. Smith”, with or without the article title, etc.). Consult the target journal’s author instructions to ensure that your references meet the journal’s style requirements. Reference-management software such as EndNote provides a wide range of styles that can be used to automatically format citations and references correctly.

Tables and Figures

The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” also applies to scientific manuscripts. Use figures not only to present the most important results of your work, but also whenever a verbal description would be too cumbersome, for example for maps of the study area, model schematics, flow charts, or photos of experimental set-ups.

Ensure that all figure axes are labelled and that the font size is large enough for labels to be legible. Avoid clutter in figures and maximise contrast by avoiding similar colours or gradations of grey whenever possible.

Figures and tables should be able to stand alone; that is, the caption and legend should be sufficiently detailed to allow readers to understand what they are looking at without having to read the main text.

Do not repeat the figure or table caption/legend in the main text, and avoid verbose references to figures and tables. For example, instead of “As the results shown in Figure 1 clearly demonstrate, the grain size decreases with increasing depth.”, simply write “The grain size decreases with increasing depth (Figure 1).”

The Appendices

An appendix contains materials that would obstruct the logical flow or obscure the take-home message if they were included in the main body of the manuscript. Elements such as long tables, supplementary or supporting results, computer code, or large maps are likely candidates for an appendix. Some journals even limit the length of the Methods section and require you to place the more detailed description of your methods in an appendix. All appendices should be given an appropriate title and numbered consecutively.

Style

While the emphasis in scientific writing is typically on substance and content, style should not be neglected. Even the best scientific breakthroughs may go unnoticed if a manuscript fails to communicate the message clearly or keep the reader interested. The following tips and conventions are intended to improve the overall clarity and readability of your manuscript.

General Writing Style

Particularly in the quantitative natural sciences, the main purpose of scientific writing is to present results as clearly and concisely as possible. Also bear in mind that your text will be read by scientists with varying degrees of English proficiency. As a general rule, keep your sentence structure simple, avoid convoluted constructions with many subclauses, and reduce verbosity and unnecessary ballast. This not only makes the writing easier for you, but also keeps readers interested and allows them to grasp the essence of your work more quickly.

Provide Logical Links

You can greatly increase the readability of your manuscript by providing logical links between sentences. This can be done with what are referred to as conjunctive adverbs:

• To illustrate a point: as shown by, e.g., for instance, in particular, namely, such as, etc.
• To add to a point: in addition, furthermore, moreover, next, again, etc.
• To compare points: also, likewise, similarly, commensurate with, irrespective of, etc.
• Counterpoints: although, while, nevertheless, whereas, in contrast, however, unlike, etc.
• Logical connection: accordingly, as a result, therefore, thus, hence, etc.
• Temporal connection: meanwhile, subsequently, when, while, after, etc.
• Spatial relation: next to, west of, in direct proximity to, etc.
• To summarise a point or argument: in conclusion, in summary, therefore, to conclude, etc.

Do not start every sentence with such a connector, but use them wherever they increase coherence and logical flow.

Lists

Lists are useful stylistic elements, but they can quickly become incomprehensible if used improperly. In our editing work, we have come across lists with more than 20 elements that were presented like this: “We tested xxx, then we tested yyy, which was followed by zzz, etc.” This makes for very unpleasant reading. As a rule of thumb, try to limit your lists to a maximum of five elements and use appropriate punctuation to present the list clearly and smoothly, e.g., “We tested five different methods: (i) xxx, (ii) yyy, and (iii) zzz.”

Proper punctuation is critical to avoid ambiguity in lists. Many journals recommend the use of the serial (or Oxford) comma, i.e., placing a comma after the penultimate item in a list, before the conjunction. For instance, compare “I dedicate this book to my parents, Peter Smith and Lisa Walker.” with “I dedicate this book to my parents, Peter Smith, and Lisa Walker.” The first sentence implies that you are dedicating your book to your parents, who are called Peter Smith and Lisa Walker, whereas the second version, with a comma before “and”, implies that you are dedicating your book to three different entities.
It is equally important to know when not to use a comma. For instance, in “The effects of gingivitis, smoking and other drug intake were evaluated in a model of lung disease”, only two factors were evaluated: “gingivitis” and the combined effects of “smoking and other drug intake”. If “smoking” and “other drug intake” were evaluated as separate factors, you would need to separate them with the serial comma. Being consistent in your use of the serial comma can go a long way towards promoting clarity in your writing.

Ambiguity and Word Use

Avoid ambiguity whenever possible. For instance, “The method was tested in an experiment. It consisted of three steps.” is ambiguous because “it” could refer to either the method or the experiment. Better: “The method was tested in a three-step experiment.” if the three steps apply to the experiment, or “The three-step method was tested experimentally.” if they apply to the method.

Unlike prose, scientific texts must be precise and avoid even the slightest ambiguities. Once you have introduced a particular label, acronym, or term, do not replace it with a synonym merely to avoid repeating the same word. In scientific writing, repetition is useful and often necessary because it prevents ambiguity and helps readers remember the meaning of the introduced label throughout the manuscript.

Avoid Colloquialisms, Contractions, and Clichés

Avoid contractions: use “do not” instead of “don’t”. Also avoid vague phrases such as “The layer thickness differed quite a lot.”; instead, write “The layer thickness differed by xx.”

Many articles are riddled with vacant clichés and platitudes such as “Our results will greatly advance the field and benefit the scientific community.” Such phrases are essentially meaningless and should be avoided. Instead, be specific about how your results will advance your field.

Reduce Verbosity

Avoid redundant phrases such as “It is interesting to note that …” or “It can be remarked that …”.

Avoid unnecessary pronouns. Instead of “The flowers that we saw were blue.”, use “We saw blue flowers.”

Use of Tenses

Tenses are important because they allow readers to identify whether you are talking about your own results and actions, someone else’s findings, an established fact, a hypothesis, or an observation.

For instance, “Iron oxides frequently occur as secondary precipitates” implies that you are stating an accepted fact or general truth and therefore uses the present tense. By contrast, “Iron oxides frequently occurred as secondary precipitates” implies that you are talking about your own findings.

Similarly, “These results show that …” implies that you are talking about your own work, whereas “Smith et al. (2003) found that …” and continued use of the past tense in subsequent sentences suggest that you are discussing the findings of Smith et al.

For actions that started in the past but are still ongoing, use the present perfect. For example, “Recently, there has been a strong debate about …” or “This method has been effectively used to demonstrate that …”.

Passive vs Active Voice

Traditionally, the use of the active voice in science was frowned upon because it places the protagonist at the centre, for example “We found ...”, whereas the passive voice was considered more objective and less personal. Over the past couple of decades, this paradigm has gradually changed, as both authors and publishers have begun to recognise that the active voice often allows for a more concise and less ambiguous writing style. As a result, the active voice is now fairly common and is even recommended whenever it reduces ambiguity:

OK to use: “Plant seeds are dispersed by wind.”

Wordy and ambiguous: “Using the survey data, the effects of education on job satisfaction were examined.” (who is using the data?)

Better: “Using the survey data, we examined the effects of education on job satisfaction.”

Many journals now explicitly recommend the active over the passive voice:

• Behavioral Ecology: “The first-person active voice is preferable to the impersonal passive voice.”
• British Medical Journal: “Please write in a clear, direct, and active style....Write in the active [voice] and use the first person where necessary.”
• The Journal of Neuroscience: “Overuse of the passive voice is a common problem in writing. Although the passive has its place—for example, in the Methods section—in many instances it makes the manuscript dull by failing to identify the author's role in the research....Use direct, active-voice sentences.”
• The Journal of Trauma and Dissociation: “Use the active voice whenever possible: We will ask authors that rely heavily on use of the passive voice to re-write manuscripts in the active voice.”
• Nature: “Nature journals like authors to write in the active voice ('we performed the experiment...') as experience has shown that readers find concepts and results to be conveyed more clearly if written directly.”
• Ophthalmology: “Active voice is much preferred to passive voice, which should be used sparingly....Passive voice...does not relieve the author of direct responsibility for observations, opinions, or conclusions (e.g., 'The problem of blood flow was investigated...' vs. 'We investigated the problem of blood flow...').”
• Science: “Use active voice when suitable, particularly when necessary for correct syntax (e.g., 'To address this possibility, we constructed a lZap library ...,' not 'To address this possibility, a lZap library was constructed...').”

AI-Assisted Writing

AI-assisted writing tools can be useful for generating outlines, improving readability, translating draft text, or identifying awkward phrasing. However, they should be used with care. AI-generated text may sound fluent while introducing factual errors, inappropriate terminology, fabricated references, unsupported claims, or subtle changes in scientific meaning. For this reason, any AI-assisted manuscript should be carefully checked by the authors before submission.

Authors also need to consider journal policies. Many publishers and editorial organisations now require authors to disclose whether and how AI-assisted tools were used during manuscript preparation, and AI tools cannot be listed as authors because they cannot take responsibility for the work. The final responsibility for the accuracy, originality, interpretation, and ethical compliance of the manuscript always remains with the human authors.

If you have used AI to draft, translate, or substantially revise your manuscript, we recommend a careful human review before submission. See our pages on editing AI-assisted manuscripts and whether AI can replace human editors for more information.