Holland-Mountford Editing | Scientific editing
Editorial and proofreading services for biologists and biomedical scientists
Writing is typically solitary work, even if you have several co-authors. I recommend having a professional editor or a colleague look over your work, in addition to your co-authors. Someone with a fresh perspective on the writing will help you identify grammatical and typographical errors, as well as gaps in your story or flaws in your logic.
Continue reading “Science writing tip #7: Get a second opinion”
Draft your figures before you starting writing your manuscript to generate an outline and ensure your story is complete.
In my PhD lab, we always drafted our results into figures before we started writing our manuscripts. Starting with your figures allows you to determine the story that your findings tell and identify any weaknesses.
Thinking of hiring an editor? Keep these issues in mind as you look for the right editor for your work.
If you are considering hiring an editing professional, you may be wondering what you can expect.
Continue reading “What to expect from an editing professional”
Use strong, specific language and provide details in your writing to make your findings clear and facilitate reproducibility.
Writing is a way to present your ideas and findings. In order to make yourself as clear as possible, you should use specific language and provide details. Clarity and specificity are particularly important in scientific documents.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed or uncertain of how to proceed when preparing a scientific manuscript, grant application, or conference abstract. I have gathered some advice from journal editors that may guide your writing process. Although these tips are for journal articles, many of them apply to other types of academic writing.
Continue reading “Consider your audience: Writing for scientific journal editors”
You can improve your science writing by reading critically to understand scientific article structure and writing conventions.
This tip applies to all writers, scientists and non-scientists alike: you should read to improve your own writing. As scientists, we read to add to our understanding of our research fields. However, it is also important to read research articles to understand how they are structured and to recognize the most effective communication strategies.
Continue reading “Science writing tip #4: Read with a critical eye”
Using the correct symbols in your writing prevents misunderstandings and avoids distracting the reader from your point.
As a language editor who works primarily with scientists, I commonly encounter problems with symbols in documents. Some authors use placeholders or similar, but incorrect, symbols in their scientific articles. Luckily, this problem is typically easy to fix.
Continue reading “Science writing tip #3: Use the correct symbols”
Academic writing should be clear and concise. Long, complicated sentences are not necessary to maintain a formal, academic tone.
Although you must maintain an academic style when writing journal articles and grant applications, you should aim to express your ideas clearly and concisely. When you are writing about technical procedures in a specialized field, it is easy for your writing to become overly complicated. Writing in a straightforward manner will make your work easy to understand and put the emphasis on the content rather than the style.
Continue reading “Science writing tip #2: Academic does not mean long and complicated”
The advantages of reading the guidelines before preparing your scientific article, abstract, or grant application.
This tip is simple, but effective. You can save a considerable amount of time by starting your article preparation by carefully reading the guidelines provided by your target journal, conference, or funding agencies.
Continue reading “Science writing tip #1: Read the guidelines”
Writing, particularly academic and science writing, is a specialist skill.
In order to advance your research and career, you will need to write grant applications, abstracts, original research papers, review articles, and other academic texts. However, like many scientists, you may have received little to no training in writing. If you speak English as a second or additional language (ESL or EAL), it may be even more difficult to clearly present your work in English. Whether you are an early-career scientist, an ESL scientist, or simply a scientist looking to polish and improve your writing, I hope to help you with the process of preparing your scientific documents. I aim to do that not only through my editing services, but also through a series of articles focused on some common issues in science writing.
On this blog, I will present simple tips to improve your scientific and academic writing. Some of the tips will be widely applicable to academic writing, whereas others will focus on grammar, punctuation, and the finer details of scientific writing.
I hope you will find some of these tips helpful as you write and edit your own scientific articles and more. Please feel free to share your own experiences, ask questions in the comments, or send me a message.
Kind regards,
Holland-Mountford Editing
Holland-Mountford Editing | Scientific editing 