How do I write a research paper with a scientific "voice"?

Among other things, one thing that a lot of students starting with scientific writing have problems with is eliminating colloquialisms and jargon from their writing. Phrases and terminology that are used in conversation in the laboratory are often considered unsuitable for scientific writing. Also students often incorrectly think that formal writing requires usage of complicated sentence structures and end up constructing long sentences that are difficult to read. I will give some tips in random and I hope you find them useful. Colloquialism I - In scientific writing, certain words sound more formal. For e.g. - "The experiment was performed." sounds better than "The experiment was done." or perhaps, "The values were determined/measured." sounds better than "The values were found." In your article there are few instances where this can be improved. As an example, "The water in which the durum wheat was grown was treated with a solution of micronutrients." could possibly be rewritten as "Solutions containing micronutrients were added to the water that was used for the growth of durum wheat." Colloquialism II -  Lab jargon often filters down into scientific writing. Examples for this would be very subject specific. In NMR spectroscopy we always refer to NOE crosspeaks on a NOESY spectrum as "NOEs", but I would not use that expression in a paper. I am not familiar with your field of work to identify these expressions in your writing. But on cursory investigation I looked up "translocation study" on Google and that does not give any direct matches and it looks like a colloquialism that is used in your laboratory. (I might be wrong here.) In any case, as a non-expert in your field, that makes that line completely unintelligible for me. I am a biochemist and I expect to be capable of at least understanding the general concept. Colloquialism III (Analyze that!) - This is not exactly a colloquialism, but an outcome of the way we speak in lab. In the lab we often use expressions such as "Measure the data" or "Analyze the data", these expressions are not suitable for scientific writing. While writing a scientific paper, it is required to mention what parameter is measured or what specific analysis was done. Instead of saying "The data was measured." or "The data was analyzed to obtain the temperature coefficients", it is better to say "The chemical shifts of the amide protons were measured" or "The temperature coefficients were obtained from the slope of the graph". In your article, "Data  was then collected and analyzed, comparing and contrasting the presence  of Cadmium in the hydroponically-grown durum wheat against available  data on those grown in soil." should perhaps be written to read '"The presence of cadmium in hydroponically grown durum wheat was determined and compared to the previously reported values for durum wheat grown in soil." (Note: At this point I am still unsure from reading your article whether you determined exact concentrations/quantities of Cd or just the presence/absence and that seems like it may be important.) Incomplete information - Some details of experimentation are trivial and are not required for replication of the experiment. However, others are critical and omitting these will render your protocol useless. Here, a lot of information presented in incomplete. A good example is seen in the statement "4 mL of Iron and 1 mL of Cadmium was also introduced..." Here, the concentration of iron and cadmium are not mentioned. These volumes are useless if a different stock concentration of iron and cadmium solutions are used. Also in solution iron exists as Fe2+ and Fe3+, I have no idea which one is being used here. These mistakes make you appear to have an incomplete understanding of the subject (while this may not be the case at all) and perhaps this was the biggest concern your professor had. Formatting and scientific convention - Often readers are thrown off by poor formatting and if scientific convention is not followed. For example in your article "Cadmium" is capitalized everywhere, while this is not usually done. Also you can use chemical symbols for elements. You use both "durum wheat" and "durumwheat". Organizing your thoughts and subsequently your article - In the introduction part, you scuttle back and forth between concepts. You need to develop a clear idea of what you want to say and organise it in a reasonable logical progression. This however is something that comes with practice. Sentence structure - This may be a problem that is specific to you, but some sentences seem very strained. Maybe you are trying too hard to "sound" scientific. Use simple sentences. Your primary goal should be for your article to have a high readability. "Starvation  and malnutrition are two global issues which the practice of  sustainability may one day hold the answer to. However, the question of  how to engineer the science behind the process of sustainability  continues to be an important roadblock in increasing crop yield, in both  quantity (number) and quality (nutritional value, lack of  contaminants)." These are not my favourite sentences in the article and I would write them differently. "Starvation and malnutrition are global issues that may be ameliorated by the practice of (sustainable farming?/sustainability?). An important roadblock/aspect in the development of sustainable techniques is increasing both the quality and the quantity of the crop yield"

In addition to the excellent points raised by and , I wanted to add my $0.02 on scientific communication. But to begin with, the style and voice you have used are sub-optimal. Scientific communication is, first and foremost, communication. When you write a sentence, a paragraph, or a section, you should ask yourself "What am I trying to say?" and then answer it. Then check you have answered it. Read the paper as though you're a scientist who doesn't speak English as a first language. Read it when you're tired. English is a fabulously expressive language, and you should write, as much as possible, the simplest, clearest sentences you possibly can. An aside on prose stylistics. Writing good prose is a lost art. It is not often taught in school. There is such a thing as good and bad prose! Some people think that scientific papers should be written in a highly anaemic third person passive voice, if at all possible regularly murdering the subjunctive. These people are wrong, wrong, wrong. There are entire books written as style guides and teaching good prose construction, but if I had to recommend a few authors, I'd recommend Christopher Hitchens, P.G. Wodehouse, and Casanova (in French). Their work is consciously composed with the readers' eyeballs in mind, and it shows. When someone reads your paper, you want to communicate accurately, clearly, concisely, and above all else, you want to avoid antagonizing them. I suspect this is what your mentor was getting at. Your abstract Starvation and malnutrition are two global issues which the practice of sustainability may one day hold the answer to. However, the question of how to engineer the science behind the process of sustainability continues to be an important roadblock in increasing crop yield, in both quantity (number) and quality (nutritional value, lack of contaminants). Particularly of interest in this study is the problem of Cadmium accumulation in the genotypes of various strains of wheat. Such accumulation often leads to the displacement of beneficial nutrients, such as Zinc and Iron, in favor of harmful contaminants, such as Cadmium. A translocation study was conducted on a high and low line of wheat in order to determine how Cadmium is accumulated in various strains over time, as well as to pinpoint the specific geospatial locations of the accumulation within the plant. Another variable which was introduced is the role of climate in regulating the spread of Cadmium. Using a hydroponic growing technique, a wheat plant was grown in water (without soil). The water was treated with a solution containing essential nutrients and also with the Cadmium contaminant. In a week, the wheat was then harvested and analyzed for the presence of Cadmium. As mentioned in the other answers, an abstract is not an introduction or a motivation. The abstract is, ideally, a one sentence summary of your results. Eg, if the title is "Uptake of Cadmium in durum wheat", the abstract can be "The uptake of Cadmium in durum wheat was measured using XXX and found to be YYY after ZZZ weeks, with strong negative implications for nutrition in developing countries." Or whatever. Conclusion is the same deal, but with a bit more detail. That aside. Your first sentence ends on a preposition, and contains almost no information. The second sentence begins with 'however', a powerful subordinating conjunction which is completely inappropriate here. "How to engineer the science behind the process of sustainability continues to be ... important" contains no information and makes me want to scratch my eyes out. The third sentence begins with particularly, another word that works much better in the middle of a sentence. Begin a sentence with the subject! Eg "Cadmium inclusion in wheat is a particularly interesting problem ...". About half way through "A translocation study..." wow! Information at last! "High and low line of wheat". Lost me. I don't know what that is. Can you use different terminology which makes it obvious by context, like 'variety'? "(without soil)" - avoid brackets unless a measure of last resort. Include the info in the text flow, or leave it out. Everyone knows what hydroponics is. "In a week, the wheat was then harvested" sounds like methods. I don't care about that. I care about the results. This abstract should identify the variables (time, variety of wheat, part of the plant, climatic conditions) and summarize the results. Leave the other info to the appropriate section. If in doubt, find a relevant journal and read through it. After a dozen or so papers you'll have a good feel for which ones were well written and which ones weren't. Try and identify what the authors did well and what they did poorly (use bright red ink for extra fun) and then mercilessly apply the same logic to your own writing. I hope this provides some food for thought.

Improving papers and writing voice (developmental editing) is what I do professionally. The short 'free' version of my advice is to focus on establishing a chain of events -- of causes and consequences. Avoid unnecessary repetition. Walk the reader through the analysis. Think about what someone must understand 'first' in order to understand the next bit of important information. This paper has plenty of academic style, there's just not enough of an organizational structure to follow the points/concepts (i.e. what your mentor means by 'confusing'). Try this exercise: Take all the bits about malnutrition and stick them together. Take all the parts about cadmium and zinc and stick them together. Repeat this until the related sentences are in the same locale. Re-write these chunks as separate paragraphs. The human brain can't juggle too many topics intermixed at once -- it's better if the reader is given a 'target' (topic) and then the rest of the sentences near it are an explication of that rough idea. This is how paragraph and paper organization works on a very fundamental level.

Forget about "scientific voice"  and start taking care about story, meaning and style. It should be YOUR voice talking as a scientist, using precise and thoroughly thought words. The awesomeness of your findings may be the reason why people wants to look at your publications. The "scientific voice" will be the reason why they don't read it. Honestly, writing papers already feels like filling a form : intro, litterature, methodo, results, discussion, conclusion - and sign here please. So if you want to be heard, you should chose your words carefully. Some of my practical advices will be  : Be straightforward : remove every useless word. Chose carefully your verbs : readers want action ! Avoid common ones that provides little information (to be, to have, etc.). Avoid passive forms : action again ! Your subject rules the sentence so be sure to select the main Shorten your sentence : never trust someone that does one-paragraph long sentences Think about your readers : think about someone you know and ask yourself :"will he/she understand this at the first glance?" Break into parts : while editing, don"t hesitate to divide a sentence in minimum parts. By moving parts around with your text editor, you can easily see what stands out as necessary and what is not Let me give you some examples of rephrasing from your abstract. Sentence 1 : Starvation and malnutrition are two global issues which the practice of sustainability may one day hold the answer to. Our hero here is "the practice of sustainability" so let's start with it The practice of sustainability Why is our hero so great ? because it "may one day hold the answer" The practice of sustainability may one day hold the answer to What are the results of its actions? The practice of sustainability may one day hold the answer to two global issues : starvation and malnutrition. Looks better already. Now what can we take off this sentence? Well, "starvation and malnutrition" are indeed global issues. We may not need to reenforce that. Let's see : The practice of sustainability may one day hold the answer to starvation and malnutrition. "Answer to" sounds weird, doesn't it? The practice of sustainability may one day provides answers to global issues like starvation and malnutrition. OK, I finally add again the "global issues". Makes things sound smoother. Another sentence : Particularly of interest in this study is the problem of Cadmium accumulation in the genotypes of various strains of wheat. This is Yoda-like writing ! You can simplify by putting the subject first. The problem of Cadmium accumulation in the genotypes of various strains of wheat is a particular interest of this study . Here, the nominal group "The problem.... of wheat" is too long and makes the sentence hard to understand. You don't really need to emphasize "this study" - people are reading it. You want to focus on your topic. The problem of Cadmium accumulation can be studied by analyzing the genotypes of various strains of wheat. Yet another sentence : However, the question of how to engineer the science behind the process of sustainability continues to be an important roadblock in increasing crop yield, in both quantity (number) and quality (nutritional value, lack of contaminants). What is the main point this sentence wants to make? Looks to me that it is about the "roadblock". So let's start with this. An important roadblock in increasing crop yield, in both quantity (number) and quality (nutritional value, lack of contaminants), OK. Looks good. the question of how to engineer the science behind the process of sustainability continues to be Here "the question of how to" and "the science behind" don't sound well. Let's just remove them. to engineer the process of sustainability Let's put back the both together. However, an important roadblock in increasing crop yield, in both quantity (number) and quality (nutritional value, lack of contaminants), continues to be the engineering process of sustainability. Is this what you originally want to say? If not, you may want to edit it again. Don't take those edits for granted, they are just my personal answers. English is not my first language, so the text may contains mistakes ! Anyway, hope it helps.

I am taking an academic/scientific writing class this semester. To piggyback off , try to move from the "hero" to the "action" (verb) in as few words as possible. Ignoring short introductory phrases like this one, that verb should come within about 7-8 words from the start of the sentence. The sentence should put the dramatic conclusion at the end. My class is using Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills, 3rd edition by Swales & Feak. I would also highly recommend Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 10th edition by Williams and Colomb. There are two versions of Style: one only has exercises and the other has exercises and explanations and only costs about $5 more. It is worth the extra money to get the explanations! Good luck. Hope this helps make your writing gooder. :)

I'm not an English native speaker so I will avoid to comment on language and phrasing, and here's my general opinion. The language seems a bit colloquial, is easily to understand but does not really make a point. What you say in this introduction is something almost on the general public knowledge, thus the content itself, in this extract, is not enough "on the frontier". Thus someone trying to find the novelty content of this article, as you're supposed to do in a research paper can find it confusing, since you have to struggle for some paragraphs before finding the beef. The introduction itself have already to frame the step forward your study is giving in the broader (but not too broad) perspective of your discipline (not the whole world). The tuning of a scientific article is fine and delicate and depends on the particular branch and journal of reference. An article on Nature is framed differently than one on the leading journal of the field (e.g. PRL), that is in turn differently framed than a journal focusing on a particular branch of the field (e.g. PRC) that is much different from a conference paper (unless you want to recycle the conf. paper ;) )...etc... And moreover the style depends very much on the type of article (letter, feature, report, review). Here I have most of the difficulties on understanding the target of your article, a so general introduction can well be of a review paper, but the lack and precision of references dismiss this option. Could be a letter to a general journal, but the discovery and its importance are not highlighted soon enough. Is too general to be an article for a specific branch of a field, that does not need all this introduction and more action and references on the specific advancements that brought to your discovery. In general you have to be more precise, regarding your personal research, and aim from the start for a particular audience. Moreover "review" and "letter to general journal" type of papers are the most difficult to write, usually reserved to the already accomplished scholars, if you want to try your skills is better to start from a report article in your specific branch, without caring too much about a general exposition and explanation (one phrase is ok, two are not). You had already different great advices regarding style, phrasing and lexicon, my advice is that you need to frame the article for a specific academic target, read a lot of similar targeted paper trying to take the Zeitgeist of a particular writing target for your particular field. As a footnote regarding style that I think no-one pointed out: references are really important, every field has is own peculiar style of citing (e.g. medicine cite by the hundreds, math by the hand count) and you have to adapt to it. Having only few of them (by my experience bio-fields cite quite a lot) in the introduction, on the most general assertions, states your lacking of precision and solidity of thoughts. Forgetting to report them in your question already testifies how little you care and this, more than style or anything else, for me is scientific a deal-breaker.

Don Norman, a person known as the godfather of human factors, is known for his quip "academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." You might not be surprised that a man who spent his career promoting the science of designing things that are usable for people has had his academic papers constantly criticized for being "too understandable." I think what your advisor is saying is to make your writing sound more "clever" by peppering it with fancy jargon. He may not be "right," he may just be encouraging you to to be a "clever academic."

This would be easy  if the area of research was scientific. Otherwise it would be practically  impossible to use a scientific voice if for instance you are writing about  writers in the 18th century. If the research is scientific, simply use the terms found in your  research and quote the original sources relatively and correctly. Again, do  not use too many quotations as it will sound more like a report than a  research paper. If you need http://essaymama.org/, try using the online sites  available for that.

Check with archetype affidavit from your field. Introduction:  Generally, the addition presents actual traveling from  ample ambit to  actual attenuated scope.  It should present accordant  accomplishments information. The endure branch or book of the  addition should be what you did specifically, and should be a digest of  the abstract.  Typically humans will say "Here we acclimated X to  appearance Y" to announce to the clairvoyant that the addition is over. Methods:    Readers will be searching for the abstracts of your agreement or  abstruse address either appropriate afterwards the addition or in a  abstracted section, depending on the architecture of the journal. Data:  Generally, abstracts are  presented first, after too abundant interpretation.  In this section,  paragraphs can activate "Fig. 1 shows..." Discussion: This is area  you adapt the data.  It is sometimes difficult or absurd to disentangle  abstracts from interpretation, so presenting this area and the  antecedent one in a adamant way can be tricky. Conclusions: recapitulate the abstruse yet again. buy an essay....   http://www.poweredessays.org/buy-essay