Students of Scientific Writing
It’s rare for STEM students to be trained in how to write well, but writing is a huge part of being a scientist. There are many unwritten rules that you only learn about when you break them.
This site aims to de-mystify the writing and editing processes for students who are struggling with writing lab reports, articles/papers, and their thesis. Here, you’ll find a library of free guides that explain the rules behind scientific writing, to give you the tools to write and edit with confidence!
Here at SOS Writing, we believe in self-betterment and free education as matters of principle. Not everyone has the luxury of experienced Ph.D. students or postdocs to lean on, or a supportive advisor to learn from. We sincerely hope that these guides will be useful to you, no matter where you are in your studies.
Scientific writing and communication
In this library of free resources, we take you through the writing process from start to finish with the handy tips and insights that we wish we’d known at the start of our studies.
By using these guides, you should find that writing becomes easier over time. You will be able to feel proud of (and confident in) your writing skills. The ability to communicate at different levels of complexity is a key skill that employers look for in every line of work.
Like any muscle, writing ability gets stronger with consistent practice and training, so the earlier you can begin working on it the better!
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Go to the guides > |
YouTube courses
Many people find it easier to learn from tutorials on YouTube than by reading a book. That’s why we’ve also been producing videos for the platform.
Our first series is all about how to be successful with LaTeX, covering everything you really need to know, and skipping everything you don’t!
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Go to the YouTube channel > |
Contact us
There are plenty of ways to keep up to date. If you have opinions about any of our content you can use the comment boxes at the bottom of each page or use our contact form. Let us know if we’ve missed any topics you’d like to see.
“Alpaca my opinions into no more than 240 characters”
Who is behind this website?
Hi! I’m Dr. Sally Makin and I created the content on this website after I received my Ph.D. in Physics in 2019 from the University of Kent.
One of my favourite things to do during my Ph.D. was to procrastinate on my own writing by helping other people with theirs. I have since transitioned to industry and now work as a technical author, documenting open source software.
Terms of use (in plain English)
These guides are intentionally quite “general”, so if there are parts that contradict some specific rule in your field of study, use your discernment when applying what’s presented here.
You are very welcome to print any of these guides for your own use and to distribute them unchanged or with minor modifications (e.g., to student classes) with credit given to the author and a link to this website.
You can not pass any of these guides off as your own work, and you especially can not make any profit from them.
Stock images all from pexels.com.