No one tells you before you sign up to a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) degree that writing is a major part of it. There’s no way to avoid writing either. If you chose STEM because you feel like you’re “bad” at writing, you’re not alone. Many people choose it hoping to avoid writing as much as possible. Many sciences students have a learning disability (like Dyslexia) that makes writing more of a struggle. It’s even harder if English is also not your first language. Writing is often an anxiety-inducing chore, but it doesn’t have to be.
Why is it so important?
Science these days is a truly international effort. It’s normal for research teams to have collaborators from all around the world, and team members usually speak multiple languages between them. To be able to function and communicate effectively, they need a language in common. Since English is the most commonly spoken second language in the world by a large margin, it has become the de facto standard operating language in science. Although papers can be published in other languages, their audience tends to be small unless they are also translated into English.
Science communication and outreach sometimes sound like buzzwords, but are more important than you might think. This is especially true currently, where science literacy is decreasing and deliberate misinformation and conspiracy theories spread like wildfire on the internet. Being able to think critically and to clearly communicate your results and ideas, are arguably the most important aspects of your science training. What’s the point of doing groundbreaking research if no one knows about it? It’s not enough for you as an author to understand what you mean if your audience misses your point.
Who is this website for?
Anyone who wants to learn to write scientifically, and do it well. The rules of good scientific writing are not a secret, but it can feel like they are when you learn the rules only by breaking them first. Luckily, no matter what stage you are at in your higher education journey, the underlying principles of good writing are the same. Whether you are an undergraduate facing your first lab reports, a postgraduate starting your first journal article, or you’re in the middle of writing your dissertation or thesis, you can give yourself the best possible chance of success by writing with clarity, brevity, and confidence. We want to help you on your journey.
When we stood where you are now, we benefited from the friendly support of the older, wiser Ph.D. students and postdocs who went before us. Now it’s our turn to pay that forward. We will share the practical techniques we learned and which ones actually work. We’ll show you which rules to follow, and which ones are “more guidelines than actual rules”. We aim to help you improve the quality of your scientific “soft skills” … no matter what level you start from or what university you go to.