How to solve the biggest problem in scientific writing?

The problems we address as scientists are complex, but the way we explain them should not be so. We often add unnecessary complexity to our texts by using sophisticated words arranged in long sentences. ❌ If you speak a Romance language (e.g., Spanish, Italian, or French) as your mother tongue, you should be especially careful not to complicate your message when writing in English. This practice can make it more difficult for the reader to understand your message (or sometimes even to finish reading your text). 😩

As you review your draft papers, you should always ask yourself if there are any words that could be deleted or replaced with simpler alternatives ✔ without changing the meaning of the sentence. In that case, you should not hesitate to do it. Simpler words in shorter sentences better convey your ideas. Your readers will be grateful to you for eliminating the surrounding noise so they can hear your message loud and clear. 😃

Example 

Before: A sentence – no matter where in the writing it occurs – should contain no unnecessary or superfluous words, words that stand in the way of the writer’s direct expression of his or her meaning and purpose. 

➥ After: Sentences should contain no unnecessary words, which can obscure the writer’s meaning.

Finally, effective writing is readable, clear, accurate, and concise.

We share the table below so you can already start to simplify your texts.

Instead of…	Consider using…		Instead of…	Consider using…
due to the fact that	because/since		nearly unique	unique/rare
despite the fact that	although		plays a key role in	is key for
a large majority of	most		a new initiative	an initiative
has the capacity to	can		for the first time	(nothing)
is able to	can		as well as	and
are capable of	can		given that	since
whether or not	whether		in order to	to
are in agreement	agree		at this point in time	now
prior to	Before		gives rise to	causes
in the event that	if		very/extremely/highly	(nothing)
on the other hand	in contrast		in a careful manner	carefully
subsequent to	after		first of all	first
due to the fact that	because		it should be emphasised that	Note that
for the purposes of…	for…		it is noteworthy that	Note that
the question as to whether	whether		it is worth highlighting that	Note that
both cultures were equally affected	the cultures were equally affected		it is important to note that	Note that

This material is based on the following resources with some additions and modifications from Gavin Lucas and Valeria Di Giacomo.

References:

• https://cgi.duke.edu/web/sciwriting
• http://www.writing.utoronto.ca
• http://www.cambridge.org/grammarandbeyond
• http://www.uefap.com/writing/
• https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/effective-writing-13815989/
• http://esteve.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/13076.pdf 
• Alley, 1996. The Craft of Scientific Writing. Springer

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