Scientific Writing: Easy When You Know How

by Jennifer Peat, Elizabeth Elliott, Louise Baur, Victoria Keena

Overview

This comprehensive and practical book covers the basics of grammar as well as the broad brush issues such as writing a grant application and selling to your potential audience. The clear explanations are expanded and lightened with helpful examples and telling quotes from the giants of good writing. These experienced writers and teachers make scientific writing enjoyable.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781118708026
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	07/01/2013
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	310
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jennifer Peat is Associate Professor in the Department of Paediatrics and Child Health and Senior Hospital Statistician, Clinical Epidemiology Unit at the Children's Hospital at Westmead, NSW Australia.

Elizabeth Elliott is a professor in the Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Sydney, The Children's Hospital at Westmead.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	xi
	Acknowledgements	xii
	Foreword	xiii
1	Scientific writing	1
	Reasons to publish	1
	Rewards for being a good writer	3
	Making it happen	5
	Achieving creativity	7
	Thought, structure and style	8
	The thrill of acceptance	9
2	Getting started	12
	Forming a plan	12
	Choosing a journal	17
	Uniform requirements	21
	Instructions to authors	23
	Standardised reporting guidelines	24
	Authorship	29
	Contributions	41
3	Writing your paper	48
	Abstract	49
	Introduction	51
	Methods	54
	Results	63
	Discussion	85
	Summary guidelines	89
4	Finishing your paper	93
	Choosing a title	93
	Title page	100
	References and citations	101
	Peer review	106
	Processing feedback	109
	Checklists and instructions to authors	110
	Creating a good impression	112
	Submitting your paper	115
	Archiving and documentation	116
5	Review and editorial processes	121
	Peer reviewed journals	121
	Revise and resubmit	125
	Replying to reviewers' comments	127
	Handling rejection	130
	Editorial process	132
	Page proofs	133
	Copyright laws	135
	Releasing results to the press	136
	Becoming a reviewer	138
	Writing review comments	140
	Becoming an editor	143
6	Publishing	147
	Duplicate publication	147
	Reporting results from large studies	149
	Policies for data sharing	150
	Fast tracking and early releases	152
	Electronic journals and eletters	153
	Netprints	155
	Citation index	157
	Impact factors	158
7	Other types of documents	165
	Letters	165
	Editorials	168
	Narrative reviews	169
	Systematic reviews and Cochrane reviews	172
	Case reports	176
	Post-graduate theses	178
8	Writing style	188
	Plain English	188
	Topic sentences	189
	Subjects, verbs and objects	191
	Eliminating fog	192
	Say what you mean	195
	Word order	197
	Creating flow	199
	Tight writing	202
	Chopping up snakes	206
	Parallel structures	208
	Style matters	210
9	Grammar	214
	Nouns	215
	Adjectives	219
	Verbs	221
	Adverbs	229
	Pronouns and determiners	231
	Conjunctions and prepositions	235
	Phrases	239
	Clauses	240
	Which and that	243
	Grammar matters	244
10	Word choice	246
	Label consistently	246
	Participants are people	248
	Word choice	250
	Avoid emotive words	251
	Because	253
	Levels and concentrations	255
	Untying the negatives	255
	Abbreviations	257
	Spelling	258
	Words matter	259
11	Punctuation	261
	Full stops and ellipses	261
	Colons and semicolons	262
	Commas	263
	Apostrophes	266
	Parentheses and square brackets	267
	Slashes, dashes and hyphens	270
	Punctuation matters	271
12	Support systems	273
	Searching the internet	273
	Writers' groups	274
	Avoiding writer's block	281
	Mentoring	282
	Index	288

Editorial Reviews

3 Stars from Doody

Reviewer: Raja Mudad, MD (Tulane University School of Medicine)
Description: This is a very well written book on scientific writing that is easy to read and follow. The format of boxed tables presents the information concisely.
Purpose: The purpose is to make scientists better writers. Writing well is a crucial component of scientific success, one that is often overlooked by formal scientific training. With scientific data generated worldwide, having a book that summarizes the standards of writing in English is very helpful. The authors have done an excellent job in meeting their objectives.
Audience: This book is written for the beginner or intermediate level writer. Students, residents, and doctoral candidates can all benefit from reading it, but even the advanced writer will learn something. The references also allow for retrieving specific guidelines.
Features: The book takes the reader step-by-step through the process of writing a paper. It addresses important aspects of the thinking process that should precede writing the paper, like deciding on a journal, deciding who the audience is, etc. In addition, the book highlights writing standards, grammatical rules, and correct vocabulary. The best features of the book are the examples cited in the text and the boxed tables, which illustrate the points well. Citing websites as references is also well explained and practiced in this book. The book may give the appearance of simplicity, especially for seasoned writers.
Assessment: This excellent book is essential. It can easily be introduced into a curriculum in a science school or graduate program and it is a helpful reference for experienced writers.

Doody's Review Service