Like any other form of writing, scientific writing aims to convey knowledge or discuss something. Scientific writing is very technical because scientists use it to communicate their findings, methodologies, or results to other scholars or people in their community. 

This form of writing will be seen in documents, research papers, scientific journals, or books.

Now you need to be extra careful with your words because there is little room for error in this form of writing. It is a must that you keep your tone formal and choose the exact meaning of words. This is mainly because it involves writing peer reviews, summaries of research findings, or asking for grant requests. 

Goals of Scientific Writing

Here are some of the goals or you can say features of scientific documentation, to help you get some basic understanding. 

1. Precision

Scientific writing should be precise, for example, if you are explaining a topic or summarizing your research in a document you need to explain everything in detail.

2. Clarity 

The clarity in your writing shows how clear your concepts are. If you are including any jargon or uncommon scientific terms, you need to clarify so that your writing is easy to understand.    

3. Objectivity

You need to be objective when writing scientific research or any other document. You can only present facts about a particular subject or your analysis. There is no need to give your opinions. 

Tip 1: Research Your Audience

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you if you are a researcher. As a researcher, you might already know how important it is to research your audience to make sure you get accurate data every time. 

Start by developing an understanding of your target audience first. It will also help you write your document effectively since you already have some idea of who will be reading your work.

See if your audience is a student, a scholar, or a researcher or if you are addressing the scientific community. 

Getting to know your audience will help you choose an appropriate tone or language that is related to their expertise or skill set.

You must narrow down your audience in the early stages of your scientific writing career. It is more effective to reach a particular group of people rather than catering to a broader community. Most researchers don’t even know about it till late in their careers. But this is how you can target your audience and even leverage tools for effective personal branding in the scientific community. 

Tip 2: Structure Your Research Document

It doesn’t matter how impactful your research is, people won’t be able to get it if you don’t present it in an organized form. Irrespective of what your field or research topic is, a scientific paper usually has the following sections:

1. Title

The first section is the title. It needs to be concise and informative, generally, it reflects the whole topic of the research.

2. Abstract 

An abstract is a summary of the research objectives, methods, results, and conclusions that you present in your document. 

3. Introduction 

In the introduction section, you need to give an overview of your research. It includes a background of the research, its importance, etc.

4. Methodology 

This part is a detailed description of the research methodologies you applied and the materials you used for your research.

5. Results

In this section, you need to present your research findings. Researchers also add tables, figures, and graphs to back their research.

6. Discussion

In this section, you must interpret your results, and the significance of the findings and discuss further research that can be done.

7. Conclusion

Conclusion is a summary of the key findings of your research and you can include any other implications related to your research topic here.

8. References

Reference is the part of the research paper where you need to add citations of all sources and the material you used.  

Tip 3: Give Evidence to Back Your Claims

Even if you are an accomplished researcher, no one expects you to know everything. So it is better that you always provide evidence in your research to support your claims. People will only trust your findings if you have strong evidence to back them up.  

In a research document, this particularly means the data you use in your research. But that’s not all you will also be giving citations or references of the sources of the materials you used in your research. 

There are certain rules or formats for notating these citations or references. These include:

1) APA (American Psychological Association) 

2) Chicago Style.

3) Harvard Style

4) MLA (Modern Language Association Style)

You might be thinking why bother with this? Well, citing your sources is mandatory in your research. If you don’t give credit to its actual owner, it will be considered as plagiarised content in your research. 

Plagiarism won’t only ruin your chance of getting your research published but it will also hurt your reputation as an authentic researcher.  

Tip 4: Incorporate Visuals in Your Research

Visuals are easier to understand than text, this is also true for your research. That’s why in a research document there is a whole section dedicated where you can add visual representations of your data. 

This can be anything from data tables, figures like graphs charts, diagrams, or anything that is going to help you explain your research findings clearly. 

Including these pictorial representations also impacts your research as people are going to take your findings more seriously. 

So now you know why these are so impactful. Here are some tips to keep in mind while including these visuals in your research. 

Firstly make sure that you label your grapes or diagrams correctly. Don’t draw complicated illustrations and always add text to label your graphics so people can easily understand it.  

Tip 5: Grab Your Readers With a Compelling Abstract

The abstract is the most important section of your research, that’s why it is at the beginning of your research document. 

This part is a summary of your entire research paper. It includes details related to every part of your research, including your research questions, the methodologies you used, your results or findings, and finally the conclusion part.

What’s more, most people will only read your abstract section to tell if your research is worth giving a read. Since this is not the most technical part of your research you have an open window to be a little creative here. 

You can use compelling sentences to pique the interest. You can also add relevant keywords or phrases related to your research so the readers can know what topic you will be covering.  

If you want to dive deeper into the topic of how you can write effective abstracts, read this comprehensive article on abstract and its main parts.

To Summarize

So there you go! We have discussed all the pro tips that you can use the next time you plan to write your scientific research paper. You must use all the principles of effective scientific writing like precision, clarity, and objectivity in your documentation to communicate your findings.  

Use these tips whenever you feel ‘like your writing is lacking that spark and the only way to find out if these tips will work is to try them for yourself!