ENG 574: Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing - Sarah Felicelli

Carraway, Leslie N. 2006. "Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing." American Midland Naturalist. 155: 383-394. This article analyzes what is wrong with scientific writing in scholarly journals and discusses how researchers can improve their communication of scientific concepts along with their chances of being published. Carraway explains the common mistakes that writers make in scientific publications (she focuses mostly on the mistakes) and makes recommendations on how to avoid those common mistakes. In Carraway's opinion, the title is the most important part of a scientific document. She points out that the title must be concise and explanatory so that the article will be easily found in database searches. In addition, if the title does not accurately reflect what is discussed in the article, the reader will become frustrated and move on to another article. Her recommendations for titles include:

• Don't use a question for a title


• Don't use a sentence or abstract format for a title


• Avoid subtitles and hanging titles


• Avoid acronyms or jargon


• Make sure that word order is appropriate

For the text portion of an article, Carraway discusses many common mistakes of writers that include misusing words, misplaced modifiers, use of acronyms and jargon, dangling participles and use of passive voice. At the end of the article, there is an extensive appendix with a list of commonly misused words.

Many, if not all, of the writing suggestions are ones that most English majors have learned in grammar classes; however, the examples that the author provides are specific to scientific writing. She does an excellent job of showing actual examples of errors in titles and texts and how writers can avoid those mistakes. This article is extremely useful for anyone who is interested in improving their writing in the sciences, but it only indirectly applies to my topic. Carraway's discussion is specific to scholarly journals and she clarifies that she is focusing on readers who have a "moderate knowledge of science." The focus of my study is to determine how technical writers can communicate information to those people who do not have a basic understanding of science. I will definitely use this article as a resource for my own writing in the future though!