Table Of ContentThe
Craft of
Scientific
Writing
Third Edition
The
Craft of
Scientific
Writing
Third Edition
Michael Alley
Inc1udes 28 Illustrations
~ Springer
Michael Alley
Mechanical Engineering
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Virginia rech
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0238
alley®vt.edu
Cover illustration: Parachute system designed for the crew escape module of the F-111
fighter jet. Peterson and Johnson, 1987. This illustration also appears on p. 162 of the
text.
Anci11ary information for the book can be found through the publisher' s website:
http:j jwww.springer.ny.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Alley, Michael.
The craft of scientific writingjMichael Alley. -3M ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Technical writing. I. Title
Tll.A37 1996
808' .0666 - dc20 96-15207
ISBN 978-0-387-94766-2 ISBN 978-1-4757-2482-0 (eBook) Printed on acid-free paper.
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-2482-0
First edition published by Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1987. Second edition published by Michael Alley,
1995.
(1:) 1996 Springer Scienee+Business Media New York
Originally published by Springer Seienee+Business Media, Ine. in 1996
All rights reserved. This work may not be transiated or copied in whole or in part without the written
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connectiOlI with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in eonnection with any form of information
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9
springeronline.com
For Karen
Foreword
We are all apprentices 01 a craft where no one ever becomes a master.
-Emest Hemingway
In October 1984, the weak writing in a scientific report
made national news. The report, which outlined safety
procedures during a nuclear attack, advised industrial
workers "to don heavy clothes and immerse themselves
in a large body of water." The logic behind this advice
was sound: Water is a good absorber of heat, neutrons,
and gamma rays. Unfortunately, the way the advice was
worded was unclear. Was everyone supposed to be com
pletely submerged? Was it safe to come up for air? Be
sides being unclear, the writing conveyed the wrong im
pression to the public. The report came across as saying
"go jump in a lake"-not the impression you want to give
someone spending thousands of dollars to fund your re
search.
Chances are that Dan Rather will not quote sentences
from your documents on national television, no matter
how weak the writing iso Still, your writing is important.
On a personal level, your writing is the principal way in
which people learn about your work. When you commu
nicate weIl, you receive credit for that work. When you
do not communicate weIl or are too slow to communi
cate, the credit often go es to someone else. On a larger
level, your writing and the writing of other scientists and
vii
viii Foreword
engineers influenees publie poliey about scienee and en
gineering. When the scientific eommunity eommunicates
weIl, its opinions shape this publie poliey. When the sci
entific eommunity does not eommunicate weIl, other
groups dictate this publie poliey.
Although scientific writing is important, many sci
entists and engineers have never sat down and thought
out exaet1y why they write or what they want their writ
ing to aeeomplish. Instead, these authors rely on a set of
vague eoneeptions that they have developed over the
years. Often these eoneeptions arise from two untmst
worthy sourees: simplistic rules and weak examples.
The simplistic mIes that scientists and engineers re
member originate in freshman eomposition classes taken
years ago, late night eonversations with eoIleagues, Dos
and DON'TS articles eut out of eompany newsletters.
Use synonyms Jor variety.
Never use the first person.
Always write in the active voice.
These rules contain absolutes such as "always" and
"never." Worse yet, many of these mIes are untrue. When
applied to the wide range of writing situations in scienee
and engineering, these rules fail. Faee it: Writing scien
tific doeuments is difficult, mueh too difficult to be solved
by a list of one-liners.
An even bigger influenee on how scientists and en
gineers write eomes from examples that they read. Just
as hearing a spoken dialeet influenees the way you speak,
reading a eertain writing style influenees the way you
write. Word ehoices, sentenee rhythms, even the ways that
papers are organized are absorbed by readers. Unfortu
nately, many writing examples in scientific literature are
weak. In many doeuments, the results are not emphasized
weIl, the language is needlessly eomplex, and the illus
trations do not mesh with what is written.
Foreword ix
Because of simplistic mIes and weak examples in
scientific writing, many conceptions that scientists and
engineers have about scientific writing are really miscon
ceptions. For instance, many authors think of scientific
writing as a mystical aspect of science. Scientific writing
is not that at all. For one thing, scientific writing is not a
science. It does not contain la ws obtained through deri
vations or experiments. Scientific writing is a craft. It con
sists of skills that are developed through study and prac
tice. Moreover, scientific writing is not mystical. In fact,
scientific writing is straightforward. Unlike other forms
of writing, such as fiction, where the goals are difficult if
not impossible to define, scientific writing has two spe
cific goals: to inform readers and to persuade readers.
How do you achieve these goals? When the pur
pose of the writing is to inform, you write in a style that
communicates the most amount of information in the least
amount of reading time. When the purpose of the writ
ing is to persuade, you write in a style that presents logi
cal arguments in the most convincing manner. You should
understand, though, that there are no cookbook recipes
for these styles-the writing situations in science and
engineering are just too diverse for recipes to apply.
If this book doesn't give recipes, what does it do?
First, this book dispels the common misconceptions that
prevent scientists and engineers from improving their
writing. Second, this book uses examples from actual
documents to show the differences between strong sci
entific writing and weak scientific writing. Third, this
book discusses the style of scientific writing by going
beyond the surface question of how things are written to
the deeper question of why things are written as they are. In
essence, what thi8 book does is make you a critical reader
of scientific writing so that you can craft a style for your
own writing situations.
x Foreword
In addition to discussing the style of scientific writ
ing, this book discusses the act of sitting down at the com
puter to write: getting in the mood, writing first drafts,
revising, and finishing. I wish that I could tell you that
this book will make your scientific writing easy. Unfortu
nately, that's not the way scientific writing iso Scientific
writing is hard work. The best scientific writers struggle
with every paragraph, every sentence, every phrase. They
must write, then rewrite, then rewrite again. Scientific
writing is a craft, a craft you continually hone.
Michael Alley
Madison, Wisconsin
May 1995
Acknowledgments
In preparing this edition, I owe much to my colleagues,
especially Leslie Crowley at the University of Illinois,
Laura Grossenbacher at the University of Wisconsin,
Christene Moore at the University of Texas, and Harry
Robertshaw at Virginia Tech. To my students I owe even
more, especially those at Virginia Tech, the University of
Wisconsin, the University of Texas, Sandia National Labo
ratories, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
They have challenged my advice, revised it, made it more
precise.
