“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.“
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)
I have dedicated part of my time to study and to teach scientific writing. This becomes more intense after a training at the University of Bath (UK) supported by the UNICAMP (see the info here in English and in Portuguese). Here I present some material I have collected along my studies that may be useful to improve writing skills. I have used these materials during my courses , especially in FT081 – Academic Writing.
Websites and tools
- https://www.craftofscientificwriting.org/ Michael Alley
- Prof. Chris Mack’s website with good texts regarding scientific publication and writing: http://www.lithoguru.com/scientist/science-writing.html (See for instance, the text about the 350 years of the scientific journals and about style.
- Tool for determining some characteristics of your text (e.g. lexical density): http://www.analyzemywriting.com/
- Tool for determining how is your text regarding the Academic Word List (AWL): http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/alzsh3/acvocab/awlhighlighter.htm
- Material of the Plain English Campaign (http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/): a) Alternative Words and b) How to write in plain English
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
- Linguistics, Style and Writing in the 21st Century – with Steven Pinker
- Cientistas precisam ter estilo – Prof. Dr. Wagner Cotroni Valenti
- Become a More Successful Author, Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. (1993) [doi:10.2136/sssaj1993.03615995005700010001x]
Books
- Eloquent Science, David Schultz (chap. “The motivation to write” is a good beginning)
- Guia de Escrita, Steven Pinker (see also the material (in Portuguese) from the Galileu magazine and an interview (in Portuguese) with the author in the revista Carta Capital magazine)
- Scientific Writing, Jennifer Peat (I recommend chap. 8 “Writing style”)
- English for Research Papers: a handbook for Brazilian authors, Jim Hesson
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The Craft of Scientific Writing, Michael Alley