Are you looking for literature on scientific writing to freshen up your own writing skills or to assist members of your research group? Here, I review the second edition of Science Research Writing for native and non-native speakers of English. The publisher, World Scientific, asked me to review the book and sent me a free copy. This article reflects my honest opinion of the book.
Science Research Writing by Hilary Glasman-Deal is 384 pages long and focuses on the specifics of writing a paper. Glasman-Deal is a senior teacher at the Centre for Academic English at Imperial College London and has helped PhD students, Postdocs and academic staff with their scientific communication for the past 25 years. The first edition of Science Research Writing has sold over 35 000 copies and been translated into Chinese, Korean and Japanese. I read the second edition of the book that has been updated since its first publication in 2009 and it is being re-published in December 2020.
How is the book set up?
First, let me summarise what the book is about and how it is structured. Glasman-Deal’s approach to teaching scientific writing is what she calls a “reverse-engineering approach”. Instead of providing a strict framework that instructs how a scientific article should be written, she encourages the reader to develop their own model. So, how should this be done? Glasman-Deal suggests identifying at least four well-written research articles in your field that you analyse. Based on this, one should create a model, basically your own paper writing template.
Science Research Writing is divided into eight chapters (called units): one for each section in a paper (introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusions), for the abstract and title, as well as a final chapter with checklists and general writing tips. Most units start by providing a good example of the respective part of a paper that the reader is asked to analyse sentence by sentence. Afterwards, Glasman-Deal provides her analysis combined with answers to frequently asked questions such as “What verb tense should I use?”, “What if I don’t have the confidence to say that my research is important?” or “Do all research papers begin like this?” (p. 6-7).
Most units also contain lists of useful words and phrases that may come in handy when writing the section, it’s very much like an academic phrasebank! You’ll also find deep dives into relevant grammatical concepts throughout the book – often combined with exercises that let you practice right away.
What I think about the book
So, what’s my opinion on the book? First of all, I like how exercise-driven Science Research Writing is. Starting each unit by having the reader pick out the structure themselves is a fantastic way of engaging the reader. Because, let’s be honest, most of us are often too lazy to actually do the exercises that books provide. (Or is that just me?)
Anyway, the plentiful exercises next to the explanations and examples turn the book into more of a workbook than a textbook — and that’s a great thing! The examples and exercises are from different STEMM fields, though it seems to me that they mostly cover areas within chemistry, biology and geology.
The book is also really well written, which should come as no surprise considering the topic, but cannot be taken for granted — I’ve read scientific writing books that were lengthy and self-indulgent. So, I was pleased to find that Science Research Writing is a smooth read with no annoying fluff!
What I also like is that the author frequently stresses how essential it is to plan each part of your paper before you sit down to write it; advice I totally agree with. However, the focus of the book is still on the writing and it doesn’t contain a strategy to develop a paper narrative starting from your results.
I am very much on board with Glasman-Deal’s scientific writing principles: “Science writing does not need to be stylish or elegant; its primary aim is to communicate clearly and accurately” and “Good organisation and good writing can compensate for language errors, but error-free language does not compensate for poor organisation or poor writing” (p. xxi). The book also emphasises the importance of using storytelling in writing, and if you have spent any time here, you know that I agree with that too.
That said, I am sceptical about the reverse-engineering approach that Glasman-Deal bases the teaching in this book on, i.e. using the literature as a guide for how a paper should be written. I agree that this is a great way to stay up to date with writing trends in your field and I also recommend looking at published articles in your target journal to understand any implicit conventions.
However, I see a problem in relying on scientists teaching scientists how to write a great paper. Part of the reason is that scientists are rarely trained in academic writing and that the quality and focus of such training varies widely. Journal editors will also mostly perform very little copy-editing on papers, if any at all. As a consequence of the reverse-engineering approach, the book contains advice that I don’t agree with, for example concerning the structure of abstracts, how to present findings and certain entries in the phrasebanks. Rather than relying on what most scientists currently do, I believe it is better to teach the principles behind good writing and effective science communication.
A related concern of mine is on the practical side: How will readers be able to identify a well-written paper if that’s what they chose the book for to learn? Luckily, the book features so many examples in various fields, so that you’ll be able to use it even if you couldn’t identify your own example papers.
Who would I recommend this book to
The subtitle of “Science Research Writing” has been adjusted after the first edition to include native English speakers as a target group. Glasman-Deal argues that native English speakers still require training in writing academic texts, and I totally agree. However, the extensive lists with words and phrases and detailed grammatical explanations will likely appeal more to those who are less fluent in academic English.
In my opinion, this book would be useful for researchers at the start of their scientific writing career who would like to produce a clearly written paper with a good chance to be published.
You can buy Science Research Writing here.
That was my book review of Science Research Writing for native and non-native speakers of English. Have you read the book? If so, what do you think about it? And how do you like this new blog format, would you like me to review more books about scientific writing? Do you even happen to have a specific book in mind that you are on the fence about buying? Let me know in the comments below!
Some links in this article may contain affiliate links, which means that I receive a small commission if you purchase the book through the link. (Thank you!)
