Writing in the

Sciences
By: Malachi E. White
What is Writing in the Sciences?

● “Scientific writing is fundamentally argumentative. Like all academic writers, scientists

make and defend claims. The address disagreements and explore unanswered
questions. They propose novel mechanisms and new theories, they advance certain
explanations and reject others.”
How to write in the Sciences

● Introduction
● Start with the data
● Present theories
● Explain methods
● Summarize findings
● Explain what the data means
● Make your own arguments
● Disagree with your argument and explain why
● Explain why all of it matters
● Read other peoples work
Introduction

● You’ve done this before

Start with the Data

● Describing data requires more than simply reporting numbers and conclusions. Rather
than jumping straight to the punch line to what X concluded it is important to describe
the hypotheses, methods and results that led to the conclusion.

Ex: “To test the hypothesis that _______, X measured _______ and found that ______.
Therefore, X concluded _______.”
Present prevailing theories

● The readers must understand the theories that the study responds to before they can
fully appreciate the details.
Explain methods

● Scientific arguments hinges on data, it’s important to note that the quality of data
varies depending on how they were collected.
Summarize findings

● Scientific data often come in the form of numbers. When presenting numerical data is
to provide the context readers need to understand the numbers by giving supporting
info and making comparisons
Make your arguments

● You’ve done this before too

Disagree with your argument and
explain why

● It’s rare for someone to disagree with you due to the fact that you should get the same
results. When this occurs it’s because of the techniques that was used, how an
experimental design tests an hypothesis, and how results should be interpreted
Explain why it matters

● You just want to explain why the work and your arguments matter to the scientific
conversation.
Read other peoples work

● You want to ask the following questions when looking at others work.
○ How well do the methods test the hypothesis?
○ How fairly have the results been interpreted?
 Activity

● Write a response about the environmental

pollution pdf or answer a few of the question
from the picture below about the environmental
pollution pdf.