How to Sit Tight and Write Tight: Scientific Writing Part 1 (Tight Writing)

The two pillars of scientific writing include?Brevity?and?Clarity. According to the Oxford dictionary, plain or “crystal clear” English is the art of using language that the intended audience can understand and act upon from a single reading. Readers are busy people who want to be able to understand your paper quickly and do not want to spend time sorting out meanings from meandering text. In fact in order to increase the chances of having your research paper published in a reputable journal, you need to learn writing in a way that you can relay your message to your readers using only a limited amount of space. Many journals and conferences set limitations on the maximum number of words you can use while submitting your manuscripts and abstracts.?In this article, I will briefly review a few practical tips that can help you achieve tight writing. This is a skill that is certainly worth perfecting if you would like to publish effectively.

1-????Revisit your notes (often):

Put your thoughts down in a sentence, then be your best critic and see how many words you can leave out. For example, after you finish a section of your paper, leave it aside and get back to it after a few days; then read it meticulously and try to identify the unnecessary phrases and clauses that you can probably delete.???

Here is an example:

-???????Smoking cigarettes?is a significant health issue in our society and there is much evidence that smoking cigarettes negatively influences the cardiac tissue oxygenation (25 words)

-???????Smoking cigarettes negatively influences the cardiac tissue oxygenation (9 words).?

2-????Use shorter version of verbs and nouns (when possible):

Constructions??such as “has been shown to be” can be often replaced by “is” when the evidence is definitive or “may be” when the evidence is less certain. Sometimes we choose longer words subconsciously to appear “more academic”, but this is a big mistake! not only shorter words are more clearly understood, but using longer words may cause confusion as they may bear the wrong meaning. Some examples include “use” versus “utilize”, “methods” versus “methodology”, “has agreed” versus “established an agreement”, “to” versus “in order to”, “term” versus “terminology”, etc.?

3-????Beware of tautology:?

Tautology means saying the same thing twice in different words, which is considered to be a fault in writing style. In tight writing, you only say things once and should avoid tautology. Some examples are as follows:?

-???????There is no need to?repeat?the test?again.

-???????To date, no?recent?information is available to suggest X is correlated with Y.??

4-????Break the long sentences:

Short sentences are the crux of good scientific writing. If your written sentences are long, you will have to learn to chop them up.?Sentences more than 30 words are generally considered to be too long. Also if a sentence has too many phrases and clauses, readers will not be able to maintain all the ideas until they reach the full stop. So this one is important from a clarity standpoint as well. Try to structure your sentences in less than 20 words. Break the long sentences into a few shorter ones using short verbs. This will help you identify the unnecessary clauses/phrases.?

5-????Avoid adverbs, adjective and too many prepositions/conjunctions:

Adverbs should not repeat the meaning of the verbs. In tight writing, adverbs are best avoided by choosing a verb that does not need modification or further explanation. By using specific verbs and nouns, adverbs and adjectives can be avoided. Also, prepositions and conjunctions are oftentimes overused, and can be omitted without impacting the sentence. An example is:?

-???????in this study, all?of?the patients signed consent forms.?Of?can be omitted.?

Warning: in tight writing, you should not go to the extremes as deleting the necessary details can negatively impact the scientific merit of your paper.?

Good luck!