Scientists are writers. Papers, reports, projects, and so on. It is important to write clearly to be understood. If you write in manuscript, you need to use a good calligraphy. There are also rules for typing a text in the computer. Here are these basic rules.
- Start every sentence with uppercase, and end it with period
(
.
). - Write a space (
,
), period (.
), colon (:
), semicolon (;
), question mark (?
), exclamation point (!
) and closing parenthesis ()
). - Never write a space (
,
), period (.
), colon (:
), semicolon (;
), question mark (?
), exclamation point (!
) and closing parenthesis ()
). - Never write a space (
(
). - Use the spell-and-grammar checker and correct each underlined text.
- Red underlines are spelling error. That word does not exist. Fix it.
- Blue underlines are grammar errors. That word exists, but it is not valid in that context. Rephrase it.
- Most of the times, bold and italic text
should be replaced by structural elements, such as sections.
- Check all your document and find the places where bold and italic letters are misused instead of a section marker, and correct it.
- There are some exceptions. The most important one is that scientific names of species must always be written in italics. For example: Homo sapiens, Escherichia Coli. See this article on “how to write scientific names” and the CDC Scientific Nomenclature guideline.
- Italics is also used for gene names, like copA. The corresponding protein name is in normal text, starting with a capital letter, like CopA.
- Sometimes italics or bold are used to emphasize part of the text, like when a new concept is being defined. Use it sparingly.
Checklist
- Search for “
.
” and replace all of them by “.
” - Search for “
,
” and replace all of them by “,
” - Search for “
;
” and replace all of them by “;
” - Search for “
:
” and replace all of them by “:
” - Search for “
?
” and replace all of them by “?
” - Search for “
!
” and replace all of them by “!
” - Search for “
)
” and replace all of them by “)
” - Search for “
(
” and replace all of them by “(
” - Search for “
.
” and replace all of them by “.
” - Check the first word of every sentence. Change it to upper case if necessary.
- Correct all spelling errors (words underlined in red).
- Rephrase all grammatical errors (words underlined in blue).