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Always percolating below the surface of biomedical science is the ever-important quest to distinguish ourselves and our research through the art of publishing. Inevitably our efforts lead us to the same gateway: passing muster with the dreaded Reviewer, who lurks in the shadow world of anonymity. Fans of Lord of the Rings might compare navigating peer review to Frodo and company attempting the Redhorn Pass that ostensibly provided courageous middle-earthers a way over the treacherous peaks of Caradhras – with the caveat that peer review is much harder. After all, traversing the sheer slopes of a frozen mountain is good honest danger, the kind that advertises itself well ahead of time and therefore is unambiguous. Peer review is anything but. The process is fraught with ambiguity. You never really know who will review your paper. Even if you did, you cannot gauge their frame of mind when they accept the assignment or finally sit down to review what took you weeks and months to prepare.  So, we try to stack the deck in our favor the best we can. We demonstrate fervor for things like rigor, reproducibility, readability, and grasping the literature of the day. We practice staying on message (difficult for those of us who are perpetually over-caffeinated) and writing clearly and succinctly (difficult for everybody, with or without caffeine). Well, so far so good. A seasoned reviewer is used to forgiving honest mistakes – things like forgetting a citation, abusing the use of commas, or sticking a p-value in the middle of a sentence. No harm, no foul, and we move on together.

There are other tendencies or practices, however, that are a little less forgiving and apt to cause trouble for intrepid investigators trying to make it to print. When I edit a paper for a colleague or mentee, what gets caught in my gizzard every time are the unnecessary, unforced errors – the kind that people walk into willingly. These include the category of what I like to call “chest thumping”:  a form of self-assertion that makes a paper less about the science and more about the scientists. Sometimes, in the attempt to distinguish our work or emphasize our innovative ideas, we step into certain human traps, the kind that ornery reviewers are keen to monitor.  Here are some examples:

“In our paper, we show for the first time that A leads to B”

“No one has investigated whether A leads to B, and we do so here for the first time”

“Our approach is the first to use A to show B”

… and so on. Here’s the problem. Claiming to be either first or better in science is always tainted with at least a hint of subjectivity, especially when you’re trying to climb the proverbial ladder. Also, to state the ridiculously obvious, you don’t know what you don’t know. Don’t kid yourself – everything is open to interpretation. Chances are whatever you did, someone did a version of it before you. Murphy’s law mandates that this someone (or perhaps their mentor or protégé) will be your reviewer. At best, you might have gotten the facts wrong. At worst, you got the facts wrong and insulted the reviewer. The point is, neither is necessary – this is what we mean by “unforced errors”.  If indeed the approach and findings are novel and important, the experts whose respect and attention you want will recognize your achievement. No need to tout yourself and risk alienating an otherwise benign reviewer. Finally, if in fact you have done something better or improved upon a method, people will adopt your approach and cite your work, including those whose methods you improved.  This is a far bigger compliment than you could ever give yourself.  By the way, working in the perfunctory and now cliché “to our knowledge” disclaimer doesn’t really help. Everyone assumes you have the latest, greatest knowledge before you write the paper. No need to draw attention to the possibility that you might not.

Why am I making such a fuss? Regardless of who did what, rigorous, novel, and innovative results speak for themselves and stand the test of time – and will define the cutting edge until a more sensitive approach comes along. That’s part of the game we play. By staying in the background and letting your results stand on their own, you reduce the chances of inciting the reviewer’s personal ire and giving them the opportunity to bring you down a couple of notches. Consistent with the theme of these musings, consider avoiding statements like:

“Dr. X showed A while Dr. Y showed B.”

“Dr. X and Dr. Y showed A, Dr. Z showed B, and Drs. X, Y, and Z showed C.”

You see the trend? The writing becomes burdensome very quickly, trying to layer in who did what.  What stands out is the litany of names and dates, not the important facts.  Though this kind of citation is well-intentioned, once again you are bound to leave someone out, thus bruising egos and hurting your chances for a quick acceptance.  I urge my trainees and colleagues simply to state the facts with appropriate citations:

“A leads to B (X et al., 2010; Y et al., 2015,), while B leads to C (Z et al., 2020).”

When you arrive at the discussion of your paper, your contribution will flow that much more easily from prior work:

“A leads to B (X et al., 2010), while our results indicate C and D.”

In this context, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using “our results” because you are simply drawing attention to the current presentation – not tooting your own horn.

Look, writing papers is hard work, just like the science that goes into them. As new information piles up daily around us, ironically what we can be certain of becomes harder to discern. By keeping your referencing impersonal, you minimize the risk of losing your message in needless offense while emphasizing what is most important – namely, that A leads to B.

Further reading/listening:

Don’t Wait Until You’re Motivated to Write. Take Small Actions!

Writing Science in Plain English: Clarity Rules

The Write Rules

Many scientific authors think that effective writing is based on a set of rules, such as proper grammar or word usage. But writing well is not simply about following rules. Writing well is about using a collection of skills and principles to write in a way that engages and informs readers.

Although many principles influence scientific writing, they are all led by one guiding principle: make the reader’s job easy.

This principle might sound simple. But making the reader’s job easy is hard. You need to craft a compelling story that engages readers. You need to select relevant content and structure it in a way that supports the story. You need to use clear language that your audience can easily understand. And you need to do all these things while ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the science. This is hard work.

What can you do to make your job easier?

Consider your audience

One important thing you can do is consider your audience. And not only who you think will read your work but also who you want to read your work. In a world with growing interdisciplinary research and declining scientific literacy, we need to write in a way that reaches a broader audience.

Keep it simple

Aim for simplicity in your writing. Write like you are talking to a stranger in an elevator. Break down complex ideas and apply plain language principles. Simplifying concepts and text is not about dumbing down ideas or language. It’s about communicating clearly and effectively.

Seek feedback

Enlist help with your writing. We all face the curse of knowledge—unknowingly assuming that our readers know what we know. In this way, we might unintentionally leave out information that is important for readers to understand. By working with a professional editor, asking colleagues to review your writing, or even asking friends and family to read your work, you can ensure that your writing is easy to understand.

Get training

Most scientific authors have had little—or even no—formal training in writing. But to write well, you need skills to help you get control of your writing. Read books on writing, everything from classic books that cover the fundamentals to books written specifically for scientific authors. Work with a writing coach. Participate in classes and workshops. Attend seminars. Take advantage of every opportunity you can to learn.

Commit to practicing

As you learn new skills, commit to practicing them. If you learn several things at once, pick one skill to focus on for a few weeks, and then pick another skill to practice for a few weeks. Only through diligent practice can you change your habits to improve your writing.

During the process, remember to be patient with yourself. Writing well takes time and effort. But small changes over time lead to big results.

The author offers editing, training, and coaching in scientific writing.

More Resources

A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

Avoiding Barriers Between Your Work and Your Reviewer

Friendly Advice from Your NIH Grant Reviewer

Writing guru, fledgling medical editor, former freshman comp teacher, and Edge blogger Rebecca Helton offers bite-sized tips to improve your writing. Small adjustments can make big differences in clarity and style. We’ve rounded up links to the related posts below:

Correcting Comparisons

“Compared to” can’t replace the simpler, clearer “than.” Here’s why.

Comprise vs. Compose

“Comprised of” should never exist in formal writing. Learn how to use the comprise/compose pair accurately.

Don’t Dangle Your Modifiers Off a Cliff

Modifiers provide important detail, but can easily wander off the cliff when used incorrectly. See examples of dangling and secure modifiers.

Energize Your Words with Active Voice

The use of active voice improves even science writing. Sentences get shorter, actions clearer, and the reader more engaged.

Readability Scores

Tips for improving the readability of your writing for all audiences.

Additional Resources:

Writing in Academia: An Interview with Helen Sword

Practical Writing Advice from a Writing Teacher

Three Tips for Writing to Non-Specialists

One evening, my professor for Dissertation Seminar randomly grouped us in pairs to discuss our dissertations. A student specializing in Literature became partnered with me, a specialist in Composition and Rhetoric.

“What’s your dissertation about?” I asked.

“Narrative historiography,” my peer replied.

Before giving feedback on his ideas, I had to ask, “Um, what’s that?”

“It uses narratology to examine literature that reimagines historical events.”

“Oh. What’s narratology?”

As we progress through undergrad, grad school, and doctoral programs, we travel a winding staircase that progressively narrows until only the people in our siloed specialty remain with us. We become adept at writing about narrative historiography to people who already know about it, but we forget how to discuss our research to people outside our specialties.

Grant applications, journal articles, and other publications often have broader audiences than our fellow specialists. Here are three tips for writing effectively to broader audiences.

Recognize the Curse of Knowledge

When you understand something, you have difficulty remembering what it was like to not understand it. This difficulty makes it harder to communicate your understanding to others who haven’t obtained it yet. That’s the “curse of knowledge.”

Even after my classmate explained narratology, I still didn’t quite get narrative historiography until he used the example of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. It’s a detective novel set in an alternate reality in which the Jewish nation-state resides in part of Alaska rather than in Israel. A hard-boiled detective investigates a murder and discovers a secretive group working to bring about the Messianic events required for a Jewish state in the Middle East.

Ooohhh! So “narrative historiography” is jargon for “how we tell stories about alternate reality and history.” Why didn’t you just say that? Because of the curse of knowledge.

To write clearly to non-specialists, you must be aware of the curse of knowledge. Remember there was a time when you didn’t understand your discipline like you do now. Remember that your audience may not understand it, think about how you came to grasp it, and adjust your communication to help them get it, too.

Hunt for Threshold Concepts and Jargon

The term “threshold concept” was coined by Jan Meyer and Ray Land. A threshold concept is a counter-intuitive idea that must be understood before you can fully understand other important concepts in a given discipline. A threshold concept transforms your views of discipline-specific content. Meyer and Land describe it as a “portal” to a new way of thinking. Often, we use jargon to name or describe threshold concepts.

For example, before you can understand “narrative historiography” as a concept in the field of Literature, you first need to understand that literature can be analyzed with a range of different paradigms, all grounded to varying degrees in the details of the text and the author. Once you realize literary analysis doesn’t make stuff up out of thin air, your view of literary analysis transforms.

To understand how CRISPR works, you need to understand DNA, RNA, and viruses. But when Jennifer Doudna explains CRISPR to lay-people, she doesn’t take it for granted that people share her deep understanding of genetics. She doesn’t use jargon like “gRNA,” “tracer RNA,” and “sgRNA.” Instead, she describes CRISPR as “cut-and-paste” and then walks her audience through some basic threshold concepts about DNA replication.

To mitigate the curse of knowledge in your writing, look for the threshold concepts and jargon whose understanding you take for granted. Then explain those concepts in more detail, using broadly familiar language, examples, and analogies.

Pretend You’re Writing to a New Grad Student

Of course, you can’t over-correct when writing to the non-specialists reading your grant application, journal article, or other publication. If you start explaining the scientific method to scientists, then you’ll offend your audience.

Imagine you’re writing to a new graduate student in your discipline. The student understands a lot about the discipline, but the student may not have achieved the threshold concepts, higher-level jargon, and paradigms that inform you as a PhD.

My classmate, for instance, didn’t need to explain the concept of using specific theories and paradigms in literary analysis (e.g., historical criticism, psychological criticism, etc.). I got that in undergrad. But he needed to explain higher-level concepts that hadn’t been part of either my Masters or my Doctorate in Composition and Rhetoric.

By pretending you’re writing to a new grad student, you can strike the balance between condescending to the audience and explaining what needs to be explained, between dumbing down your writing and providing the necessary details.

Example

Say you’re writing an NIH grant to fund research into neural trajectory representation. The reviewers will likely include fellow neurobiologists, neurologists, and neuroscientists. But will any of them specialize in continuous cortical signals, bioengineering, neural prostheses, or robotics? Will any of them understand directional tuning and population-based movement representation in the motor cortex?

To communicate about neural trajectory representation to these relative non-specialists, recognize the curse of knowledge, identify the threshold concepts and jargon that need to be explained, and pretend you’re explaining them to a brand-new doctorate student.

Using these tips, you might write something like the following:

Researching the neuronal connections in the motor cortex that fire when we move some part of our bodies could help bioengineers develop robotic prostheses that can be controlled with the mind. Neuronal firing in the motor cortex creates a neural ‘representation’ of the direction and speed of volitional movements. People can imagine volitional movements, creating the neuronal firing that leads to neural representation of trajectory. If connected neurally to robotic prostheses, imagining movements enables people to control the prostheses with their minds.

Instead of throwing around “neural trajectory representation” and “continuous cortical signals” like everyone knows those concepts, remember that you didn’t always know them yourself and that people outside your narrow specialty likely don’t know them either. Recognize the curse of knowledge.

To explain “neural trajectory representation,” you need to identify it as a threshold concept and explain it with the detail necessary for passing through the portal to a new understanding. Describing neuronal firing in the motor cortex allows you to explain that this firing creates a “representation” of both direction and speed, i.e., trajectory. Then references to “trajectory” in the context of neurobiology will make sense to neurobiologists with different specialties.

But the example doesn’t condescend by defining neurons, neuronal connections, neuronal firing, or the motor cortex. The neuroscientists and bioengineers reviewing the grant may not share your narrow specialty, but they still know a thing or two. Pretending they’re new grad students helps you explain what they need explained without over-explaining, offending, and wasting their time.

Conclusion

Influential literacy theorist Walter Ong says it’s essential to know what the audience knows and doesn’t know. That’s how writers know what to explain and what to assume.

Don’t let the curse of knowledge mislead you about what the audience knows and doesn’t know. Look for the threshold concepts and jargon that should be explained so your readers grasp what you’re trying to convey. Pretend you’re writing to a new grad student so you don’t over-explain.

It will avoid awkward confusion and questions about narratology, sgRNA, and neural trajectories.

Eric Sentell teaches writing and rhetoric at Southeast Missouri State University. He is the author of How to Write an Essay like an Equation and Become Your Own Fact-Checker. Learn more about his work at www.EricSentell.com.

Related Resources:

Practical Writing Advice from a Writing Teacher

An Entertaining & Robust Writing Roundup

Edge Writing Resources Roundup

Pitching your luxury hotel to investors? Aiming for the executive suite? Moving towards partnership in an international law firm? Odds on you’ll invest in a high-end wardrobe. First impressions dominate. The out-of-pocket expense is a stepping stone to your goal. A $2000 suit makes sense when the gain is millions.

Hiring a medical editor is like having a bespoke tailor. No one cares what I’m wearing, but I want my work to step out completely dressed for success. Because we make our pitch in writing, work products have to be flawless presentations.

I have an undergraduate degree in writing and masters in science writing from Johns Hopkins. I have earned significant income in the past by writing and editing. I regularly work with an editor* for my most important products. Why? Because I and my research team have millions to gain (aka grant funding and publications that sustain our research). More eyes on make a more perfect product.

Don’t pour your intellect and soul into your scientific passions – your start up – and fail to get a foot in the door because of how your science is “dressed.” We write for a living. We write to explain our methods, to convey our findings, to explain the implications, and to inspire enthusiasm for our next research goals. Do not be fooled, we are marketing our findings and selling our next project. We compete our ideas. Writers and editors can help the work be elegant and polished going into the arena. Strong clear writing confers confidence in your attention to detail, deep understanding of your work, and by extension your abilities and trustworthiness as a scientist. Fair? Of course not, but first impressions matter precisely because the individual forming the impression is not consciously doing so.

Enthusiasm for your science is a gut level response you can influence to your advantage at relatively low costs. Writers and editors can help you be more productive and prepare your science to go more quickly and attractively into the world. Illustrators can make the message more tangible, technical editors can redeem your time by formatting to journal specification, clerical support can organize your bibliographic database, writers can draft cover letters or manuals of procedures to free your time to focus on discovery. More people than you imagine are quietly using these resources. I’m not sure why they feel the need to keep it hush-hush. No shame attaches to working smart.

If you have discretionary funds or training grant funds, often these can be deployed through your work to pay invoices. Ask. You don’t have much to lose. Some faculty have discovered a science writer on retainer in their department or deeply discounted costs for early career investigators by asking. Or form a free accountability structure with peers, like manuscript sprints, to be able to learn to edit and to receive feedback on your work. What you want is a durable, ongoing commitment to group editing, not a 45-minute work-in-progress. Work-in-progress with your research team is crucial but unlikely to be enough buffing.

If you must, pay out-of-pocket. But I still shop at Target!?! I can’t afford this luxury. Scrimp, save, take public transportation, don’t go out to dinner or order pizza, eat rice and beans, put stuff on Craigs list, but make the investment in your career. If I had permission (and I don’t per hush-hush phenomena above), I would share the names of senior people who have had writers as assistants for most of their careers. Writers who are now at their sides well into their leadership roles. Most began the practice very early in their careers. I also have testimonials from early career faculty who firmly believe their grants were funded because of the work of an experienced editor. Why make your work compete in Dockers and a serviceable sweater when it can arrive at the party in a custom tuxedo? You’ll slay them with attention to detail. You want to celebrate the win, right?

* Disclaimer: No editor was involved in the tailoring of this post.

Resources:

American Medical Writers Association Directory – Freelance Directory Search

National Association of Science Writers – Find a Writer

Australasian Medical Writers Association list of freelance writers/editors

And the publication below finding: “In this sample of open-access journals, declared professional medical writing support was associated with more complete reporting of clinical trial results and higher quality of written English.”

Gattrell WT, et al. Professional medical writing support and the quality of randomized controlled trial reporting: a cross-sectional study. BMJ Open. 2016;6(2). PMC4762118.