Is it time to put a humidifier in the dry domain of writing scientific papers? Given the inaccessibility of many research papers, young scientists should receive more formal training to write clear, understandable, and even enjoyable papers.

Abstract

EMBO Reports (2018) e46909 The first formal lessons I had in writing scientific papers occurred midway through my undergraduate degree. The class was called Writing for the Life Sciences and was taught by an old, grizzled biologist who appeared to have spent one too many seasons in the field and who had very strict views on how to write a research article. The course material contained all the standard fixings. For example, we learnt how to write a clear and succinct abstract, what to include in an introduction, the difference between results and discussion, and when to use the past or present tense. > … the writing of a research paper can involve as much time, effort and innovation as the research itself, and […] science can be as much an artistic endeavour as one of scholarship and precision. What I remember most from these lessons is the three‐page handout we were given on the first day, containing bullet‐pointed rules—commandments—on proper scientific writing. Avoid first‐person pronouns at all costs. Use the passive voice to stress what was done. Save flare and flourishes for your creative writing class. Never use abbreviations for That is , It is, Is not, etc. When possible, always use acronyms for scientific words. Do not, under any circumstances, be imaginative or have any fun was not one of the bullet points, but it was certainly implied. That handout would haunt me in the years to come. It followed me to graduate school in a beat‐up binder labeled useful resources and eventually made its way onto the corkboard above my office desk. And there it sat, like Poe's raven, scrutinizing and disrupting my every scientific sentence. Those bullet points became a firing squad directed at my productivity. Are there too many adverbs in my abstract? Is the opening …