---
title: "Scientific writing"
chunk: 1/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_writing"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:37:57.612484+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Scientific writing is about science, with the implication that the writing is done by scientists and for an audience that primarily includes peers—those with sufficient expertise to follow in detail. (The similar term "science writing" instead refers to writing about a scientific topic for a general audience; this could be by scientists and/or journalists, for example.) Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles (also typically for scientific journals), which summarize the existing state of a given aspect of a scientific field, and writing grant proposals, which are a common means of obtaining funding to support scientific research. Scientific writing is more likely to focus on the pure sciences compared to other aspects of technical communication that are more applied, although there is overlap. There is not one specific style for citations and references in scientific writing. Whether one is submitting a grant proposal, literature review articles, or submitting an article into a paper, the citation system that must be used will depend on the publication they plan to submit to.
English-language scientific writing originated in the 14th century, with the language later becoming the dominant medium for the field. Style conventions for scientific writing vary, with different focuses by different style guides on the use of passive versus active voice, personal pronoun use, and article sectioning. Much scientific writing is focused on scientific reports, traditionally structured as an abstract, introduction, methods, results, conclusions, and acknowledgments. However, one of the founders of the Royal Academy, Thomas Sprat, also saw connections between scientific writing and writing in the humanities.
One recent advancement in the study of scientific writing is the development of the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing (henceforth CC), which is an electronic corpus focusing on four major areas: Astronomy, History, Philosophy, and Life Sciences.

== History ==
English scientific writing dates back to the 14th century. In 1665, Henry Oldenburg founded the first scientific journal, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Scholars consider that Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society have shaped the fundamental principles of scientific journals, primarily concerning the relevance of scientific priority and peer review. Modern practices of standardized citation did not emerge until the 20th century when the Chicago Manual of Style introduced its citation format, followed by the American Psychological Association in 1929 which became the most used citation style in the scientific discipline.
The Royal Society established good practice for scientific writing. Founder member Thomas Sprat wrote on the importance of plain and accurate description rather than rhetorical flourishes in his History of the Royal Society of London. Robert Boyle emphasized the importance of not boring the reader with a dull, flat style.
Because most scientific journals accept manuscripts only in English, an entire industry has developed to help non-native English speaking authors improve their text before submission. It is just now becoming an accepted practice to utilize the benefits of these services. This is making it easier for scientists to focus on their research and still get published in top journals.
Besides the customary readability tests, software tools relying on Natural Language Processing to analyze text help writer scientists evaluate the quality of their manuscripts prior to submission to a journal. SWAN, a Java app written by researchers from the University of Eastern Finland, is such a tool.

== Writing style guides ==
Publication of research results is the global measure used by all disciplines to gauge a scientist's level of success.
Different fields have different conventions for writing style, and individual journals within a field usually have their own style guides. Some issues of scientific writing style include: