Improving science writing

I was fortunate to have good writing coaches when I was young. I got A's on English papers and felt really good about my writing. How about you?

But I've had a couple abrupt wake-up calls about my writing, because how one writes for English teachers doesn't work for scientists and for the public. Now, I've discovered something that's improving my writing, and it can help you too, especially if you are a scientist.

Challenges to beliefs about writing

Wake up call #1: Midway through grad school, I proudly gave the first draft of my thesis to my advisor. It came back with a few words scrawled on the first page:

"This needs to be completely reorganized."  Ouch. 

After a few weeks of nursing my bruised ego, those words spurred me to action. For starters, I segregated all the facts in one section. Then I described my methods, and lastly, the discussions and my conclusions. Then I wrote the introduction and abstract. (The structure of science papers is known as the IMRaD format.)

What I learned about science writing served me well in my career as a hydrogeologist in government. I wrote plan approvals like a pro because attorneys tend to think this way too, in their Findings of Fact, Conclusions of law, and Conditions of Approval format. That legal format is a lot like IMRaD.

However, writing like a scientist or an attorney didn't work so well for communicating with the public, and I never really knew why. I just thought I was too wordy, therefore, Strunk and White's admonition "omit needless words" became my mantra. I "strunked" needless words religiously.

Wake up call #2:   Last year, I read the book Houston, We have a Narrative by Randy Olson. I learned about that many scientists (not just me) have trouble getting to the point in their writing. We tend to jump into listing the facts first. "And X and Y and Z and...." Even to scientists unfamiliar with the topic, this is boring or confusing or both.

No wonder we scientists have trouble communicating with the public and earning trust!

How narratives improve writing

Randy Olson, who is a scientist himself, has identified a better way to communicate with people who are unfamiliar with a topic.

The better way is to harness the way humans naturally think, that is, in narratives. In this context, the word "narrative" means "the series of events that occur in the search of solutions to a problem."

Here's a quick overview of Randy Olson's ABT Narrative template for writing:

The ABT Narrative Template (source: ABTnarrative.com)

Of course, writing in narrative format is not THAT simple and there are sutbleties of how to apply it. And I, like anyone, need to practice using the ABT to make my writing more impactful. And...

[Oops, there I go, And-And-And-ing again!]

What's the point?

The point is: The ABT narrative template is revolutionizing my writing. It could help yours, too.

Would you be interested in sharing a draft of something you have written and refining it using the ABT narrative method? I'm thinking of hosting a small group of scientists for a few weeks to experiment with this. If you're interested, just let me know.

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To learn more about the ABT Narrative template, check out these resources:

• Houston, We Have a Narrative book

• The Narrative Gym for Science Graduate Students and Postdocs: Using the ABT Framework for Proposals, Papers, Presentations, and Life in General book

• The ABT Narrative website.