Scientific Writing Complex

Is there really a great difference between "especially" and "specially"!?!

Is it really a great deal to put a comma "," before "and" or not?

Why do we have to write in the third person?

Everything is written now in English why keeping this Latin et alii, isn't easier to just say "and others"? And why do we abbreviate it to et al. it is not that long !?!

Until today morning, I was totally annoyed by all the guidelines governing good scientific writing. In order to succeed in writing, one has to read a lot of books and a lot of high quality research publications that have passed through a thorough and meticulous screening. Only when you learn how to be a sophisticated writer, you will be a true scientist. Only then, can you start writing. Only then your papers will be appreciated by the scientific community. Only then, your paper will be cited. Furthermore, you will then be invited as an editor in multiple prestigious scientific magazines.

Isn't it enough to spend all the day in the laboratory to prove that I am a good scientist !!!

Aren't my good techniques and thorough manipulations enough!!!

Apparently not...I have to be a good writer too!!!

I thought it is really irrelevant!!!

And today....I changed my mind!!!

Today, I came across this scientifically important research article. However, I had a very hard time breaking its code; the abstract was like a puzzle and the introductory paragraphs were almost consisting of two or three sentences. And with the help of a lot of commas, the author managed to get me confused!!!

Reading this article was like a fight between me, the scientific details and the "new" English phrasing!

So, only today, I realized that scientific writing is really an art to make science easier. An art that needs to be learned, otherwise one will not be able to convey his scientific efforts easily to everybody. All the scientists perform great effort in their fields, however, their writing skills can easily glorify or terminate their research. It represents the front screen to your work; your portrait frame; your final finishing touches. So I guess one should spend as much time on the finishing as he spent in the lab, so his work will be better appreciated.

Moreover, without good scientific writing we wouldn't have really understood what Georges Cuvier and Charles Darwin and many other scientists researched...I have to admit it....I was wrong...it is really important.

Thankfully, I am finally cured from this complex!!!.........

If you are interested, and I hope you are, there will be a workshop for scientific writing in the period between (11-15 July) in Uganda.... Join in !!!

.......

Image credit: Portrait of Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) by Mathieu-Ignace van Brée (1773-1839) by user Valérie75 via Wikimedia Commons.