Duke Graduate School Scientific Writing Resource
  • Introduction
    • Science Writing vs. Scientific Writing
  • Lesson 1: Subjects and Actions
  • Lesson 2: Cohesion, Coherence, and Emphasis
  • Lesson 3: Concision and Simplicity
  • The Next Level
    • Passive Voice in Scientific Writing
    • Metadiscourse
    • Dangling Modifiers in Scientific Writing
    • Overused Words
      • Respectively
    • Beg the Question
    • Dash v. Hyphen
  • Quick Tips
    • William’s Ten Principles for Writing Clearly
    • Orwell’s 6 Rules
    • Revising your Manuscript in 7 Steps
  • Smart Revising
  • Fun Examples
    • More Examples
  • Resources
  • Disclaimer

The Next Level

Learning and practicing the principles in these lessons will help you write more clearly, but don’t stop there! Improving your writing is a never-ending process. This section is a side bonus. Here are a few things to consider. Maybe these things will rarely be noticed, but they will impress the careful reader.

Focus Articles

  • Passive Voice and First Person
  • Metadiscourse
  • Dangling Modifiers
  • Overused Words
  • Beg the Question
  • Dash vs. Hyphen
  • About This Guide

    This guide to scientific writing was originally created in 2010-2011 by Nathan Sheffield for the Duke University Graduate School and funded by a Duke University Graduate School Teaching mini-grant. This current site is maintained by the Duke Graduate School. If you have questions about this site, please contact gradschool@duke.edu.

    The content in this guide carries an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license. You may share or adapt the material according to the terms of the license, including providing attribution to “Duke University Graduate School” and providing a link to this site (sites.duke.edu/scientificwriting/).

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