The WikiDoc Manual of Style

Overview

Good scientific writing is terse and efficient.

Use the present or past tense, avoid the passive tense

Do not use of the passive tense with words ending in "ing". Use the present or past tense.

Avoid the words "causes" and "predicts"

Biology is largely phenomenology and it is hard to verify causal pathways.

Do not use the phrase ___"causes" ____ unless a causal pathway is firmly established.

Instead use the phrase “ ___ was associated with ___”.

Do not use the word “predictor” unless causality has been established and the observation has been validated in both an exploratory and validation cohort.

Avoid using the words I and we

Do not use the word “I” or “we”. These are too conversational and casual. Insert instead “This study examined …” not “We examined …”

Table to translate conversational / casual styel to WikiDoc / Scientific style

caption

Casual Style	Science Style
in patients	among patients
after	following
given	administered
use	received, administered
seen	observed
cell	cell
cell	cell
cell	cell