writing of a scientific manuscript begins during the planning and execution of the experiments. The new chapter 6 grew out of this suggestion and contains more of my thoughts on this theme. The second idea was to provide support for pronouncing scientific English and giving scientific presentations in English. My hints and guidelines on these topics can be found in the DVD at the back of the book.
Alwin Köhler, Tanja Kostic, Brooke Morriswood, Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid, Ulrike Seifert and Graham Warren gave invaluable support in the development of the new chapter. I am grateful to Christian Kaier, Walter Größbauer and Josef Wagner for their professional production of the DVD, to Jennifer L. Boots for the audio file with the American pronunciation and Lucia T. Riedmann for the drawings that form the background to the credits. Very special thanks go to Martina Dötsch who was such an enthusiastic partner in the dialogue on speaking scientific English. I am grateful to the Medical University of Vienna for permission to film my lecture on “Communicating Science in English”.
Tim Skern, Vienna, August 2011
The videos from the second edition are now available: https://www.facultas.at/skern#7 Lecture, Interview, Pronunciation(UK), Pronunciation(US)
Preface to third edition
In the ten years since the publication of the first edition of this book, I have substantially refined and harmonised the comments that I make when correcting the assignments of my students. The third edition takes these changes into account. Two new manuscripts in chapter 5 use these harmonised comments; the list of the comments themselves can be found in box 7.2. This edition also contains four new abstracts that illustrate specific problems that constantly recur in the students' assignments. Chapter 8 contains eight new exercises that are based on texts that I use in my class to provide practice in summary writing and data analysis. In addition, six new videos were made for this edition in order to demonstrate my approach to supporting students in giving scientific talks in English. I hope that you will find the approach useful for preparing your presentations. The first video sets the scene and introduces the speakers. Videos two to five contain three minute speeches given by former students of my courses; at the end of each speech, the student receives a brief feedback. In the sixth video, one of the students interviews me on how best to obtain a place in a laboratory for an Erasmus stay abroad. The videos can be accessed via the QR code in section 7.4.
A further change in the third edition is the absence of the two texts that were reprinted from the journal Nature. This change resulted from an enormous increase in the copyright fees that Nature now charges compared to 2011. The texts should however be available to most readers through an institutional subscription to Nature.
I thank the six students who so readily gave their permission to use their work. William Dundon and Gijs Versteeg kindly offered excerpts from the reviewers' comments on their manuscripts. Peter Wittmann and Carina Glitzner from Facultas AG provided invaluable support in the production of this new edition. Special thanks to Barbara Füzi, Ralf Jansen, Helene Mössl and Tomaž Rozmarič for their enthusiastic participation in the videos and to Walter Größbauer and Istvan Pajor for their professional expertise in producing them.
Tim Skern, Vienna, April 2019
How to use this workbook
Chapters 1 and 2 of the workbook comprise guidelines and a basic scientific lexicon that will support you in writing the English employed in scientific texts. Familiarise yourself with them and then practise their application by carrying out the exercises in chapter 3. Compare your responses to the exercises to those of former students. Look at the suggestions (sets of comments and commands with blue numbers) for improving these texts and then try to strengthen your work in the same way. At the end of the first three chapters, you should be more confident in writing formal English and able to ask critical questions about your own written work.
Taking the material from the first three chapters as its basis, chapter 4 generates a model manuscript based on imaginary experiments to illustrate how to write and strengthen a scientific manuscript. Chapter 5 proposes themes for writing your own texts and model manuscripts so that you can apply the ideas from chapter 4. Again, compare your manuscripts with those of the former students and note how they have been further modified. Correct your work in the same way. Chapter 6 offers an alternative approach to start writing your manuscripts and shows how experimentation and communication are linked.
At this point, your English should be approaching the style found in scientific texts and manuscripts and you should be gaining in confidence. It is important, however, that you continue to polish your English and that you appreciate that writing skills can always be sharpened. Chapters 7 and 8 are both designed with this goal in mind. Chapter 7 presents several suggestions how readers can continue to consolidate their scientific writing. Chapter 8 lists the pages of the book on which words marked in italics are printed. These comprise the basic scientific lexicon in chapter 1, important linking words from box 1.4 as well as a further hundred or so useful words for scientific writing. Browsing through chapter 8 and carrying out some of the exercises in this chapter should greatly increase the number of words at your disposal. There is also space at the end of chapter 8 for you to add words that you meet during your reading.
Contents
An introduction to scientific English
1.1 Advantages and disadvantages of English
1.2 Formal English, the language of science
1.2.3 Write out all verb forms
1.2.4 Avoid starting sentences with “and”, “but”, “because” or “so”