Jun 22, 2023
Good question: What actually constitutes a scientific writing style?
In the writing consultation at the TU Dresden Writing Center, many good questions are asked. To the question "What actually constitutes scientific style?" Annica, a trained writing peer tutor since 2020, gives an answer:
It is a question that particularly concerns first-year students who are writing their first term paper. But even experienced writers are regularly puzzled by the question: What constitutes a scientific style in the first place? And what distinguishes this style from other types of texts?
A scientific text is subject to various guidelines regarding structure and language. One particularly conspicuous guideline, for example, is that quotations are used in scientific texts. But what the concrete requirements are for a text to meet scientific standards often depends on the discipline. Depending on the discipline, texts are structured differently, can have different linguistic styles and also differ in terms of formalities. That is why it is so important to find out about the requirements in the discipline before writing a text.
In general, however, there are also common features of all scientific texts. To gain a better overview, the essential characteristics of scientific texts can be summarized under three points or maxims.
The first of these three points is objectivity and neutrality and means that the content of the work should be presented free of personal opinions and evaluations. This also means that different opinions that exist within the scientific community on the topic must be taken into account.
The second point is universality and context-independence: It is about the fact that statements made in the text can be verified independently of their context of origin. In other words, it should be possible to understand how the authors came up with these ideas and which sources they used for them.
The third point is exactness and unambiguity and refers not only to the working method and the content of your text, but also to the writing style. The text should be written in such a way that readers (of the subject area) can understand it without further explanation. Statements should be formulated in a precise and comprehensible way, because the readers - unlike in lectures - cannot ask any questions.
These maxims give you an idea of the requirements that your scientific text should fulfill. Basically: "As detailed as necessary, as compact and concise as possible" (Kühtz p. 16).
If you are looking for support or simply someone to read (excerpts of) your text, please feel free to contact us at any time for a writing consultation in German or English.
Literature:
Kühtz, Stefan. Wissenschaftlich formulieren: Tipps und Textbausteine für Studium und Schule. 2., überarb. Aufl., Schöningh, 2012.
Continue reading:
Lieberknecht, A & May, Y: Wissenschaftlich formulieren: ein Arbeitsbuch. Mit zahlreichen Übungen für Schreibkurse und Selbststudium. Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto 2019.
Newsletter article "Steep thesis: scientific texts can be written in a personal language style"
Student Assistant
NameAnnica Kramer
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This post appeared on the occasion of the June 2023 Writing Center Newsletter. This and other newsletter issues are linked in the Writing Center Newsletter Archive.
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