How to avoid 12 common scientific writing errors that annoy journal reviewers

In this post, I’m going to provide a quick overview of the most common basic errors our editors see in scientific manuscripts.

This is obvious, yet it is surprising how many spelling mistakes our editors see in manuscripts. Firstly, use the spell check feature, making sure it is applied to all of the text in the file.

Secondly, choose the correct language (e.g., US/American English or UK/British English) for your target journal or thesis guidelines.

Long, long sentences that continue to ramble and keep talking until the reader gets bored and confused are both unnecessary and frustrating and make the reader want to stop reading and work out what you are talking about before their head becomes sore and they have to lie down in the dark, and mean it is unlikely that your written message will be communicated effectively or understood by the person reading the page.

In other words, write short sentences.

Concise phrases are much easier to understand. If in doubt, use two sentences instead of one.

This may also seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many manuscripts contain graphs with tiny text.

Think about what the text on your graphs will look like when they are printed on a journal page. Nobody wants to use a microscope to read the legends or labels!

You don’t necessarily need to make the graph itself larger, but increase the font size of the labels instead.

When naming groups and treatments, try to keep their names as close to the original treatments as possible.

Avoid unspecific names like ‘test’ and ‘experimental’, and try not to use abbreviations and/or letters if words can be used instead.

For example, ‘control’, ‘3 mM NaCl’, ‘5 mM NaCl’, and ‘5 mM NaCl + 3 mM Ca’ are much better (and informative) group names than ‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’, and ‘4’ or ‘C’ ‘low S’, ‘high S’ and ‘high S+C’.

Make it easy for the reader to know which group you are talking about, rather than having to “translate” your "codes" into group names.

Create tables using the Table feature of your word processing software, rather than laying out the text using the space bar or Tab button.

Tables created using the Table feature of Word will remain the same if the text is resized or moved. In contrast, the rows and columns in Tables made using spaces can become misaligned, making the table useless and confusing.

Sometimes, our scientific editors see tables and text with values like 42.35 m, 46.9 m, and 22 m. If these values belong to the same dataset and were measured to the same level of accuracy (significant figures/number of figures after the decimal point), then the values should be reported as 42.35 m, 46.90 m and 22.00 m. The zero / 0 values after the decimal point are as equally valid as the other numbers between one and nine.

Most countries use a full-stop or period to indicate decimal places. However, some countries, especially in Europe, use commas for the decimal point.

You should always check which your journal uses (mostly full stops) to prevent confusion between units or tens/decimal places and thousands/hundreds. For example, is thirty-seven thousand 37,000 or 37.000?

Make it easy for your reader to find information by providing the specific location, section number, or page/line number.

Don’t make them read through the whole paper to find that one little piece of important information.

For example, write "As described in section 2.2" instead of "As described above".

As a general rule, all abbreviations should be defined in full at first use in the abstract, and then again at first use in the main paper.

I agree that most readers will know what standard abbreviations mean.

However, it’s a good idea to think about readers and students unfamiliar with your area of research. Everyone (with some scientific knowledge) should be able to understand your paper without having to stop to look up an abbreviation.

Units should always be written in the singular form, for example, mL, cm, mM (not mLs, cms, mMs). This rule always applies, even if you are talking about 1, 10 or 100 mL.

Also, there should usually be a single space between the number and unit: for example, 2 µM, 3 cm and 5 mL (not 2µM, 3cm or 5mL).

It’s easy to remember these rules if you imagine the text without abbreviations because you would never write 2microliters, 3centimeters or 5millimoles.

According to the AMA Manual of Style, all mathematical symbols should have a space on either side; for example, 2 + 3 = 5, not 2+3=5. However, not every journal follows this rule, which is very confusing.

Always look at a previous article from the journal you are submitting to, and find out which style they use.

The most important point to remember is to be consistent: if you use P < 0.05, then don’t mix in other variations like p<0.05.

Southern blots were invented by Edwin Southern and as a proper name, ‘Southern’ should always be written with a capital “S”. Western, northern and eastern blots were developed after Southern blots, and were named after the other points on the compass. You can choose to use Western blot or western blot in your manuscripts, but always be consistent.

You might think most of these errors don’t affect the meaning of the text. Indeed, many people wouldn’t even notice these mistakes.

However, applying these simple rules will make it easier for the reader or reviewer to understand your paper and make your scientific writing more professional.