Notes on Writing

Tackling writing culture in STEM academia

Jane Stafford (1899–1991), American medical writer and chemist

I have always valued writing quality in my scientific endeavors. This means clarity and precision in word choice, sentence structure, and logical flow in dissertations, reports, presentations, and manuscripts. On top of this, academic manuscripts often have very specific uses of jargon, and a highly technical style and organization that does not tolerate deviation.

Yet, most grad students do not learn “how to write”. The manuscript publication process is often an agonizing and negative cycle of back-and-forth revisions and quibbles between student and faculty member.

Yet faculty members/departments do not value teaching writing. You are either expected to “know it all” or accept massive re-writes by others. This creates a negative culture in which graduate students become highly resistant to writing instruction, avoid writing/revising, do not seek out opportunities to improve their writing, or push back defensively on comments that are completely appropriate (I have been on both ends of this process).

Yet, I recently overheard a faculty member say that they were receiving a lot of grad school applications that were clearly written by AI, and they didn’t care about this since it “equalized” applications and made them “sound better”. They argued that AI could also provide an “editing” advantage to students who did not have access to writing help. I was appalled. Shouldn’t a candidate to a prestigious PHD program be able to at least write a competent admissions essay? Are we moving towards “AI” writing all our manuscripts? Will writing mentors be obsolete? (Never mind that AI trains on copyrighted data, perpetuates bias, and poses other ethical issues). Basically, this statement exposed how little care there is for writing instruction in STEM academic spaces. How little care there is for writing craft, and voice in the STEM academic space.

STEM’s narrow ideas of writing, “publish or perish” mentality, and generally poor track record of scientific communication, I believe, has contributed to the current culture of scientific misinformation. (Also, the introduction of corporate management tactics in the American research university doesn’t help either).

I aim to unpack the gender bias in academic writing—how women are held to higher standards in the writing process, gender bias in publishing, and other issues related to academic STEM writing.

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