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Websites on Evolution of Scientific Writing

Alan Gross and Joseph Harmon have written interesting articles. If you subscribe to "The Scientist" online, do read their article entitled  "What's right about Scientific Writing"  ( The Scientist  6 December 1999, 134(24):20 ),

 

and then read Michael Seringhaus in a later issue of The Scientist (21 November 2006, I think) arguing this time against the scientific paper in its current form. His article is entitled "The Death of The Scientific Paper".

 

Gross and Harmon have one article available online. It is entitled "The Scientific Article: From Galileo's New Science to the Human Genome". You will find it here.

 

If you want to discover the views of Roald Hoffmann, 1981 Nobel Prize Winner, on scientific writing, and how he wishes it to evolve in the future, read the fascinating article he co-wrote with Pierre Laszlo entitled "The Say of Things" published in the Social Research journal, Vol 65, No 3 (Fall 1998). You will find the PDF document here:

 

Professor Henrietta Tichy, a specialist in technical and scientific writing, has a few choice words aimed at the old guard of scientific writers. Her article entitled "Advice To Scientist-Writers: Beware Old 'Fallacies'" (published in The Scientist 2[20]:17, Oct. 31, 1988) starts with the following sentence: "Bits of advice from fallacy land have a strong influence on writing". I will let you read the rest! You will find the article here

 

Another scientist, cancer researcher, Chris McCabe is on "a mission to sex up scientese" ( title of an article published on the Guardian Unlimited Newspaper website on February 4, 2004, in its life section).