Scientific Writing in Organic Chemistry: An Overview

Abstract

What Is a Scientific Article? A scientific article (or " paper ") is a specialized form of persuasive writing. Although science is often viewed by non-scientists as a collection of known facts, the core of science is persuasion based on relevant, testable questions (hypotheses), sound experimental design, and convincing interpretation of results. Scientists write scientific articles to convince readers (e.g., other scientists, doctors, policy makers, voters) that their hypotheses are worth testing, that their experimental approach properly addresses their hypotheses, and that the conclusions they draw from their results are valid and relevant. Scientists communicate with one another in articles using a standard format that includes the following eight sections: Title, Abstract, Introduction, Experimental Procedures, Data & Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and References. In this course, we will focus on the latter six sections.