Writing scientific documents

A random collection of thoughts from Craig

Watch your use of past tense. There is a place for it, but in science not as much as most people use. When describing how a polymerase behaves, described how it behaves right now.

  • Yesterday the promoter melted region was important. Today it is too. It is a process that will be true tomorrow as well. >>Present tense.
  • “The front door of Lederle allows [present tense] people with a key card to enter”  It also allowed people yesterday and last year, but when describing the door, we describe it in the present tense.  
  • “I entered Lederle yesterday” – something you did in the past. “The gel was run at 80V” – past tense.
  • The gel data tell us that something cool is happening (present tense). It is a property of that data.

Generally speaking, we use the past tense in the Methods section, to describe what was done. But almost always, in the Results section, we use the present tense (see above for reasoning)

  • Use: the data in Figure 3B show that binding decreases with increasing salt.
  • Do not use: the data in Figure 3B show that binding decreased when we increased salt.
  • Generally avoid the use of "we" or "I".

Do not use lab jargon - consistency is crucial

  • Use: T7 RNA polymerase. Do not use T7RP. Do not use T7 polymerase (there is a T7 DNA polymerase!).
  • If we develop a new thing like HaloTag T7 RNA polymerase, use whatever we used in our previously published work. We want uniformity within a paper, and uniformity across our lab's papers. Do not get creative like HaloTag®-T7RP. Do not shorten to HaloT7. These are OK in your notebook, but not in a paper or your dissertation.
  • Generally, use the name that was first used in publication, our lab or someone else's.
  • Avoid using WT. Use "wild type" instead.

Never use multiple spaces

  • Use only a single space between the period at the end of one sentence and the start of the next
  • Never use spaces to position something. Tabs are always better, and even then, if you need special spacing using special features.
  • Check your paper for accidental double spaces and remove them.

For manuscripts, don't get fancy with floating boxes and figures.

  • Please all figures in-line with the text. Do not wrap text, etc.
  • Learn to use paragraph styles in Word, then define a style for figures and a style for figure legends. More tips to follow on this.

Include a space between a number and its units.

  • Use: 25 µL. Do not use 25µL.

Use special characters - they're easy to include these days; learn the keyboard shortcuts

Use 30 µM. Do not use 30 uM.

Use standard unit abbreviations:

  • µL, mL, mM, µM, nM, h, min, sec, °C,
  • Use the ° symbol (shift-option-8 on a Mac): Incubated at 37 °C

References go inside the period at the end of a sentence

  • Use demonstrated something (Mala, et al., 2025).
  • Do not use demonstrated something. (Mala, et al., 2025)

Use Zotero to insert references. And use the Martin Lab shared library (not your personal).

  • For papers, use ONLY our shared Martin Lab Zotero library (not your personal)
  • If you add a reference to our shared Zotero library, be VERY careful that it's not already in there. Duplicates confuse things!!!