Judy Swan, Scientific Writing: Beyond Tips and Tricks

[@abdullahiibrahim7796]

An awesome workshop. My takeaways are: 1. Scientist are defacto teachers of writing 2. Professors don't have a language for speaking about their expertise 3. Write from the readers' perspective 4. Reading scientific articles takes energy 5. Readers focus on sentence structure before substance 6. Emphasis 7. Structure helps the writer/reader see things 8. Readers change their mind, data do not change 9. The rule of writing scientific papers is "No Rules" 10. Determine what your facts are (from your data) and then speak for them 11. No neutral sentence, you must choose a side Thank you, Judy Swan.

[@dennisestenson7820]

Great synopsis. For #5, I would say that readers focus on presentation/structure before content.

[@Aritul]

Thank you!

[@britneytezino3187]

Wow thank you so much

[@swancooper593]

thank you, abdullah i. - I keep revisiting this presentation and learn something new every time: this time your takeaways! Most appreciated.

[@miaeverdeen7938]

Thank you Abdullah, your list is helpful 👍🏼

[@Ztzyyy]

Although somewhat lengthy, this talk was interesting, fun, and highly informative.

[@erickouhai9818]

Although, most of the time, I write in a way that blurry's the things that I want to say; I may not be qualified to stand in the same grounds of professionals as sophisticated as her, much less to judge how great she delivers her lectures, which is blatantly obvious and need not be mentioned, but because I've had the luxury of watching this lecture on KZbin, extracting some new information that is so valuable, it's equivalent to a purse of gold, I, for one, at the very least, as a token of my deepest appreciation, have to say that this lecture is truly enlightening. Really. I thank, most especially, Mrs. Judy Swan and all the people who made this possible. I felt like I owed all of them a comment, and here it is.

[@myeongwoo]

Judy Swan is a good teacher. I took her writing workshop when I was in NJ.

[@EricBrennanOrganic]

This workshop was excellent, but, I wish I could have seen the full handout from the lecture, and also heard the comments from the audience. Now here's a re-write. Although I didn't have access to the full handout, this workshop was excellent. :).

[@rajeshthakur8276]

This whole talk has a high level of information and experience packed into one and a half hours of time. For learners and academician, this is a must watch like. Thanks, Judy Swan and organizers for this... Best Regards.

[@srimathisumathi3212]

Thank you Judy for that excellent session. I knew about the sentence structure, but you showed me how important the two clauses are when you look at it from the reader's point of view. I am sure I would gained much, much more if I was there physically.

[@miriamtorres551]

I decided to study Accounting because I work better with numbers, than with language. However, I feel that this presentation has opened up a door of possibilities for my understanding of language and better communication skills. So glad you recorded this for the public. (And, yes, the benefits would have been doubled, if all of the student's responses would have been heard, repeated, or presented in some way.) Thank you so very much!!!

[@asheaustaire7203]

Although I dropped out of school twice, this magnificent lecture by Judy Swan has inspired me to reapply to NYU. I hope I can find professors who are willing to use my time as wisely as she did.

[@proto9053]

In the nature of the lecture, I will give you a thumbs up.

[@elalaelasariuinjakarta7548]

Wow...Great lecturer. Thank you for sharing how to write a scientific paper. Excellent.

[@davidbarlow431]

Although the last 25 minutes were not much use as the audience could not be heard, and Judy did not repeat what they said for the mic, the first hour was very informative and well worth listening to for anyone who writes reports of all natures.

[@hpliew25]

Agree, maybe they can provide subtitles for the audience inputs.

[@alessandraz.8332]

nice structure! :D

[@hasnatsujon]

I see you have learned

[@giocaliguia8370]

Let me try making it more positive: Although the last 25 minutes were not much use as the audience could not be heard, and Judy did not repeat what they said for the mic, for anyone who writes reports of all natures the first hour was very informative and well worth listening to.

[@excitedaboutlearning1639]

​​@@giocaliguia8370The structure you use is much more complicated than what the original poster uses. Yours has three subordinate clauses before the main clause and thus requires the reader to keep much more information in the working memory. Keeping so many details in the working memory is hard, but it can be trained. When I first started reading scientific papers in 2020, I couldn't keep all the information in my working memory till I reached the main clause, but little by little, you can train your working memory to chunk the information. Subordinate clause + main clause or main clause + subordinate clause is what I recommend using. If the structure were to get a lot more complicated than that, it makes sense to divide the thought into multiple sentences rather than saying it all in a single, highly complex sentence. Edit: your and OP's message follow similar structures, but yours has one more subordinate clause before the main clause.

[@usavaatab6715]

Brilliant presentation. I am using your print-out and argument to convince my teenage students that grammar is central to success. Your points can be used to point out why teaching the 112 sentence patterns and clause structures is our first step to teach our elementary students to think and communicate clearly .. Thank you for making it available to the public.

[@MichaelDiamondMusic]

The lecture printout link is no longer active. Sounds like you got it before the link broke. Is a copy online anywhere?

[@usavaatab6715]

@@MichaelDiamondMusic tried to send but doesn’t seem to allow share. Any other way I should try? Unfortunately I never downloaded it.

[@giocaliguia8370]

Just search "Judy Swan Handout" or check here techcomm1.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/swan_handout.pdf@@MichaelDiamondMusic

[@teachingwithdmitriyfedorov2770]

The same stuff I'm teaching to my Ielts students. Your work always has to be logical in terms of structure, the way your ideas are presented, the number of arguments in each Body paragraph. Our job is to write smoothly and not let anything break this flow.

[@emilycarter8922]

You might want to watch this kzbin.info/www/bejne/imLTcmWKe6p8obc

[@fewcommentsonnews.4842]

SCIENTIFIC WRITINGS _ Never i was able to thinking of it before. How many of Researchers team to participate in such responsabillity, often during of tireless years inside of Lab. CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU !

[@suzannemoogan9675]

What a fantastic lecturer she is, so engaging definitely not one of those who like to hear themselves talk.

[@transiturbanist]

Excellent presentation. I agree with Eric, I wished that someone had repeated the comments or if someone had passed around a microphone.

[@sankeolsimicklepcha9703]

Dawkins and Pinker should be the idol of every academic writer. I have come across many lectures like the lady above but Pinker and Dawkins' writing is absolutely marvellous.

[@farahhammoud4477]

Absolutely loved this. Brought things to light that I have never noticed before!

[@Ph4n_t0m]

This was an invaluable presentation. Thank you!

[@dwarren1521]

This is the purpose of higher education. To teach people how to do something that's applicable in the real world.

[@KJKP]

To understand the concepts presented here, explore the concepts of recency effect (people tend to remember the last part of information), the primacy effect (they recall the first information strongly), and recall the information in between at much smaller rates.

[@carolinespec]

Just wonderful presentation! Thank you!

[@ZainMclean-q1d]

This is a great lecture! Congratulations!. Very good video, very helpful, delicately presented and fun. Thank you..

[@lcama5178]

Great presentation! I learned a lot.

[@curtaquimica]

So fast for a brazilian professor but still a wonderful speech. Excelent job.

[@lecturerchandran]

Really a lot of information for a researcher.We have to appreciate the presentation in making the reader to understsnd the influence of text in the main clause .Once you keep following the text upto 10 minutes then you will keep watching till end.A must watch video to every researcher .

[@Myat-oh8iy]

Thank you for uploading such valuable lecture., Admin. Pls more videos.

[@aoihana1042]

This is such a useful and practical presentation for a scientific writer, especially grad students. Thank you.

[@yuanhuihuang1531]

This is good despite the little hiss. I will recommend.

[@sheilagavin6536]

Thank you Prof. Judy Swan! Great content!

[@mahfuzulhaquenayeem675]

Fantastic lecturer! Thanks a lot.

[@carcucov]

This is a great lecture! Congratulations!

[@ahmedauwal4913]

Excellent presentation. I really learnt a lot....... Thank very much Judy Swan

[@RoboticEngineerAutomation]

Did anybody else notice the murmur underneath her breath at 9:40 when she loss herself on some side storry and said 'how did this get there' haha I love her already

[@EddieStyle]

Very good video, very helpful, delicately presented and fun. Thank you.

[@mareksajner8567]

this is unbelievably exciting!

[@z853c7]

Video starts at 12:21

[@azharoslan]

Thank you for this amazing, amazing content!!!

[@medhavigulati736]

Wow! Thanks, Professor!

[@mrpawan969]

This is an amazing it will help me to in my examination

[@goosecouple]

She is really good

[@yassersami]

I enjoy watching it again and again :)

[@nikhilsen9007]

The document linked is missing. Can someone please provide the document mentioned in the lecture?

[@juanchavarro1946]

Here, it's the pdf: techcomm1.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/swan_handout.pdf

[@sirisaksirisak6981]

All of fact come from rearranging,collecting,practising,acknowlaging and implementing as is to researcher.

[@JH-KU]

Thank you very much for sharing this. Very useful.

[@Productimothy]

This was a really cool lecture. Thank you. 15:00 Do you think, perhaps, that the reader does both of these processes simultaneously?

[@catharinawampol5247]

*Can anyone recommend paper writing company?*

[@patiencecivale1890]

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[@keeperofknowledge4120]

Use your mind, do not rely on other people. Otherwise, what is the point in doing research?

[@AmineAmine-fk2ig]

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing.

[@andrewjohnson9823]

Fred really is a nice guy.

[@erica.kantchev6144]

"The main difference as we don't write a single author papers". No. The main difference between real scientists (in the STEM fields) and humanities and economics writers lies in that the writers in the STEM fields first have to generate the subject of their writing (unless they write secondary literature like reviews, book chapters or monographs). That is the biggest difference. I have published a single author paper in a Tier 1 Chemistry journal, Chemical Science. It is possible. The reason it is not done is not about the writing, it is because the way research enterprise is structured, the division of labour. It is very rare to find a single person driving all that goes into producing of a scientific publication, as it happened to me for that work. It is also very common one person - usually the PI save for the few "superstars" who have been bestowed the luxury of having salaried deputies that are sufficiently experienced to handle it - actually does the writing, the other authors have worked on generating the subject that is being written about. So de facto that is again a single-author paper as far as the paper proper is concerned.

[@williamclark9973]

That is an incredibly ignorant statement. Scholars in the social sciences and humanities generate the subject of their writing as well.

[@erica.kantchev6144]

@@williamclark9973 Oh wow, such a great refutation, one that is as knowledgeable and wise as it is long and detailed. Anyone who has tried to publish a paper in the STEM fields knows that there is the fundamental requirement for novelty. In STEM fields you can make a new chemical compound or material only once, formulate a law of physics only once, run a computational model at certain level of sophistication and theory on a specific system or process only once (unless there is a simultaneous and independent effort, it happens more often than people realize). Every new paper must add something new to the body of knowledge on the subject. And you must throughly disclose previous works that may threaten your claim of novelty. This is one of the most important things peer referees and editors watch out for. This is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in my own discipline of chemistry, where pretty much every synthetic paper describes compositions of matter which have never existed before in the real world, and sometimes even the researchers could not envision beforehand. Excuse me, but I do not see how disciplies (I do not call them sciences because they are not) such as economics, sociology, antropology and the like can match that. All of the above regularly offer descriptive and analytical writings on what has already been produced, in a most general sense, by humans at large. Clearly, I do not make this argument about artists, because the topic of the video is "researchers", which artists are not. The most sophisticated of humanitarian researchers run powerful statistical models on large datasets, and that's it. The datasets as a rule come from the "real world", because grant agencies would not finance works of some made up data of no societal relevance. The single author is an unintended consequence of that, because a single person could offer their thoughts a humanitarian topic in writing. The STEM fields need multiple authors because often one project involves the independent expertise of multiple researchers, and/or the labour is so demanding it would be impossible for a single person to carry it out in a reasonable time frame (grants and tenures are competitve, after all, and speed is of essence. The boss wants the manuscript submitted last month, etc etc.). The difference is that the humanitarian disciplines cannot run proper experiments. Here is an example. Economists want to study effect of interest rates on economy. A true experiment would be to create a few replicas of the human society that are isolated from each other and unaware they are being experimented on. Then the researcher like a deus-ex-machina sets the interest rate and watches how the economy responds. It is plain obvious that actual economics researchers we have today absolutely cannot do that.

[@lordthanoz]

excellent lecture! I watched it many times.

[@deztroyer76]

I’d drop that class if I had to look at those chalkboards like that.

[@solmazalizade7995]

thanks for sharing this. I love it.

[@sayedahmadnaweed1]

it is worthy to watch the first one-hour part. but not last 20 minutes.

[@sabeen.masroor]

This is gold

[@platovsky]

Just beautiful 💎

[@mahaelah6295]

this is fantastic!

[@isaacchukwuma4456]

Great. I learnt alot. Thank you.

[@golamrasul2170]

Great lecture! How can we get handout documents. The links seems is not working

[@juanchavarro1946]

Here, it's the pdf: techcomm1.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/swan_handout.pdf

[@platovsky]

The best trick to write fluid is drinking 1 coffee whitout sugar whitout milk, and then all is functioning properly.

[@dutchymcdutch2553]

shame the document is no longer there

[@lauramahones]

In the example: "Fred is a nice guy, but he beats his dog"-- aren't the both main clauses? This is a complex sentence-- where both are full sentences with a coordinating conjunction (but)

[@davidwilkie9551]

Wave particle duality of words and structure.

[@karlayork877]

Somebody needs to act up in class so teacher can get her blackboard cleaned! ;-)

[@texastexas4541]

If anyone here thinks that they will watch couple of videos or take a small course and they will turn into great writers......forget it. It takes years to hone in a set of skills that makes you a good writer. Your old habits derail you on a consistent basis. It takes years and some supervision or help from those who are not afraid to criticize you before you get better.

[@davidharrison1860]

As professors we were required to arrive 30 minutes early to wash our own boards... with bucket and sponge... Different culture of professors today...

[@TheDonTim]

manual labor is for poor people who don't have degrees.

[@MichaelDiamondMusic]

The lecture documents link is no longer active. Is it possible to get a copy? Amazing talk and content!

[@juanchavarro1946]

Here, it's the pdf: techcomm1.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/swan_handout.pdf

[@MichaelDiamondMusic]

@@juanchavarro1946 Thank you very much!

[@Mannnoloish]

Does anyone have the link to the handout?

[@KoyoteHunter1984]

Look at that messy blackboard!

[@nutricaoanimal1501]

look at that content

[@RobertLisboa]

Writers “film”.

[@ahmedal-mikhlafi1508]

I found writing a scientific paper is very challenging and I wounder if a proof reading can be available for free.

[@judhi]

The document in the link above is not accessible

[@afterthesmash]

I had to try it: inserting "genocide" between subject and verb, and then further burying it by every other available means. _Always a game rooster, Bob, who had once supported genocide, back in the old days (but only for a little while), dropped to his knees in his Sunday best and prodded gently under his prized rose bush to extract an errant football for the boisterous children of the newly arrived immigrant family next door; pausing momentarily, almost imperceptibly, at grass level-as he probed to obtain a sufficiently secure overhand snout-grip on the dewy cone-to thank the Lord for the special soil nutrient which enticed his roses to bloom most rapturously._ Say what you will about Bob, he's a game rooster.

[@dreznik]

why can't someone clean that blackboard?

[@cxa011500]

I'm looking up how to wash chalk off a blackboard next. 😶

[@saatboyraximov7586]

Evening everybody I need a help with my first scientific study writing. Topic is PLANNING A SCIENTIFIC STUDY so what should I write about . about how to write a scientific study? Or not

[@gfixler]

In order to write clearly, we must... wash those chalkboards! Good grief.

[@lordthanoz]

LOL I was thinking exactly the same!

[@Gigiaaron56]

2018

[@zerodayexcuse8449]

Any passionate academic educator will tell you that chalk board is absolutely unacceptable.

[@ianjohnson458]

First thing I thought, too. Christ almighty.

[@mockingbird3099]

It does distract from her lecture.

[@robertoa.9574]

Very good, but there is a sound like a hiss that made me give up watching in the middle.

[@listentothecityorg9774]

The signboard is my brain 🌩️

[@dr.ravindrar.kaikini8020]

Sorry Professor, no documents are available in the link...!!!

[@giocaliguia8370]

Search "Judy Swan Handout" or check it here techcomm1.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/swan_handout.pdf

[@shyleshsrinivasan5092]

Ok. This is good !

[@SHA-tx7te]

scientific writing starts with a clean board

[@davidharrison1860]

Judy's presentation would benefit from an edited side screen listing content and context points for the viewer to track and write notes.

[@fktx3507]

I wonder how much this depends on culture. Do these tips apply only to English native speakers or also to other languages?

[@kokokuvat5310]

German for example?

[@fktx3507]

@@kokokuvat5310 Exactly. I am a native speaker of German and continuously struggle with my English co-authors about the proper phrasing of such sentences.

[@garcia4062]

Para mi es interesante, although creo que la aplicación al castellano se dificulta

[@echongkan01]

what is the deal with the chalkboard for a presentation?? barely has contrast.

[@cecilechau7932]

Structure --> substance

[@thirunavukkarasuasaimuthu6799]

I write research papers in core engineering

[@SPYDAWMN]

As you are a teacher = here is a correction. At a CORONATION you are CROWNED. there is no such word as "coronated"

[@Gigiaaron56]

At 22:25 she bludgeons us.

[@TheMinstrel55]

could someone please give me the handout

[@antnfs]

TheMinstrel55 Link in the description chief 👍🏻

[@florianforte8609]

No handout 😭

[@عادلالشعلانالغامدي-ك9ل]

لن اصبر لابناء زناء يسحبونا للمستشفيات قال ألله تعالى(مَن كَانَ يُرِيدُ الْحَيَاةَ الدُّنْيَا وَزِينَتَهَا نُوَفِّ إِلَيْهِمْ أَعْمَالَهُمْ فِيهَا وَهُمْ فِيهَا لَا يُبْخَسُونَ)يألله لَا تَبْخَسُ .

[@tw1356]

The dog bit fred!

[@ivancarlson953]

as one with OCD, the fact that she wrote, 1. 2. 3) 4) 5) is undesirable. Plot twist, Fred beat his dog in a race, not physically beat the dog.

[@krissifadwa]

23:38 👍

[@suzi12blue]

@1:10 💯

[@JoJo-dj9ek]

So scientific

[@manoochehrghanbari822]

Good

[@afterthesmash]

12:58 It's almost impossible for me to sit still in my chair while Judy holds up academic journals as the holy grail of effective communication. Steven Pinker has been pretty loud recently in proclaiming that even he doesn't understand what his colleagues are saying much of the time-and he _is_ the prototypical expert reader within his own niche. One of the _major_ reasons graduate students don't have a better grasp of writing politics for journals is that the discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of journal prose (and there are many, many weaknesses) is not robustly discussed. The text is often compressed until _only_ an insider can fully decode its implications. What kind of a writing standard is that? There are _many_ journal articles where 25% less compression would expand the competent audience by 800% (that's my own feeling about this). Often it's just a long-cultivated norm to aid the in-group in publicly glossing over their warts: keep compressing your language until your internal laundry can only be fully witnessed by people privy to an opaque, professional code. It's a difficult writing process-for legitimate reasons-wrapped inside some ugly political machinery, supported by an omerta academic culture (supposing you hope to be promoted ever again), where the omerta culture doesn't have a clear dividing line between the the legitimate technical challenges and the legacy political hindrances, so the one domain rubs off on the other, and both suffer. Part of the reason that so much of the text is bad is that if you supply clean, efficient writing around every technical point, and then resort to thick, terrible language around all the political laundry, it really calls itself out for what it is. Better that the blended mayonnaise-kale is consistent throughout. It's a high diplomatic art to sufficiently conceal the laundry under clean diction (which is why a _few_ academic writers manage to become known for the clarity of their prose-but the secret here is the gifted application of hand-crafted mayonnaise, a time-consuming artisan hobby that only a select few type-A Heston Blumenthals bother to fully perfect). If we had an objective standard for assessing academic journals (suppose machine learning continues to improve at its current pace for another fifty years), I would hazard a guess that present day academic writing would be judged as 10-20% as efficient and effective as it could be, if we were really making the effort (and less subservient to the hindrances of academic glory). By no means in such a world would the current standard of insider-privileged journal compression be allowed to live.

[@asaradhi]

I am not sure if I understand anything that you have said !

[@nidakhan2025]

For a negative for the 3rd sentence, I'd say - None of the four publications produced I the last funding period focus on the the specific aims in the previous proposal. V bad

[@anthonyadusei8608]

Judy how do I get in contact with you for further discussions.

[@charlessmyth]

Elizabeth Holmes must have taken this seminar :-)

[@Migaligaz]

Interesting content, horrible mic placement.