Help:Author Guidelines for Readability

Author Guidelines for Readability

Two biggest things to improve readability is (Note the Science guidelines below specifically address both points):

1. Reduce jargon,
2. Simplify (e.g. eliminate passive voice / excess words).

Nature

Readability Nature is an international journal covering all the sciences. Contributions should therefore be written clearly and simply so that they are accessible to readers in other disciplines and to readers for whom English is not their first language.

Essential but specialized terms should be explained concisely but not didactically.

For gene, protein and other specialized names authors can use their preferred terminology so long as it is in current use by the community, but they must give all known names for the entity at first use in the paper. Nature prefers authors to use internationally agreed nomenclature; details are provided in our author policies. Please also note the special circumstances about online publication of formal descriptions of new species.

Nature's editors provide detailed advice about format before contributions are formally accepted for publication. Nature's editors often suggest revised titles and rewrite the summaries of Articles and first paragraphs of Letters so the conclusions are clear to a broad readership.

After acceptance, Nature's subeditors (copyeditors) ensure that the text and figures are readable and clear to those outside the field, and edit papers into Nature's house style. They pay particular attention to summary paragraphs, overall clarity, figures, figure legends and titles.

Proofs are sent before publication; authors are welcome to discuss proposed changes with Nature's subeditors, but Nature reserves the right to make the final decision about matters of style and the size of figures.

A useful set of articles providing general advice about writing and submitting scientific papers can be found in SciDev.Net's "How do I?" section.

Science

Following are some general guidelines on preferred style for manuscripts submitted to Science.

• Confirm that all numbered citations for references and notes are presented in numerical order, first through the text and then through the references and the table and figure legends.
• Ensure that all notations and symbols in figures (including dashed or dotted lines, color codes, and gradations in color or grayscale) are explained in figure legends. Conversely, ensure that no data mentioned in figure legends (or in the text where the figure is discussed) are missing from the corresponding figures.
• Avoid jargon; explain obscure terms and define acronyms (keep in mind that many potential readers of your work will not be specialists in your field).
• After introducing an acronym, use only the acronym.
• Use active voice when suitable, particularly when necessary for correct syntax (e.g., "To address this possibility, we constructed a λZap library . . .," not "To address this possibility, a λZap library was constructed . . .").
• Write concisely (e.g., "even though," not "in spite of the fact that").
• When two or more similar terms are used throughout text, either make the usage consistent or clarify the distinction(s), as appropriate.
• Avoid using "-fold" because expressions such as "20-fold smaller" are imprecise; use percentages, proportions, orders of magnitude, or "factor of" instead. (Exception: Usage such as "1000-fold excess" is appropriate.)
• Avoid using "times more," "times less" (see above).
• Use "significant" only when discussing statistical significance.

Geology

Submissions in all disciplines of the Earth and planetary sciences are welcomed. Papers should be directed at a general geoscience audience. The abstract of the manuscript should explain clearly why a broad geoscience audience should be interested.

Scientific American

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN welcomes ideas for articles on recent scientific discoveries, technical innovations and overviews of ongoing research. Our preferred authors have extensive first-hand knowledge of the field that they describe, and have usually made significant contributions to it. We very strongly encourage potential contributors to read recent issues of the magazine for a sense of form, style and level of complexity and specialization typical of our articles. Keep in mind these tips:

• Generally speaking, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN presents ideas that have already been published in the peer-reviewed technical literature. We do not publish new theories or results of original research.
• Our articles are geared to general readers interested in science and technology. We avoid jargon and equations.
• We are looking for authors who can convey ideas with clarity and concision. Lengths of feature articles vary; the average length of a published article is approximately 2,500 words.

See Also

Readability Checker