METM24 presentation

A critical role for author voice in scientific writing

Kate Mc Intyre, Groningen, Netherlands

The writing in scientific papers can often be formulaic. Authors, particularly inexperienced authors, frequently work within a limited repertoire of accepted constructions (on paragraph, sentence, and word level). This adherence to expected norms has advantages: it is more easily applied by inexperienced writers and familiar to readers. However, this formality can come at the cost of a clear author voice.

While many studies have explored what scientific author voice is, I am starting from the premise that it encompasses the unique way that an author chooses content and language to reflect their stance on their subject. The goal of my presentation is to demonstrate that clear author voice, including awareness of their own stance, can help resolve textual issues like lack of clarity, stodgy language, poor flow, poor paraphrasing or citation, and even unintended plagiarism.

I will define what I mean by “voice”, present examples of clear voice in scientific writing, and demonstrate how a well-defined author voice can improve the credibility of a text. I will also discuss how to foster the development of voice in young scientists. As I think a strong individual voice will become more critical for establishing author integrity in a landscape where writers use generative AI tools, I will touch upon this issue towards the end of my talk.

This presentation is aimed at editors working with clients on improving scientific texts, but it may also be of interest to translators. While my primary focus is now biomedicine, I have a PhD in Earth & Ocean Sciences and have worked with texts from astronomy, computer science, chemistry, and media studies. This talk is loosely linked to a presentation by Mary Ellen Kerans exploring the nuances of what distinguishes plagiarism from other types of textual similarity flagged by detection software.

About the presenter

Kate Mc Intyre is the in-house scientific editor of the Department of Genetics, University Medical Center Groningen, the Netherlands. She works closely with authors publishing in biomedicine, microbiology, and computer science at all career stages and across all the phases of a research project, from initial proposal through final publication.