Week 1 - A note from the editor

Welcome to the Arts, Science and Writing Studio. I am the owner of this site and blog which is hosted by Harvard Scholar. Writing might sound intimidating for many people. To briefly share my background, I am an academic writer. I usually write academic journals and scientific papers. Occasionally, I write anecdotal journey entries  or book reviews.  A big part of my writing is illustrating quantitative data and empirical findings into plain English. It is a crucial skill for consultants, data scientists and students to have, and it is the main reason for me to create the writer’s studio under my blog. Academic journals and scientific papers, different from anecdotal notes, require the author to refrain from using their own opinions. The objectivity of scientific papers come from using the process called falsification. Especially for empirical studies, researchers should let analytical results speak and avoid excessive personal opinions.

Writing should be enjoyable. Writers create a bridge connecting the audiences and the content. There is no narrow definition of the content, and it can be an emotion, a research finding, a complaint, and basically anything. For academic and scientific writing, I think the most important thing is to convey your message and share your findings in the most efficient and convenient way. Remember not all scientists have a degree in English or Rhetoric. I value the clearness and clarity more than anything; thus, I try to avoid using “big words” unless it is totally necessary. For example, the word “Schadenfreude” does not have a good alternative whereas the word “grandiloquent” can be replaced with the short description of “fancy and pretentious”. During my teaching, I noticed that many ESL students are inclined to use “big words” they learned to show their lexical diversity. However, rarely they are able to use them accurately and some words contain more meanings and often confuse readers.  Similarly, my vision of academia should be inclusive and it never is a good idea to keep others out by using big words.

We can never become perfect writers, but we thrive to consistently improve our writing skills. Let’s start a journey together to improve our writing skills!

Next week: How to write and present your descriptive statistics.