Concept
Scientific writing is writing about science, with an implication that the writing is by scientists and for an audience that primarily includes peersthose with sufficient expertise to follow in detail. (The similar term "science writing" instead tends to refer to writing about a scientific topic for a general audience; this could be by scientists and/or journalists, for example.) Scientific writing is a specialized form of technical writing, and a prominent genre of it involves reporting about scientific studies such as in articles for a scientific journal. Other scientific writing genres include writing literature-review articles (also typically for scientific journals), which summarize the existing state of a given aspect of a scientific field, and writing grant proposals, which are a common means of obtaining funding to support scientific research. Scientific writing is more likely to focus on the pure sciences compared to other aspects of technical communication that are more applied, although there is overlap. English-language scientific writing originated in the 14th century, with the language later becoming the dominant medium for the field. Style conventions for scientific writing vary, with different focuses by different style guides on the use of passive versus active voice, personal pronoun use, and article sectioning. Much scientific writing is focused around scientific reports, traditionally structured as an abstract, introduction, methods, results, conclusions, and acknowledgments. Scientific literature#History Scientific writing in English started in the 14th century. With the founding in 1665 of the first scientific journal in English, the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the features of scientific writing gradually evolved from republication of personal letters to freestanding articles, with greater specificity of methods and findings, as well as conclusions to be drawn from evidence. Modern practices of intertextual reference and citation emerged only at the end of the eighteenth century.
François Maréchal, Sébastien Cajot