Scientific writing for the biomedical sciences

Scientific writing is an essential part of a research scientist’s career and is usually the end process of many years’ hard bench work generating the data for publication. Clear communication of your research findings, the aims and potential importance of your work are the foundation of all good scientific manuscripts. Writing a scientific manuscript in English, especially if English is not your first language, can make an already challenging task even more difficult. The purpose of this article is to assist authors in the preparation of manuscripts intended for submission to peer-reviewed journals. The article mainly focusses on the biomedical sciences, but researchers of other scientific disciplines can also benefit from the content. We provide useful advice on all the main subsections of a standard research manuscript, from selecting an appropriate title, through to preparing a properly organized discussion. Advice on how each section should be arranged as well as points to be avoided can be found in the guide. As a general guide the most important point of a manuscript is that the research findings contained are presented clearly and accurately without excessive repetition or embellishment. Finally, this article closes with a section which contains language mistakes which are frequently made by authors whose first language is not English.