Scientists must write, and they must try to do it well

As scientists we are professional writers. If we improve our writing skills, we become better scientists. In the first part of the talk, I will explain why I think trying to write well is so important. In the second part I'll summarise some of the lessons I have learned from the references at the end of this abstract. My favourites are "The adverb is not your friend" (King -- yes, Stephen King, the horror writer), "Omit needless words" and "Make the paragraph the unit of composition" (both Strunk and White). In the final part of the talk I will go through some examples of editing.