For most people, learning a second language is a struggle, let alone learning how to be a proficient science writer in that language. The following tips and suggestions will help the struggling ESL science writer both identify and tackle common writing obstacles.

1. Don’t aim to learn all the rules of grammar before you start writing

It can take a long time to be proficient in all the English rules of grammar. Even many experienced writers with English as their first language are not proficient at English grammar rules, relying on their innate knowledge of the language when writing. Instead of thinking you need to learn every English grammar rule, concentrate upon the most common grammar errors when learning English as a second language. In a 2017 study, the most common written grammar errors by ESL tertiary students were found to be Subject – Verb Agreement (SVA) and Verb Tense (Singh et al. 2017).

2. Avoid trying to make your English grammatically-perfect in your early drafts

While the final version of your document should be grammatically correct, don’t worry about having perfect grammar before you start or when preparing early drafts. In your first draft, concentrate upon getting your ideas down and ensure you are addressing a clearly defined aim. You can fix up your grammar as you edit and rework your later drafts.

3. Try writing your first draft in your first language

If writing in English is a significant obstacle to getting your thoughts down, try writing your first draft in your first language to allow you to first concentrate upon writing about your topic clearly. Once you are satisfied with the progress of your document, you can then translate your writing into English and also seek assistance from a science editor to help you correct your grammar.

4. Continue with English conversation classes

Science writers who struggle to improve their written English, are also often not yet proficient in spoken English. Continuing with weekly or monthly English conversation classes will not only improve your written English, but will allow you to pick up commonly-used English vocabulary and terminology.

5. Ask a friend or colleague to regularly give you feedback on your spoken English

Normally, friends or colleagues will not correct your spoken English and unless you are continuing your conversation classes, it may take you a long time to learn where you need to improve. Try asking a friend or colleague to regularly give you feedback on your spoken English.

6. Ask a friend or colleague to give you feedback on late drafts of your document

In addition to any editing and feedback you might receive from co-authors, colleagues or managers, try asking a friend or colleague to give you feedback, specifically on your English grammar and word use. This person need not be an expert in English grammar but be ask them to point out any obvious anomalies in your writing. Having someone focus on giving you feedback on your English will allow other colleagues to focus on giving you feedback on the scientific aspects of your work. In return, you could also offer to give feedback on your colleagues’ writing. This will also help you to improve your writing as critiquing the work of other writers allows you to notice areas of improvement you might not see in your own work.

7. Use online grammar exercises to improve your grammar

Grammar textbooks are excellent as reference texts to look up individual rules, while online grammar exercises are a good way to learn how to correct grammar using real examples. Online grammar exercises immediately provide both corrections and explanations.

8. Avoid online forums to learn about grammar rules

Grammar queries that are posted in online forums (for example Quora) are invariably answered by both experts and non-experts and some answers can be incorrect. This makes it difficult to decide which is the correct answer to follow. Also, there are some grammar rules that are more difficult to follow than others, especially if there are many exceptions to the rule; for example, the spelling rule ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’. Only refer to reputable grammar websites that are specifically designed for education.

9. Be aware that not everyone agrees about what is correct English grammar

Be aware that not everyone agrees about what is correct English grammar and what is acceptable vocabulary. For example, some experts advise never to use contractions (for example “We’re” instead of “We are”) in scholarly or formal writing, yet contractions do not change the accuracy of the message and are argued to make reading more enjoyable.

Choose 3-5 grammar references that are reputable and written by trained, professional experts and consistently follow their advice. Also aim to follow the standard references and style guides for your discipline and institution.

10. Hire an editor that can explain grammar rules

If appropriate for your circumstances and if you have the resources, hire an editor proficient at explaining grammar and ask them to give you regular feedback on your writing.

11. If using ChatGPT (or other AI programs) use Word's 'Compare Document' feature so you can check what changes have been made

Although ChatGPT might fix most of your grammar errors, just applying its changes won't help you learn to improve your writing. Also, you cannot be sure that ChatGPT won't make mistakes. 

If you do use ChatGPT, use Word's Compare Document feature so you can check what changes have been made. Whenever you use ChatGPT, you need to check that any changes haven't changed your intended meaning

© Dr Marina Hurley 2025 www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email info@writingclearscience.com.au

FURTHER READING

• 11 common mistakes when writing an abstract
• The essentials of science writing: identify your target audience
• Co-authors should define their roles and responsibilities before they start writing
• The difference between a writing rule and a good idea
• When to cite and when not to
  
• Back to basics: science knowledge is gained while information is produced
  
• How to build and maintain confidence as a writer
• If science was perfect, it wouldn’t be science
• What is science writing?
• 8 steps to writing your first draft
• Two ways to be an inefficient writer
• Work-procrastination: important stuff that keeps us from writing

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Recently, I ran a 90 minute online workshop for 15 science writers using Zoom and checked the accuracy of Zoom's, AI Companion Meeting Summary.  I was surprised at how bad it was.  This lack of quality concerns me, given that Zoom offers to automatically send participants the AI Companion summary immediately after each meeting. As I offered to send the AI summary to the students, I am relieved I checked it first! I spent so much time editing it and adding in a lot of crucial summary points, that it would have been much easier to write it myself. The final product was still not how I would have written it and I was pleased that I had my powerpoint slides to send them as well. 

I then thoroughly critiqued what it produced using Word’s track changes so that I could demonstrate how poor the summary was. I edited the summary, attempted to correct the inaccuracies and oversights and wrote 24 comments.

For a quick read, refer to the Overview of My Critique below. This is followed by the entire critique, that includes worrying examples of significant changes in meaning by AI Companion. Rather than crowding out Word’s track changes, I added yellow-highlighted numbered labels - like this [1] - and wrote my comments in a separate list after each screenshot of my editing. 

Overview of My Critique

• The structure of the summary was not coherent. It started with an inadequate summary of the summary (which it titled ‘quick recap’), followed with ‘Next steps’ which was good* but should have been written as bullet points.
• The summary did not follow the 5 step structure of my workshop nor did it use the titles of each step as headings. Instead it loosely paraphrased some of these steps while promoting minor comments to be major summary points.
• The headings it created were vague, out of place and did not represent what was presented in the workshop.
• The order of the information did not always follow what was presented in the workshop. Some information was not only out-of-context, but wedged in the middle of key teaching points that worryingly changed their critical meaning.
• Other key teaching points were mostly not summarised and left out entirely.
• Instead of summarising the information, it often gave generalisations** instead, and it paraphrased my comments using vague and ambiguous language.

* This is only one of the two positive comments I have of Zoom's AI Companion Meeting Summary. The second is comment [14].

** For anyone wondering about the difference between generalising and summarising, here is an example: I can create a list of all the cars parked outside a café and list their makes, models and colours. I could then make a generalisation of this information by saying, ‘there were a few cars of different sizes, makes and models parked outside the café’ or I could summarise this information by saying. ‘there were 7 cars of four different colours parked outside the café and all were different makes and models’.

My entire critique

[1] Zoom’s AI made a glaring error by omitting the meeting (workshop) title. Instead, it gave a vague description by just generalising the topic as ‘a Science Writers workshop’. The title of any document, meeting, workshop or event is it’s most important descriptive feature and surely not difficult to include into the summary itself.

[2] While not a huge issue, using the word ‘sharing’ in this context is colloquial and vague. The students did not ‘share’ their projects. They briefly described them. Generally speaking, if I was using AI to write for me, I wouldn’t want it to use colloquial language for scientific, professional or academic writing unless it was used well [see 14] or if there was a specific reason for doing so.

[3] Another minor point here: ‘Focused on providing’ is verbose and long-winded. ‘Provided’ is more concise and straightforward.

[4] Once again, not only is Zoom’s AI generalising about the content of the workshop, it is incorrect. I did not teach ‘effective science writing’. If that was the topic of my workshop, the content would have been quite different and the workshop would be longer.

[5] Instead of saying ‘like’, why not simply state the topics that were presented? There were only five key topics, so it’s not as though there were too many topics to choose from.

[6] It is hard to understand why the phrase ‘All participants to’ was repeated on every line instead of just creating bullet points. Also ‘All participants to’ is vague and missing the verb phrase 'were asked'. Cutting out verbs is not a good way to appear concise.

[7] Again, ‘Marina to email’ is colloquial. Replacing ‘to’ with the verb ‘will’ is not only grammatically correct but also easier to read.

There are no new numbered comments in this section above, but notice the important omissions and the repeat of issues raised in [1] and [2]

[8] This is a not an informative heading and it was not the title of my workshop, and if it was, why is it placed halfway through the summary? There was a 5-step structure to the workshop, with each step title that clearly introduced and repeated when teaching each step. Summarising around these steps would be a far simpler and accurate way to structure a summary.

[9] Repetitive and incorrect. See [4]

[10] I am not sure what Zoom’s AI Companion did here. These are not summary points and this information appeared completely in the wrong place. They were merged with other comments I made at a different time and on a different topic.

[11] I am not sure why a this heading ‘strategies’ appeared here. There are strategies mentioned throughout the workshop.

[12] I talked about breaking writing activities up into manageable tasks – not sessions.

[13] I didn’t say this and it is certainly not a summary point. The reference to short sessions was in relation to a specific obstacle that was being discussed earlier.

[14] This is one of the very few, meaningful and accurate summary sentences. The colloquial use of ‘diving’ here is also good.

[15] I did not talk about project objectives. I made a clear distinction between a project’s aim and a project’s objectives. In this workshop I talked about project problems, aims and methods, not project objectives. By interchanging the use of different terms, this particular error clearly shows that Zoom’s AI Companion is drawing it’s information (language) from outside what was presented within the workshop.

[16] As I pointed out previously, not only did Zoom’s AI Companion not include the 5 steps, it incorrectly paraphrased them and left one out altogether.

[17] This is not a summary point but a comment, taken out of context, made in relation to a PhD student not thoroughly identifying their target audience when writing research papers.

[18] Another example of taking a comment and putting it with a different sentence about a different topic. ‘The problem to be solved’ was something I discuss in relation to the ‘define the aim’ exercise and not in relation to identifying the target audience.

[19] I did not introduce this exercise as part of the workshop. This exercise was only mentioned briefly for reference purposes. Instead, it omitted the key exercise that was presented for Step 3 - the ‘Define your Aim’ exercise that was referred to many times.

[20] This is another vague generalisation. I showed them how to apply the concepts with the use of an exercise.

[21] Once again, AI is struggling to come up with meaningful headings.

[22] They were not asked to ‘reflect’ on anything but to give a direct answer to a direct question.

[23] This heading is out of place and there was no such workshop. I later refer to an online course I offer which has a specific title, ‘How to be an Efficient Science Writer’. AI has paraphrased this title and added  ‘workshop’ and used it as heading to describe the last part of the current workshop summary. 

[24] It completely left out the workshop conclusion and follow-up instructions.

In conclusion....

I won't be using the AI Companion feature anytime soon. I will continue my critique of the use of AI for writing, summarising and generating ideas. If you have any of your own examples you would like to share with me, or if you have any suggestions or comments please email admin@writingclearscience.com.au. 

If you want to be kept up-to-date on future blogs on on this and other science writing topics, or if you want to hear more about what I teach you can join my mailing list here.

© Dr Marina Hurley 2025 www.writingclearscience.com.au

Any suggestions or comments please email admin@writingclearscience.com.au 

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