Writing for readers: 5 things I teach undergraduates about science writing in the age of AI
1. Writers read. 2. Know your reader. 3. Filter your writing. 4. AI tools are neither the enemy nor the solution to all your writing problems. 5. Readers are valuable.
This is an extensively rewritten edition of an article I published in Medium’s “Age of Awareness” in 2021. The rise of AI large language models has forced me to revise my approach and so this article needed a rewrite.
Toward the end of our annual performance and workload chat, my Head of School turned to me, and I could tell that I was about to be landed with a difficult job. “We have a new course teaching advanced skills to science students. One component is writing, and given you do a lot of writing for popular audiences, I want you to teach that component.”
A rather jaded Professor taught me long ago never to accept a request to do more teaching without appearing deeply reluctant, lest you appear willing to be given even more work. But so profound was my relief at not being asked to coordinate the entire course, or to handle some awful administrative portfolio, that I accepted immediately.
And then I got the hell out of his office.
Teaching writing in a single two-hour class seemed a cushy assignment, even if that tutorial repeated eight times over two days. Until I started giving it some thought. What the hell do you teach a group of bright, ambitious students about writing if you only have a two-hour window?
I decided that the most useful thing I could teach the students was how to build a process to apply to all writing. The niche forms of writing endemic to science are both immune to a single formula and merely variations on the theme of how to write.
After a few years of teaching the class, AI large language models like Chat-GPT surprised us all, upending the writing process. I duly revised my approach, and have done so every term because the technology moves so fast.
Here’s how I try to prepare first-year undergraduates to write and to keep improving at writing long after they graduate.
It might seem obvious to you, but it doesn’t to most students.
1. Read
Writers read. By reading, one observes and analyzes, learning from the triumphs and mistakes of others.
I ask the students to prepare for class by reading four short pieces of ‘science writing’. Currently, they are:
Yuval Noah Harari — An Animal of No Significance — Excerpt from Sapiens.
Rebecca Skloot— The Woman in the Photograph — an excerpt from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Sarah L Caddy — Coronavirus: a single ‘escape mutant’ shouldn’t render a vaccine useless — published at The Conversation
James D. Watson & Francis Crick (1953) Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid. Nature 171.4356 (1953): 737–738.
Harari and Skloot’s excerpts represent two excellent but different non-fiction books. The former takes a very big-picture, science-infused view of history. The latter is narrative non-fiction about the personal tragedy and dynamics of privilege and power behind scientific discovery. Caddy’s short-form piece updates the reader on the fast-breaking status of the fight against COVID-19. Crick and Watson’s classic paper delivers, in minimalist prose, the most important discovery in biology since Darwin first described how natural selection works.
In the classroom discussion about these pieces, I hope that my students will realize that science writing can take many different forms and formats. Secretly, I hope those who don’t read much science will surprise themselves with a desire to read more.
2. Know your reader and write for them
Any writing advice includes the value of knowing and writing for one’s intended reader. The point may seem obvious, but many university students haven’t encountered it. They are used to writing only for their teachers.
I ask the students to write an original 250–350 word passage before coming to class. It could be about a scientific discovery, a scientific idea, an experiment, or a scientist. The only requirements are that it is original and written for a particular reader.
The students are also asked to write approximately 100 words about their intended reader. Who are they? How old? How were they educated? What do they like to read? What are their interests?
If there was a single piece of advice I could give, it would always be to identify your reader and then write with them looking over your shoulder. Metaphorically, at least.
3. Filter your writing
Just as your barista doesn’t hand you hot water and some ground coffee beans in the morning, a writer should not turn over the written equivalent to their reader. The end product should be a rich espresso with perfect crema.
How does one learn to separate the coffee from the grounds? Identifying the rough, hurried, ill-chosen, poorly expressed or otherwise ineffective parts of one’s prose doesn’t come easily. Writers take years to get good at this aspect of writing. How do we learn?
More to the point, how can the students learn?
They need to employ filters. The course between idea and finished product never did run straight. Indeed, for most writers I know, producing anything longer than a paragraph involves a coffee-infused iterative cycle of planning, writing, and editing. Each time a writer reads and amends their text, they are filtering. But one needs more than one kind of filter.
I swear by reading my work aloud and then really listening to it. That act of listening closely simulates the reader’s experience. The clumsy constructions and awkward expressions float to the surface and can be filtered out.
My students often resist this step and the unpalatable aftertaste of hearing their own words in their own voices. But that discomfort is what makes this process so effective. Some of the bitterness can be masked by having text-to-voice software read the text. I did this with my book, Artificial Intimacy, and the disembodied robot monotone helped me identify where the prose sagged or snagged.
So I recommend the following graded series of filters, each with a finer mesh, editing at least once before going down to the next filter:
Read the piece silently yourself and try to “hear” it in your imagination
Read it aloud. Even better, record it and play it back to yourself.
Get text-to-speech on your computer to read it to you.
Use one or more AI “readers”.
AI readers
My students generally haven’t used many of the wonderful AI tools available to help them write. I’m a fan of grammar checkers like Grammarly, Slickwrite, and Onlinecorrection.com, when used judiciously. I also quite like seeing what readability aids like the Hemingway App and Virtual Writing Tutor have to say. So in my classes I get them to put the passages they wrote in preparation through as many of these filters as they can bear.
Those of us who have used these AI writing tools usually acquire a sense of what advice to take and what to leave. If I followed every suggestion from my current grammar checker — which shall remain unnamed — my prose would subside into beige American corporatese, never to emerge again. And yet there is merit in having my decisions questioned.
So I ask my students to learn what they can from the free AI apps, and use them as filters to improve their writing. While doing so, I caution them to remember that these tools are applying simple rules and learning from what other writers do. Once my students have taken what they can, I ask them to learn when to ignore advice — from humans or from machines— and retain whatever makes their writing distinctive and unique.
Which leads me on to the last two writing filters … the finest meshes.
4. AI tools are neither the enemy nor the messiah
The assignment got a bit more complicated for me and the tutors I work with when AI Large Language Models (LLMs) landed. Some students were only too happy to outsource all their writing to artificial intelligence. But they were vastly outnumbered by those deathly afraid of even logging in to ChatGPT.
Some high school teachers, caught by the sudden technological landslide, seem to have taken to irrational fear-mongering about LLMs and the permanent taint of plagiarism.
I advise students against using an LLM to write the first draft. It is certainly tempting, because it relieves a writer of the hard slogging out of a first draft. But it also relieves you of the thinking that happens as you build that first draft.
What I do advise is to use LLM-based AI tools as a sophisticated filter. LLMs can be exceptional readers, but they work best if one uses them wisely and with deliberation.
I ask my students first to AI-generate a passage that does what they wanted their original passage was meant to do.
Then they ask the AI to improve their original passage (Point 2 above).
Last, they ask it again to improve their passage, but for a clearly-specified and well-described reader.
Their comparisons of these three passages give them a chance to think critically about what the LLMs offer. The best is almost always the third passage.
Except when it isn’t. The exercise then becomes a hilarious chance to learn about prompt engineering.
AI can help with more than just point 4.
Large language models have learned on vast amounts of text. In this respect, they are made to do the AI equivalent of reading (point 1). They are readers that have read almost everything.
A short conversation with an AI can help you identify and refine your reader (point 2). They can even help you write better prompts to get better filtration out of LLMs. I advise you use a different LLM from the one you’re going to filter with. Just so things don’t feel too weird.
LLMs make great filters (point 3).
So use them wisely and critically and they can help make your writing better (point 4).
Which takes us to point 5. I am not into human exceptionalism. I think it foolish to state AI will never do some or other “human” task. Experience shows you’ll be wrong within a few weeks, if not already.
But we still (mostly) write for humans.
5. Readers are valuable
Of course, if your prose is written for other humans, then there’s no substitute for trying it out on a human reader. Another human reader; a person you trust and who is likely part of the group of intended readers. Seeking the opinion and feedback of one or more readers can prove the finest filter for a piece of writing.
Not all of us are lucky enough to have another reader or pool of readers who we can ask to help us filter our work. My students who came through the Australian school system are often accustomed to saintly teachers who provide detailed feedback on multiple drafts. At university, some struggle to accept that this is not how academics and workplace bosses roll.
I have occasionally made the mistake of thinking someone who shows enthusiasm for my work is also willing to help diagnose whatever ails it. To do so without reciprocation, or some transactional arrangement, risks both the friend and the ability to meet a deadline.
So, I remind students that feedback is important, but readers’ time is valuable and should be treated accordingly. Take care with steps 1 to 4, especially the filters in step 3 and the amazing new AI tools that can identify where our writing grows saggy, clumsy, unreadable, or grammatically awful. And find other students who will read and give advice, and in return do the same for them.
What writing advice do you have that you would like to share? Leave a comment below and I will amplify the best comments.