BIOL 682: Writing, reviewing, responding.
Science that isn't communicated well might as well not exist. This course treats scientific writing as a craft that can be taught, practiced, and improved, and works through writing, peer review, and revision as connected skills.
Course framing
Clear writing and a good story are what separate a finding buried in a forgotten journal from one that changes how a field thinks. Most graduate training treats writing as something students will pick up while running gels and writing code. This course takes the opposite view.
Every manuscript is a narrative with characters (your study system), conflict (the gap in knowledge), and resolution (your results and what they mean). Learning to see your science as a story, then to tell that story with precision and clarity, pays off at every stage of a career: first-author papers, grant proposals, talks.
The materials below support the writing, revision, and peer-review components of the course. They are meant to be used iteratively (write, get feedback, revise, repeat), because that is how good scientific prose actually gets made.
Course materials
Self-editing checklist 20 Writing Flaws in the Life Sciences Vague hedging, buried leads, misused jargon, passive-voice overload.
A short guide to common writing problems in biological manuscripts. Use it as a checklist when self-editing drafts, especially on a second or third pass.
Revision Revision prompt Example of a detailed LLM prompt for getting revision feedback on a manuscript draft.
Notice how specific and structured the prompt is. Try writing your own short, vague prompt for the same task and compare the responses you get back.
Revision Revision prompt response What a carefully structured prompt actually produces in return.
The LLM's response to the revision prompt above. Notice the depth and specificity of the feedback. Try giving an LLM a simple prompt like "review my paper" and see how different the output is.
Peer review Peer review prompt Getting a useful, specific critique rather than generic commentary.
Another detailed LLM prompt, this time focused on getting peer-review feedback. Shows how to structure a prompt that produces a real reviewer-style critique rather than generic praise or complaints.
Peer review Science review simulation Reviewer-style critique from a structured prompt.
The LLM's response to the peer-review prompt above. Try asking an LLM to simply "review my paper" and compare the results.
Write, get feedback, revise, repeat. That iterative loop, not any single template, is what makes scientific prose good.