Sos Writing

No one tells you before you sign up to a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) degree that writing is a major part of it. There’s no way to avoid writing either. If you chose STEM because you feel like you’re “bad” at writing, you’re not alone. Many people choose it hoping to avoid writing as much as possible. Many sciences students have a learning disability (like Dyslexia) that makes writing more of a struggle. It’s even harder if English is also not your first language. Writing is often an anxiety-inducing chore, but it doesn’t have to be. Why is it so important? Science these days is a truly international effort. It’s normal for research teams to have collaborators from all around the world, and team members usually speak multiple languages between them. To be able to function and communicate effectively, they need a language in common. Since English is the most commonly spoken second language in the world by a large margin, it has become the de facto standard operating language in science. Although papers can be published in other languages, their audience tends to be small unless they are also translated into English.