Can scientific writing be done…
- Things Education
- Feb 6
- 6 min read
…by school students?
Hello all. Welcome to the 152nd edition of TEPS Weekly!
During one of our interactions with teachers, one teacher said something that really stayed with us: “You can’t have scientific and research skills in school. That’s for college.”
Most of us will disagree. But we don’t think the teacher who said this was being ignorant or stubborn. We think they were being honest about their understanding and model of research in their head.
When many of us hear “research thinking” or “scientific temper”, we imagine long experiments, lab equipment, big reports and a “proper” scientific paper. In case a school doesn’t look like that for any reason, it can start to feel like research simply cannot happen here.
But a school need not try to do college-level research. What schools should try to do is scientific temper: the habit of asking, “What is the evidence?” “What does it actually show?” “How sure am I?” One of the easiest ways to practise this habit regularly is through scientific writing.
Scientific writing is not “writing after an experiment”. It is thinking with evidence, written in a way that someone else can check the evidence. This means that it can be practised even when students are not running experiments. It can begin with something as simple as interpreting information carefully, using evidence and writing claims that do not go beyond what the evidence supports. In other words, scientific writing is scientific thinking made visible on paper.
For example: A class is shown a table from a local water-testing report. It compares water quality upstream and downstream of a town:
Location | Nitrate (mg/L) | Turbidity (NTU) |
Upstream | 2 | 3 |
Downstream | 8 | 12 |
Students are asked one question: What does this data suggest?
Two students write two very different answers. Student 1 wrote the response on the left, while student 2 wrote the response on the right.
Now, ask yourself or your students: Which one is more scientific and why?
a) A, because it gives a crisp and concise explanationb) A, because it sounds assertive and confidentc) B, because it uses data and avoids over-claimingd) B, because it uses technical words and is longere) Both are equally scientific and state facts
Most students pick option d (“technical words”) or option e, because both seem to say the same thing. The best answer is option c.
Student A is writing a convincing story. It sounds certain and complete, but it jumps straight to a cause – “the town polluted it” – without enough evidence to prove that claim. The table shows a difference between two places, but it does not tell us why that difference exists.
Student B takes a more scientific approach. They begin with what the table actually shows, then make a careful claim. In one short paragraph, Student B shows three habits we want students to build:
Show the evidence (numbers + units, not just opinions)
Match the claim to the evidence (“suggests”, “may”)
Include limits that make the claim careful (“under these conditions”)
And notice something important: no experiment was required. This was scientific writing based on interpreting evidence from data collected by someone else.
So, how do we teach students to write like Student B? Students don’t need more “format”.
They need practice in thinking approaches that stop them from writing like storytellers and start them writing like scientists.
Let’s see what this looks like in a normal classroom lesson.
Suppose you are teaching the Grade 10 chapter ‘Metals and Non-metals’ and you show students this table of ionic compounds with their melting points and boiling points (in K).
Many students will either copy the table into sentences or jump to a conclusion. A common first line is: “CaO is the strongest compound.”
This is not “wrong”, but it is not scientific writing yet. It is a conclusion without evidence and it does not explain what “strongest” means. The table does not contain that word; it contains numbers. The first rule of scientific writing is: make the sentence checkable by adding direct evidence.
The student rewrites the same idea using the table: “CaO has a melting point of 2850 K and a boiling point of 3120 K, which are much higher than the other compounds in the table.”
Nothing new has been added. The writing is better because it is now checkable. A reader can look back at the table and verify it. This is the first rule of scientific writing: show the data, don’t just state the conclusion.
At this point, students often make a new mistake: they start listing every value. Scientific writing is not “copying all numbers”. It is selecting the few results and organising them so the reader can see the pattern.
The second rule of scientific writing is: organise the data logically to find other patterns. With this table, one sensible structure is to group the chlorides together (because they cluster) and then mention CaO as the standout. The writing becomes: “The chlorides (NaCl, LiCl, CaCl₂ and MgCl₂) have melting points around 900–1100 K and boiling points around 1600–1900 K. CaO is very different: its melting point is 2850 K and its boiling point is 3120 K.”
This is already more scientific than a long paragraph that repeats the table row by row, because it highlights the main pattern and does not ignore the deviation. Now that the evidence is clear, the student can turn it into a careful claim. They add one sentence beginning with “This suggests…”:
“This suggests CaO is held together by stronger forces than the chlorides listed in the table.”
This is a better-supported explanation than “CaO is strongest” because it stays anchored to the evidence. It also avoids overgeneralising. It does not claim that all oxides are stronger than all chlorides; it only claims what this table supports. So, this is the third rule of scientific writing: make claims that match your evidence.
Next comes the “why”. Students often stop too early, or they repeat the numbers. Scientific writing needs reasoning that links evidence to a science idea from the chapter. So the student adds: “A likely reason is that ionic compounds are held together by electrostatic attraction between positive and negative ions. If that attraction is stronger, more energy is needed to separate the ions, so the melting and boiling points are higher.”
The phrase “a likely reason” makes a lot of difference. It keeps the explanation scientific rather than absolute. So, this is the fourth rule of scientific writing: connect evidence to a science idea, but don’t pretend you have proved more than you have.
Finally, the student adds scientific honesty – what the table cannot prove yet: “However, this table alone cannot confirm a single cause for the differences, because melting point can also depend on factors like ion size and structure. Comparing more ionic compounds would test the explanation.”
This is not weak writing. It is scientific writing. It shows the student understands that good explanations are testable and that one dataset is rarely the whole story. So, this is the fifth rule of scientific writing: don’t overgeneralise and don’t speculate beyond what you can reasonably test.
Put together, the student has built a complete scientific explanation from a simple textbook table:
“The chlorides (NaCl, LiCl, CaCl₂ and MgCl₂) have melting points around 900–1100 K and boiling points around 1600–1900 K. CaO is very different: its melting point is 2850 K and its boiling point is 3120 K. This suggests CaO is held together by stronger forces than the chlorides listed in the table. A likely reason is that ionic compounds are held by electrostatic attraction between positive and negative ions and stronger attraction needs more energy to overcome. However, this table alone cannot confirm a single cause for the differences, so comparing more ionic compounds would test the explanation.”
This approach gives students a repeatable path: Evidence (selected and organised) → Claim (careful) → Reasoning (science idea) → Limits (honesty).
Scientific temper is not built through one big project. It is built through small, repeated habits: show the evidence, make a careful claim, explain using science ideas and admit what you still don’t know. That is research thinking at the school level and it can begin with one simple table.
Want to turn this into a repeatable classroom routine? Once students can write careful claims from data, you can teach them the next move: How do we test this? TEPS mini course The Steps of Scientific Inquiry shows how to guide students from observation to testing a hypothesis. It’s built around real classroom examples.
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Edition: 5.07
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