This article was submitted by Dr. Sue Lowery from the Biology Department.

“Writing to Facilitate Reading” is a short article written by George Gopen. In this article, Gopen illuminates the role that grammatical closure has in aiding readers’ comprehension of scientific writing. He draws attention to the importance of punctuation, explaining how when writers use punctuation well, it effectively creates a “stress position”––and thus emphasis and closure––in the right places.

In a longer but similar article that he wrote in collaboration with Judith Swan, “The Science of Scientific Reading,” Gopen explains the concept of the stress position in further detail and provides more supporting examples.

You can use Gopen’s “Writing to Facilitate Reading” as a reference when working with students on their scientific writing skills, or assign the longer article as a supplemental reading.