scientific-prose-style

Rules for the prose of a scientific paper — the sentences of the abstract, introduction, results, and discussion. Load this whenever you draft or revise manuscript text. (Figure planning lives in figure-planner; this skill is about words on the page.)

Rule 1 — Em-dash budget (the headline rule)

The long em-dash (—) is the single most overused mark in generated scientific prose. It feels punchy in isolation but a reader hits three or four per paragraph and it reads as a stylistic tic, not as writing. Cap it.