The following collection of articles were published by American Scientist magazine, including George’s acclaimed “The Science of Scientific Writing” (1990) which introduced key concepts of his Reader Expectation Approach.
The Science of Scientific Writing.
This groundbreaking 1990 article from American Scientist demonstrates that scientific writing’s real problem isn’t complexity—it’s structure. Using concrete examples from working research papers, George Gopen and Judith Swan reveal how readers’ expectations about sentence construction, emphasis, and logical flow determine whether they understand what you’re saying. This highly acclaimed and widely cited article has been independently reprinted and taught at universities worldwide for 35 years.
“Dr. Gopen’s article [‘The Science of Scientific Writing’] is our #2 most viewed online article overall, for the entire period since 2017, with almost 148,000 views. It is certainly fair to say that it is one of our most popular, read, cited, and requested articles.”
— Fenella Saunders Editor-in-Chief, American Scientist and Director of Science Communications & Publications, Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society
The REA framework in the article has been widely applied and evaluated in peer-reviewed literature. Virginia Kraus, the Mary Bernheim Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Duke University, has credited the framework with reshaping scientific writing.
In June of 2026, George will release his updated and expanded “The New Science of Scientific Writing” in book form through Anthem Press, London.
Seventeen translations are planned.
Explore more books by George→
“A genuinely magical article… I can say, without exaggeration, that this article changed my life.”
— Jim Bagrow, Associate Professor of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Vermont. Read full review→
The Two Main Writing Problems in Science: How They Afflict Readers, and How They Can Be Cured.
In this 2022 American Scientist article, George Gopen diagnoses two critical, overlooked problems that plague nearly every scientific sentence: the main-clause first problem and the stress position. He shows why these problems persist across research writing — and more importantly, how writers can recognize and solve them on the spot. Essential reading for anyone who needs to communicate complex science clearly.
Review of Leah Ceccarelli’s Shaping Science with Rhetoric: The Cases of Dobzhansky, Schrodinger, and Wilson.
What makes a work of science persuasive enough to reshape an entire field? In this 2002 review in American Scientist, George Gopen examines Leah Ceccarelli’s analysis of three landmark books — by Dobzhansky, Schrödinger, and E.O. Wilson — that each attempted to unite warring scientific disciplines. Two succeeded. One failed spectacularly. Gopen explores why rhetoric, not reputation or logic, made all the difference.
Receive updates on new releases→