In documenting a technical subject, the primary goals are to be accurate, clear, and consistent. Writing and editing for the sciences requires special attention to conventions, including units of measurement, equations, and graphs. The following discussion should help you to produce documents that meet these goals. The article is baased on the use of Microsoft^® Office 2000.

Units of measurement 

Units of measurement (or units) are critically important. We were all reminded last fall after scientists and engineers unintentionally mixed English and metric units, affecting the trajectory of the Mars Climate Orbiter. Check and recheck units in documents, especially in tables where entire columns and/or rows of data can be affected by one mistake. Use the following steps to insert special symbols, such as “m” (signifying micro) or “°” (for degrees).

1. Place your cursor at the insertion point and choose Symbol from the Insert menu. 
2. When the Symbol window appears, double-click the symbol or special character you want. 

Be sure to insert non-breaking spaces between numbers and associated units, to ensure that they stay together when text wraps to the next line. Use the Insert menu, or hold down Ctrl and Shift simultaneously, and press the space bar. 

Equations

Equations are more standard and visually appealing when entered using Microsoft Equation 3.0.  

1. From the Insert menu, choose Object. 
2. When the Object window appears, scroll to Microsoft^® Equation 3.0 and double-click it. 
3. When the equation tool bar appears, move your cursor over it to display descriptions of your options, options such as fraction templates and subscripting, as utilized in the following equation.

4. Click on the option you want. 

This approach to inserting and formatting equations is much more straightforward and elegant than using tabs or the space bar. The equation can be edited later by double-clicking on it to reopen the equation editor.

Graphs

Graphs in scientific documents often require error bars to show uncertainty in measured values. There are many ways to add error bars to a graph: the following approach seems the most simple and versatile. This discussion requires some proficiency in working with x-y scatter plots. 

1. After you have plotted your data points, select the data series by clicking on a data point within the series plotted on the graph. 
2. From the Format menu, choose Selected Data Series. When the Format Data Series window appears, click the y-error-bar tab (see Figure 1). 

Figure 1.

3. Choose Custom and enter absolute error values for each y-value, separated by commas (entering percent error values may force your error bars off-scale). 
4. Choose OK. Your graph should have error bars similar to Graph 1. 

Graph 1.

Notice that units are included on the graph! To include the symbol “µ” on a graph, or in cases where the Insert menu is not available, hold down Alt and type 0181; to enter “°”, use Alt 0176.

Remember, in writing and editing for the sciences, your role is as crucial as that of scientists and engineers: information is valuable only when it is accurate and easily understood.