We just had a very interesting discussion in the Ask the Nature Editor Forum about scientific writing. Most people agreed that the quality of the writing in the end doesn't really influence the decision to accept or reject a paper. But good writing, especially in the first paragraph, certainly helps. But what is good scientific writing? Two weeks ago I suggested a few good books on the subject in a blog post.

Both Adobe and Microsoft today announced free web-based solutions for document sharing. Adobe Share uses the Flash technology to display various document formats. Tim O'Reilly has a nice writeup of the new service. Microsoft Office Live Workspace allows the sharing of Microsoft Office documents. Just as with Adobe Share, and in contrast to Google Docs, you can't directly edit documents online. Why should a scientist care about all this?

Last weekend I visited my brother-in-law in Cambridge (UK). In the Cambridge University Press bookstore I found the wonderful little book How to Write and Illustrate a Scientific Paper by Björn Gustavii (Cambridge University Press 2003). On less than 150 pages B. Gustavii gives a good summary of the typical problems and their solutions.

Earlier this month I attended RailsConf Europe in Berlin. RailsConf is a conference about Ruby on Rails, a programming framework to produce websites. I'm a part-time Ruby on Rails programmer and had a very interesting conference. Others have already written about RailsConf, so I want to focus on how it was like from a scientist's perspective.

I recently wrote about the potential of Google Docs and Zoho Writer als online writing tools for scientists. Buzzword is another web-based writing tool and last week was opened for new users. Buzzword is different, because it is based on Adobe Flash, which makes for a much nicer user interface. As expected, Buzzword doesn't handle references as flexible as Microsoft Word.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) today announced that it will support Open Access in Springer journals through the Springer Open Choice program.

This Monday Google officially announced Presently, their web-based application for presentations, a.k.a. Microsoft Powerpoint clone. Although it is possible to create presentations from scratch using Presently, most users will probably use it to upload their finished (or almost finished) Microsoft Powerpoint presentations (there is a 10 MB size limit). The presentations can then be shared either globally or to a restricted list of colleagues.

Last week I wrote about web-based writing tools. I believe that these tools are almost there and someone has to put the pieces together to make them work for writing a scientific paper. EJ Press System by EJournal Press, Manuscript Central by ScholarOne and Editiorial Manager by Aries Systems are among the most popular web-based online submission systems.

OncologySTAT is a new (it launched September 7) web portal by Reed Elsevier that offers, among many other things, full access to journal articles in Elsevier oncology journals. Elsevier hopes to generate enough revenue from selling advertising on the web site to compensate for (potentially) lost journal sales.

Google Docs and Zoho Writer are web-based writing tools that have gained many of the features of traditional word processors such as Microsoft Word. Looking at Google Docs as an example (Zoho Writer shares many of the strenghts and weaknesses), I wanted to find out if they are mature enough to write a scientific paper.The Good The major strength is collaboration.

On August 23, the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine or PRISM was announced. PRISM is a lobbying organisation created by the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division (PSP) of the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The main purpose of PRISM appears to lobby legislators in Washington to not sign legislation that would require public access to all scientific papers within 12 months after publication.