Penn Professors on Writing in Chemistry

Ronen Marmorstein

About the Professor

Ronen Marmorstein is a professor and program leader of Gene Expression and Regulation Program at the Wistar Institute. He is also a professor of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry at the Wistar Institute. His laboratory uses a broad range of molecular, biochemical and biophysical research tools centered around X-ray crystal structure determination.

For more about Dr. Marmorstein, please visit Faculty Website.

Specific Writing Tips

"Your evidence is your experiment and control. It is strictly data based. You need to have proof because experiments are peer reviewed."

Important Criteria for Student Writing

For Marmorstein, the most important mechanical aspect of writing is following instructions. The most important conceptual aspect for him is demonstrating mastery of others' ideas. "Original ideas would be great, but you usually don't see this from students until they are very senior, and then only sometime," he said.

Professional Writing

For Professor Marmorstein, 90% of his scholarly articles are for editors and writing grants.