Learning to write in scientific style

I don't know how this is in other countries, but here, there is a large discrepancy between what you learn is writing 'well' in secondary school and what is expected of students in terms of writing once they write scientific reports in University.

At school, the only course where writing is assessed is the course on the language here. Any other place where writing may be required tend to not assess writing (maybe spelling). Wherever writing is assessed, certain specific aspects will be valued positively: being able to construct complex yet understandable sentences, show a large vocabulary by the liberal use of synonyms and many different words, discuss nuances of all sorts.

In University however, you are expected to be able to write in a clear, concise, scientific style. When we tell students that writing will be part of the marks, not just the content, they try to write, but tend to get back to those things valued in school, whereas scientific vocabulary tend to avoid naming things 10 different names, and that expression such as 'a lot', 'not as much', 'many', 'little' are generally not well seen (gimme the figure!).

It's interesting to notice this difference. Both ways are interesting, probably, and those who will go towards litteraray studies probably will find that training valuable; those going into science though need to learn something different. For some it is really challenging. There are students who consistently give back way more words than the limit set.