Scientific writing is a cornerstone of professional chemistry, yet undergraduate and graduate
students frequently struggle with the transition from general academic writing to technical, discipline
specific communication. This review synthesizes research on common writing challenges in chemistry
education, including difficulties with laboratory report structure, results and discussion sections,
hypothesis formulation, data presentation, chemistry-specific conventions, literature use, and the
linguistic barriers experienced by English learners as a second language.
The paper also evaluates effective pedagogical strategies, including scaffolded assignments,
journal-style writing, writing-to-learn activities, calibrated and double-blind peer review, interactive
video workshops, information-literacy instruction, and graduate-level review article writing.
The literature shows that student writing improves most effectively when instruction is explicit,
repeated, discipline-specific, and integrated across the curriculum rather than isolated within a single
course. A practical departmental framework is proposed to support chemistry students from
introductory laboratory reports to advanced manuscript-style writing. Overall, scientific writing should
be treated not only as a communication skill but also as a mechanism for developing chemical
reasoning, professional identity, and participation in the scientific community.