[How to write].

Abstract

In spite of a popular belief that every scientist knows how to write a professional paper, it is a sad fact that only a few scientists are really good writers. Hence the need for this paper. The process of writing is divided in three general steps (preparing, writing, and editing). In the first step, it is necessary to comprehend the future text as the whole. In the next step, one has to deal with its composition. In the third step, it is important to divide editing in precisely defined actions (adding and checking data, grammatical and stylistic corrections, spell-checking). The article also addresses certain differences between English and Croatian related to the meaning of words of Latin origin and provides examples of stylistic editing of scientific texts.