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I find that the and tags are used interchangeably in existing questions… I suggest we make them synonyms. Please give your opinion in answers, so the mods can make it happen if the community feels it's okay.

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Why should and be synonyms ? After all, there's a lot of academic writing that's not scientific. Admittedly, this site is very tech-heavy, but that's not by design, and we'd welcome academics from non-science disciplines as well.

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  • I'm just stating what I think the current usage is. – F'x Jan 30 '13 at 9:31
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    Sure. but I guess I'm saying that we should fix this by separating them, rather than by making them synonyms. – Suresh Jan 30 '13 at 9:40
  • yes, but only if the distinction is viable for the long term (i.e. we don't regularly need to retag a lot of questions) – F'x Jan 30 '13 at 11:27
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    +1 People being sloppy taggers doesn't mean the two are synonyms. If anything its a call for cleanup and retagging with the appropriate tags. – Fomite Feb 18 '13 at 9:38
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This is messy and I think there is a bigger question. At the most basic level, should the tag be or ? I think they mean fundamentally different things and I am not sure we need to break down writing or science into sub categories. We also have , but no tag. I think I would vote for getting rid of the sub-categories and let people decide if it is or or both.

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    "Scientific writing" probably should be "technical writing." But there might be those who think the difference is significant enough to keep them separate. I'd be fine with whatever the general consensus is. – aeismail Jan 29 '13 at 14:31
  • Remember, all we need to do is see how the community interprets it and act accordingly. We're not really defining anything here, we're just trying to ensure consistency. – eykanal♦ Jan 29 '13 at 15:17
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I agree with the other answers. And I propose that:

  • as scientific-writing is a subset of writing;
  • and given that because the context is academia, all the writing we'd talk about is scholarly writing, even when for a lay audience;

then the main tag be , and that be a synonym of it.

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