EASILY CONFUSED WORDS – FLUORESCENCE AND FLUORESCENT

This post is mainly aimed at scientific writers. The words fluorescent and fluorescence are frequently mixed up in scientific papers, and I suspect this is because, according to the dictionary, “fluorescent” is an adjective, while “fluorescence” is a noun.

 The adjective “fluorescent,” however, should only be used to describe something that emits fluorescence. If we want to indicate that something relates to fluorescence then it is conventional to use the noun “fluorescence” as an adjective.

 For example, we would write “fluorescent label,” “fluorescent molecule” and “fluorescent sensor,” since the label, molecule and sensor all emit fluorescence.

 However, we would write “fluorescence intensity,” “fluorescence measurement” and “fluorescence microscopy,” as the intensity, measurement and microscopy relate to fluorescence but do not emit it.


 If in doubt, you can check both forms of a phrase in Google Scholar. For instance, at the time of writing, “fluorescence measurement” returned 84,000 hits, while “fluorescent measurement” returned only 5,900.



Photo credit: James St. John