Forum:Bioinformatic or bioinformatics?

Question

[jon.brate]

Sorry for posting this question, which is not about bioinformatics.

I am not a native english speaker and I am often confused about the difference between the words bioinformatic and bioinformatics. For instance when used like: "I have experience with many different bioinformatics tools". Should I write bioinformatic or bioinformatics in this sentence? And when should I use the different forms?

Thanks!

[Gjain]

Normally it is Bioinformatics

never used bioinformatic as "informatic" by itself is not used.

Informatics, on the other hand, by itself, is a proper term.

[Brian Bushnell]

That said, were Bioinformatic to be word, it would be an adjective while Bioinformatics would be a noun. Similar to "Ecology" (noun) versus "Ecological" (adjective). Bioinformatical seems to be the preferred adjective form, but it's not commonly used.

[Jean-Karim Heriche]

This is a question better suited to the English stackexchange forum.

[Chris Miller]

Seems on-topic to me.

[Eric Lim]

I always just use computational. Computational engine sounds a heck lot fancier than bioinformatics tools/workflows. ;)

Answer 1

[konradgru]

So, "bioinformatical tools" would be correct but sounds uncommon.

And using the other form of the adjective, it would be "bioinformatic tools", right?

To make it complete, nouns can be composed of multiple nouns. Just like "reference method" one could use "bioinformatics tools", right?

Are all 3 forms correct, but some less common? And we haven't talked about capitalization. I've seen both variants. Anyone knows what's the right version?

[Jean-Karim Heriche]

In English, common nouns are not capitalized (unlike for example in German).