principles effective writing friendly texts clear and concise · 2014-07-08 · principles of...
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Principles of effective writing Crafting reader‐friendly texts Tips on being clear and concise Spotting and correcting common mistakes
Principles of effective writing
What is good writing?
Communicating an idea clearly, concisely and effectively: focus on your main message
Good writing is stylish: this takes time and some expert advice!
Principles of effective writing
What makes a good writer?• Having something to say• Logical thinking• A few simple rules of style – tools that you can learn
• Good writing is a skill that can be learned!
Principles of effective writing
Let go of bad academic writing habits .
Write to engage your readers – not to bore them!
Don’t take shortcuts: plan, draft, revise and polish –nobody gets it right first time.
Learn to cut out unnecessary words – edit, re‐edit and streamline.
Principles of effective writing
Write concisely – be brief ‐ avoid jargon and wordiness
Choose words carefully – one word may suffice instead of three
Use discourse markers sparingly to link sentences,achieve “flow” through a logical sequence of ideas
Principles of effective writing
Use parallel constructions (inf+inf / gerund+gerund)
Be careful with pronouns, is the reference clear?
Tenses: past tense for your procedure & present tense for published / established information
Passive versus active: an ongoing debate – use your common sense!
Principles of effective writing
Avoid the overuse of nouns ‐ use verbs where possible
Avoid unnecessary wordiness
Avoid jargon and acronyms
Avoid negative constructions – find an alternative
Avoid overlong sentences, keep structure simplekeep the verb near the beginning of the sentence
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Turning nouns into verbs
“Verbs drive sentences along and nouns slow them down” (Kristin Sainani, Stanford Medical School)
Are these sentences easy to understand? Are they nice to read?
“We provide a description of a rapid and simple method for the characterization of Saccharomyces based on mtDNA restriction analysis for the monitoring of wine fermentations”.
We describe a rapid and simple method to characterize Saccharomyces through mtDNA restriction analysis to monitor wine fermentations.
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Turning nouns into verbs
“The analysis of multilocus markers allowed the identification of potential hybrids and their discrimination from non‐hybrid strains”
Multilocus markers were analysed to identify potential hybrids and discriminate them from non‐hybrid strains.
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Sentence structure
Keep sentences short
Use parallel structuresPatients should get a lot of sleep, not eating too much and exercisedaily.
Patients should get a lot of sleep, not eat too much and exercise daily.
Take care with modifiersModifiers go directly before the word/s they modify, compare:Nearly 100 patients died during the outbreak.One hundred patients nearly died during the outbreak
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Sentence structure
Keep the verb near the beginning of the sentence
“The effect of the combination of adding enzyme preparations including proteases and carbohydrases and heat treatment on pyrazine formation in cocoa powder extracts has been studied”.
Pryzine formation has been studied in cocoa powder extracts by combining enzyme preparations, including proteases and carbohydrases, with heat treatment.
Do not separate the verb from its object We studied in great depth this phenomenon.
We studied this phenomenon in great depth .
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Sentence structure
Take care with adverb placement
Also, probably, almost, definitely, even, still, only, mainly and adverbs of frequency (always, often, never etc.) go before the main verb “This never happens” EXCEPT if the main verb is TO BE, in which case they go after: “This is often the case.”
These adverbs are placed before “have to”: “It probably has to do with genome degradation”
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Sentence structure
Here is the most common pattern to follow:
(SUBJECT) + (FIRST AUXILIARY) + (ADVERB FREQUENCY) + (SECOND AUXILIARY) + (MAIN VERB) + (OBJECT/S) + (ADVERB MANNER) + (PLACE) + (TIME)
(Patients) + (had) + (never) + (been) + (given) + (this treatment) + (intravenously) + (in this hospital) + (before).
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Paragraphs
A paragraph is a unit of composition One paragraph = one main idea Start with the most important point/main idea and then provide support.
Finally reinforce the main message again at the end.
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Paragraphs
Paragraph flow is helped by a logical flow of ideas• Most important to less important• From general to specific • Logical arguments (if a then b; therefore, c)• Sequential in time
• Parallel sentence structures• Transition words: but, and, moreover, however, therefore…
Crafting reader‐friendly texts Paragraphs
Idea flow chart
PPT is an advantageous new technique to assess PB residues
Main idea
It is accurate and relatively cheap.Gives exact readingsIndicates potential hormone activity
Supporting idea
Techniques previously used to assess PB residues include….Disadvantage s: insensitive with many false negative results …
Sub supporting idea
PPT is the best technique available to assess PB residues Reiterate main idea
Tips on being clear and concise Cutting the clutter
“The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components. Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what –these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence. And they usually occur in proportion to education and rank.”
William Zinsser (1976) On Writing Well
Tips on being clear and concise Cutting the clutter
Careful word choice can help you to:
eliminate unnecessary adverbs calculate approximately
estimate
eliminate negatives and use positive constructions there is not a lot of information
information is lacking
eliminate unnecessary wordiness a high number of
many
Tips on being clear and concise Cutting the clutter
Cut out meaningless words and expressions:
It is known that It is known that obesity is linked to cardiovascular disease
Obesity is linked to cardiovascular disease
It is thought that It is thought that dysbiosis is linked to IBS
Dysbiosis may be linked to IBS
Relative pronouns The patients that participated in the study
The patients participating in the study;The rats that were fed probiotics
The rats fed probiotics/ Probiotic‐fed rats
The ….of The distribution of the population
Population distribution
Tips on being clear and concise Cutting the clutter
The passive voice is often overused in scientific writing.Sometimes the active voice may be more appropriate. Brown reported that 50% of patients recovered. It was reported by Brown that 50% of patients recovered. Fifty percent of patients were reported to have recovered by Brown
The authors recommend… (active) It is recommended by the authors …Use you common sense and do not be afraid to use “we”: We studied gene expression in mutant stains.
Spotting and correcting common mistakes
Study into the frequency and distribution of errors and stylistic changes made to scientific manuscripts
Scientific Corpus Analysis to Investigate Mistake Patterns for Subsequent Pedagogical ApplicationF.BARRACLOUGH & A.DONNELLANThe European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL
• We analysed corrections (grammatical and stylistic)made to scientific articles by Spanish speakers prior to publication in primary journals
• Taxonomy of the most common language errors
• 32 main error types were identified
• Quantitative analysis ANOVA & Chi‐squared
Top errorsGRAMMAR Word order Article use Tenses Relative pronouns
STYLE Noun overuse Wordiness Flow
The most common errors found in our study coincide with those found in similar studies (Dalgish, 1985, 1991; Granger, Hung & Petch‐Tyson, 2002; Izumi, Uchimoto& Isahara, 2004; Bitchener, Young & Cameron, 2005; Gamon, Leacock, Brocket, Dolan, Gao, Belenko & Klementiev, 2009; Rozovskaya & Roth, 2010)
A final reflection
• “English proficiency and research funding may be important determinants of publication”.
J.P. Man (2004)
“Discursive elements are likely to play a role in the acceptance or rejection of a paper”
C. Tardy (2004)
Language Editing Survey ELSEVIER (2007)“The findings reported in the paper may be cutting edge, but poor language quality – including errors in grammar, spelling or language usage – could delay publication or lead to outright rejection of the paper, preventing the research from getting the recognition it deserves”.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to acknowledge my co‐author on the paper, Alicia Donnellan (AUT, NZ), as well as Pilar Safont (UJI), Amparo Latorre(UV), and Kristin Sainani (Stanford Medical School) who have all been instrumental in helping me shape this course.
Thank you for your attention! WWW.INTERGLOBE.ES