Stevens Subtleties of Scientific Style

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Subtleties oScientific

Style

Matthew Stevens


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Subtleties of Scientic Style

Copyrght Matthew Steves 2007

Publshed by SceceScape Edtg

Torlegh, NSW 2021, Australa

http://www.scecescape.com.au/ to order a hard copy

Frst publshed 2007

All rghts reserved. No part o ths publcato may be reproduced, stored aretreval system or trasmtted ay orm or by ay meas, electroc, mechacal,

photocopyg, recordg or otherwse, wthout the pror wrtte permsso o the

publsher.

Natoal Lbrary o Australa

Catalogug--Publcato Etry

Steves, Matthew Ldsay.

Scetc style.

Bblography.

ISBN 0 9578877 2 8.

ISBN 0 9578877 3 6 (ole).

1. echcal edtg Hadbooks, mauals, etc. 2.

Authorshp Style mauals Hadbooks, mauals, etc. 3.

Report wrtg Hadbooks, mauals, etc. I. tle.

808.0666

ypeset Mo

Prted by BA Prtg & Publshg Servces, Brookvale, NSW, Australa

Cover: Eucalyptus haemastoma


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Subtleties oScientificStyle

Matthew Stevens

ScienceScape

Editing


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v

Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946

Dedcated to Erc Corb, who challeged accepted wsdom.

Acknowledgements

No book happes o ts ow. Id lke to thak Geo Hart ad Mchael Lews or

ther helpul advce o a early verso o ths book, whch saved me rom may

o the same errors that I crtcse (ecept where I elt pgheaded); Rck Wesburd

or sedg me hs mprovemets; Maeve OCoor or her gracous permsso

to reproduce her checklst; the Caberra Socety o Edtors or permsso to

reproduce ther checklst; Roger Joes or hs kd permsso to reproduce the

ASCII character chart show at the ed o the book; Paddy ad Deryck Schreuder

or deas; Dea Morrs or a earler collaborato rom whch Ive borrowed; FloryNye-Clemet or correctos; ad Lda or her ecouragemet.

About the author

Matthew Steves holds a bachelors degree agrculture ad a masters degree

eteso. He became a edtor by mstake whe the New South Wales Departmet

o Agrculture, ush wth other peoples moey, oered hm a job, thkg he wascalled Jeremy. He traed o the job uder some rather clever edtors, ad wet

o to edt such classcs as Hydroponic Sheep Raising(Agde 430/516) ad History

o Antarctic Agriculture. Aer te years there, he gave up the securty o the Publc

Servce or the ucertates o sel-employmet aer a well-kow computer

jouralst advsed hm that e-mal-based edtg would ever work. He has bee

busess ow or over 12 years, orgally partershp wth hs cat, ad works

hs home oce. He s the rst scetc edtor outsde North Amerca to be awarded

the ELS(D), the hghest accredtato oered by the US-based Board o Edtors the Le Sceces (http://www.bels.org/).


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v

Contents

Acknowledgements iv

Abouttheauthor iv

Aboutthisbook viii

Whatisscience? 1

Substantiveediting 1

Steps volved 3

Why s substatve edtg mportat? 5

Commucatg wth the author 6

Te edtoral Gestalt 6

A systematc approach to edtgreachg the Gestalt 7

Commonerrors 11

Daglers 11

Fller words ad phrases 13

Hestaces 15

Msappled moders 15

Shortcuts (or everyoe kows what I mea) 17

Stacked ous ad adjectves 18

Bous ambgutes or your amusemet 20Errorsofsubstanceorsequence 22

Mssg ormato 22

Msplaced methods 22

Usupported statemets 22

Usupported dgs Abstract 23

Cotradctory data 23

Icorrect calculatos 23

Irrelevat ormato 23Uaddressed ams 23

Lack o agreemet betwee lterature ctatos ad reereces 24

Icorrect page umbers reereces 24

Issue umbers reereces 24

Lack o agreemet betwee gures or tables ad tet 25

Errorsofreasoning 26

Aoymous authorty 26

Appeal to popularty 26False or mplct assumptos 26


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v

Non sequiturs 27

Statstcal clumpg as evdece 28

autologes ad pleoasms 28

eleology ad athropomorphsm 29

mes smaller? 30Improvingexpression 32

Abbrevatos 32

Actve versus passve voce 33

Sgular or plural? 34

Date orderavod ambguty 35

Epoets versus slashes 35

Frst-perso scece 36

Jargo 40Mauacturers detalsclude the coutry 41

Order o evets 42

Parallel arratves 43

Pla Eglsh scece 46

Posto o adverbs 47

Put subject ad verb at the rot o log seteces 50

Symbols 51

Yes, we have o ectosa plea or commas 52

Improvingvisualpresentation 54

Graphcs word processor lesdot! 54

Preparg graphcs 54

Cosstecy gures 56

Keys gures 56

Zero pot graphs 57

Trickyormisusedterms 59Address 59

Aalyss 59

Ad & or 59

Ad/or 60

Appled 60

Based o 60

Bmothly, bweekly 62

c. 62Compared to 62


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v

Compared wth 62

Datacout ou or mass ou? 62

Due to 63

For 65

gad rpm 65I order 66

Meda 67

Methodology 67

No ad other prees 67

Numerals or words? 68

Observed 69

Parameter 70

Pheomea 70Post ad pre as adverbs 70

Respectvely 71

Sacrced 74

Se ad geder 74

Studes o/o 75

o be 75

o 76

Usg 76

Watershed 79

Whle 79

Wth 80

Errorsinclassicallanguages 82

Erroeous Lat 83

Helleolatsms 84

Appendix1Editingtechniques 86Appendix2Wordyphrases 88

Appendix3BritishorUSspelling? 90

Appendix4Unicodevaluesandnon-displayingcharacters 91

Appendix5Characterchartsinlogicalgroupings 93

Bibliography 95

Books 95

Worldwde Web resources 96

Soware 96Index 98


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v

About this book

Ts book s amed at hads-o scetc edtors, those who work wth the uts

ad bolts o the tetrom spellg, puctuato1 ad grammar (copyedtg) to

meag ad logc (substatve edtg). Copyedtors (subedtors) ad jouraledtors wll also d somethg o terest t.

I decded to wrte ths book whe I recogsed that the assortmet o books

o my shelves ether dot meto some aults o scetc wrtg that I regularly

ecouter, or meto them oly passg. Te book collects together may subtle,

recurrg errors that Ive come to recogse my more tha 20 years o edtg. It

also corporates a ew essays Ive wrtte or lectures Ive gve o thgs that aoy

me about scetc wrtg. My teto s to ll the gaps that Ive oud ad to

challege some o the accepted wsdom o scetc wrtg. May other books (see

the Bblography) cover more commo or more vsble problems, so I do ot cover

those problems here. No doubt there are others. I you have a avourte subtlety that

I have ot covered ad would lke to see t cluded a laterad bggeredto

o ths book, please sed t to me. Tere are lkely to be subtletes that I have ot

ecoutered or recogsed, so I welcome addtoal deas. Keep md as you read,

also, that as well as a lst o subtle errors, the book works as a prmer thkg

crtcally.You mght d that some o my phraseology souds odd or some o my errors

are ot wrog your usage. My Eglsh s Australa, so rom my perspectve,

much US usage s perpleg, ot wrog. Your eperece o ths book mght well

be the same. Ad my approach s prescrptvst.

Bear md that the advce gve here s my opo, though supported by

reaso ad authortatve reereces, ad over 20 years eperece. I you dsagree

wth t, thats e, so log as your reasog s soud too. But I thk youll d my

argumets persuasve, ad that youll d readg ths book as satsyg as I haveoud wrtg t.

A al word o cauto: I the structos to authors or the publshers

requremets cotradct aythg I say here, do what they say, o matter how

ludcrous you thk they are.

1. I am ot a ervet propoet o the seral or Oord comma, so you wll d here staces o

where I havet serted a comma where you mght have. Wthout our gettg to a argumet about

my parets, Ay Rad ad God, ths usage reects schoolg ad ot logc. I ca d eamples owhere the seral comma creates ambguty, ot solves t. But eel ree to sert your ow commas. Here

are some spares: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,


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What is science?

Te word scece comes rom the Lat scientia, kowledge. Scece s the pursut

o kowledge. It s a uquely huma actvty (utl we meet ales who are smlarly

cled). No other amal o Earth does t; t s a product o the huma tellect.Ts recogto must uderle allscetc reportg.Allscetc actvtes

are doe by people.Allscetc wrtg s wrtte by people, or people. Tereore

all scece reects the qualtes o the people who do t ad the eeds o those who

wll be aected by t. You caot remove the actor ad preted that the work just

happeed. You caot clam that the actor s umportat because the results would

have bee the same regardless o who dd the epermetcoctg results o

drug trals gve the le to ths bele. Te covoluted passve seteces wrtte the

thrd perso that suggest that the work dd tsel obscure the realty o scece. Te

actor s ot oly mportat, he or she s essential.

So whe you are edtg leless scetc prose, put the actor back . Celebrate

the pacle o huma achevemet that s scece. ur to the secto o Actve

versus passve voce or a eplaato o how to breathe le back to leless prose.

Substantive editing

Te most dcult ad terestg problems edtg are the substatve oes. So

what s substatve edtg?

Substatve edtg (also kow as developmetal or comprehesve edtg) s

the edtg osubstance, ot just the mechacs o wrtg. As wth ay other type o

edtg, ts purpose s to make the work readable. It covers the bascs o copyedtg,

cludg spellg, puctuato, grammar, ow, scetc covetos, style gudes

ad approprate vocabulary. But t goes urther, coverg meag, logc, clarty,

acts ad correctess, cosstecy (teral ad wth the lterature), coherece,

completeess, structure, sequece, teded use ad teded readers. It ca eve

volve rewrtg where ecessary.

Jea Holls Weber (http://www.jeaweber.com/howto/substat.htm) wrtes:

Substatve edtg s almost etrely aalyss-based, whether at the documet level

or at the paragraph, setece, or word level. Decsos requre judgemet, ot just

the applcato o rules, ad thereore should be egotable wth the wrter.

Te Caberra Socety o Edtors (1994) wrtes: Substatve edtg ams

to esure that the structure, cotet, laguage ad style o the documet are

approprate to ts teded ucto ad readershp.


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Whe edtg, be sure to use your word processors revso eatures, both to

show what you have chaged ad to allow the author to udo ay chages you have

made. (Some authors wll rghtly be oeded you delete tet wthout eplaato

or revso trackg.) Te al cotet has to be the authors decso, ot the

edtors. (I you edt solely o paper, use stcky otes to commucate wth theauthor, ad use a deret colour rom the tet so your chages stad out.)

Nevertheless, dot be arad to suggest the deleto o aythg thats ot

relevat. Sayg more words what ca be sad ewer just makes the readers

work harder. Good scece wrtg s cocse ad gets to the pot.

As a scetc edtor, you have three clets: the publsher, the author ad the

reader. Balacg ther eeds ca oe be dcult, because they ca have coctg

eeds (the publsher eeds to mmse cost, the authors voce eeds to be retaed,

the reader eeds a error-ree report1). Te reader s the most mportat. Your rstresposblty s to help the reader uderstad the authors meag. Your secod

resposblty s to help the authors say clearly what they mea wthout lettg them

look oolsh. Your thrd resposblty s to the publsher, delverg the work wth

tme ad budget. Besdes the clets, you have a al resposblty to yoursel: to

kow that youve doe a good job.

Laguage choce ad every other wrtg decso deped etrcably o the

combato o audece ad purpose (both the authors purpose ad the audeces

purpose). Tgs that work just e a joural (usg techcal jargo) wot work

well or a popular scece or ewspaper artcle. Furthermore, the authors purpose

may vary eve or a gve audece (e.g. ellow researchers): to preset just oe more

ew but borg set o results, to revew the lterature wthout troducg ay ew

cotet whatsoever, or to commucate a breakthrough uderstadg. As you

work, you must keep md the audece: What s the age o readg level? What

s the readers educato? Are the readers ad the author the same dscple?

Whch terms eed to be eplaed ad whch dot? Put yoursel the readersshoes: Does the wrtg make sese? For eample, Nature s a terdscplary

joural. It requres authors to wrte or as wde a audece as possble. I a

author wats to be publshed Nature, the he or she must avod jargo, or terms

specalsed to a specc eld o study, ad epla cocepts that are ot kow

outsde that eld. Ts emphass o terdscplary commucato s mportat

a world o creasg specalsato. For eample, the mathematcs o chaos

apples to ecoomcs, cardology, plaetary moto ad clmatology. A mportat

1. Fast, cheap, accurate. Pck ay two. For a deret take, see Cheatg the qualty tragle (http://

www.geo-hart.com/resources/2001/tragle.htm).


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breakthrough oe dscple wll have cosequeces other dscples. Smlarly,

work huma geetcs has mplcatos or plat geetcs, because all gees ollow

the same rules, regardless o orgasm. So readers beyod the mmedate dscple

must be able to uderstad the work. I cotrast, taoomy does ot cross to

other dscples, so less eplaato o cocepts s called or. A uderstadg othe combato o audece ad purpose s essetal.

Te substatve scetc edtor eeds ve characterstcs beyod those eeded

by the copyedtor:

Crtcal thkgts ot ecessarly true just because a scetst wrote t.

A logcal approachbeg able to ollow all argumets through to ther

cocluso.

Kowledge o the subject. Wthout ths, you cat be sure whether somethg s

true or ot. Ablty to cocetrate o meag, ot just grammar.

Cosstecy. Ts requres establshg a edtoral Gestalt o a documet

uderstadg t as a whole, ot just the parts.

Steps involved

Te steps lsted here are based o two lsts o tasks volved substatve edtgthat I have borrowed (wth permsso) rom other sources. Oe comes rom oe

o the most accomplshed scetc edtors the Eglsh-speakg world, Maeve

OCoor (1986, p 3). Te other comes rom the Caberra Socety o Edtors (1994).

I have epaded o the orgal pots.

Structure

Is the document complete? Are all gures ad tables suppled? Is addtoal

materal or reader ads (such as gures, glossary or de) requred? Has the authoraddressed each am, or s ormato mssg?

Does the document ull objectives? Check the structos to authors or the

publshers objectves or the work. Does the documet aswer ts ow ams?

Is any major rewriting required? I ths s ot part o your bre, egotate wth the

author or publsher.

Is any rearrangement, expansion or summarising o sections required to acheve

the most logcal structure? Should ay materal be relegated to a apped or vce

versa?


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Content

Are language and orm appropriate to the readership? Is the publcato teded

or a specalst audece (e.g. surgeos)? A geeral scetc audece (such as

Nature readers)? A o-scetc audece (e.g. ratepayers)? Does the structureo the documet lead them a amlar way to the ormato? (Compare the

structure o a scetc paper wth that o a press releaseboth are approprate to

the teded audece but caot be swapped.)

Make titles and abstracts concise, accurate, inormative and consistent. I ttles,

avod studes o, delete uecessary artcles (a, the), make ttles to statemets

rather tha labels. Esure that abstracts cover the ams ad ma outcomes.

Add keywords and running heads (check the structos to authors). Keywords

should ot repeat words the ttle but stead should supplemet them.

Check sections and their headings. Do the headgs accurately reect the secto

cotets? Ca you add or remove headgs? Are they preseted the best order?

Examine the logic, order, correctness and emphasis o presentation. Ts souds

smple but ca orm the bulk o your work. Ask yoursel as you work through a

documet whether t tells you (as a reader) everythg that you would wat to kow.

Ca you d the ormato easly? Does t make sese? Are argumets preseted

clearly ad uambguously? Do they st at the approprate level?

Eliminate redundancies and irrelevancies. It s commo or authors to repeat or-

mato deret parts o a documet. Oce s eough, uless specal emphass s

requred.1 Some authors add ormato that terests them but bears o relevace

to the work. May authors preset the same ormato tables ad graphsths

wastes space ad creates the dea that there s some derece betwee the two.

Highlight contradictions. Query them you dot kow whch s correct.

Suggest ways o shortening words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs. See the

ollowg sectos or advce o how to reduce materal: Fller words ad phrases,

Stacked ous ad adjectves, Abbrevatos, Actve versus passve voce, Pla

Eglsh scece, Apped 1Edtg techques ad Wordy phrases.

Is reerencing appropriate? All statemets (ecept uversal truths) must

1. But ote: Repeatg ormato ca sometmes make tet more readable, partcularly logseteces, by relevg readers o the eed to reta the rst part o the setece ther heads whle

they read several parallel cosequeces that all deped o that rst pece o ormato.


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be supported by reereces, ether publshed studes or preseted data. Ask or

clarcato support s mssg. Check all reereces agast ctatos (both

lterature ad gures or tables) ad ask authors to supply ay that are mssg.

Figures and tablesExamine tables and gures in relation to text. Do all data the tables ad gures

support the pots beg made the tet? Are all tables ad gures cted (ad

order)? Are the statstcs approprate to the data ad the epermet?

Ensure that table and gure titles correctly describe the contents. Go through

each pot the ttle ad look or evdece the table or gure.

Check presentation o units in column headings and numbers in body o tables.

Are all uts show the colums? Are uts SI? Are all values show wth the rghtumber o sgcat dgts? Are values alged to the decmal pot, or cetred o

deret uts?

Check suitability o gures or reproduction. Ca you read everythg the

gure? Wll readers be able to read everythg whe the gure s reduced or

prtg? Wll th les vash durg reducto? Have authors used colour

(epesve) whe black ad whte (cheap) wll do the same job? Have authors used

stpples that wll be dstgushable prt? Are photos cropped to emphaszemportat parts? Are llustratos approprate to the message?

Ensure that all symbols, abbreviations and terms are explained the tet or a glossary.

Symbols used gures must be eplaed the gures (preerably) or captos.

Why is substantive editing important?

Authors are uder pressure to publsh ad dot have the tme to esure accuracy.

Scetsts usually wrte jargo (laguage specc to ther eld), whch may otcarry the same meag or all audeces.

Peer revewers ca be bld to the same shortcomgs as the author by beg

overamlar wth the work.

Nobody s perect, ad errors wll always slp through.

No grammar checker ca ever pck up errors o logc or act.

Readers rom o-Eglsh-speakg backgrouds also eed to read ad

uderstad publshed scece.

Authors already uderstad what theyre tryg to commucate, ad oe

orget that ther readers dot.


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Communicating with the author

Always be polte your queres to authors. Te author s probably ot stupd

ad wot apprecate beg chastsed. Because t ca be hard ot to be terse to the

pot o rudeess, partcularly whe youre workg uder tme pressure, take thetrouble to epla yoursel clearly, oer alteratves, ad try to stay the authors

good books. You mght have to work wth that author or a log tme, or you mght

wsh to attract repeat work. Soe your commets wth perhaps, I beleve, how

about etc. Never ssue a drect order.

Nevertheless, dot be arad to query the author o aythg you dot

uderstad. Iyou dot uderstad t, the chaces are that someoe else wot too.

Ad dot be arad to challege a author. Sometmes you wll kow more about

somethg tha the author, or you mght have read somethg that the author hastsee.

You ca make your le easer by storg stock queres your word processor as

automatc tet (such as provded by MS Words Autocorrect eature), or by storg

bolerplate tet a database. For eample, I d that may authors repeat ttle

words the keywords lst. Ts s ormally uecessary. So I just type the letters

kw, ad MS Word automatcally serts the statemet Te key words lst s

teded to supplemet the words the ttle. Tereore you ca delete the words I

have hghlghted ad add other words ot the ttle.

The editorial Gestalt

o do a eectve job requres you to mmerse yoursel the story. You eed to

spread your atteto across all levels o the documet, rom word meag to

setece meag to overall meag, amg to see all levels smultaeously rather

tha swtchg betwee them. You eed to lear ad uderstad the story beg

told, ad vew t as a whole composed o ts parts. I the parts are dscordat wth the

whole, you wll the see ths. Ts ca take eort, ad s harder wth loger works

ad wth more comple studes. You are lookg or evdece that the coclusos

preseted are supported, the acts are real ad cosstet, the aalytcal tests

perormed are approprate, the statstcal tests are sutable ad the authors have ot

cotradcted themselves. Whe you have perected the Gestalt techque, a momet

comes a job whe you thk, Yes, I uderstad the study. Ts s a mportat

derece betwee substatve edtg ad copyedtg.


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A systematic approach to editing

reaching the Gestalt

Scetc edtg requres tese cocetrato ad atteto to a myrad o detals,

rom puctuato ad spellg to cluso o all detals (o a reaget, or stace),to ctato o reereces, to ormat, to meag, to logc. Coverg all detals requres

several passes o a tet, whch the edtor must ocus rst o oe class o detals,

the swtch to aother. Have a look at a photo o a colourul scee. How may

red objects ca you pck out? Now look aga ad see how may blue objects you

ca see. Youll otce that you saw may blue tems o the secod pass that smply

ddt regster o the rst pass. Ts s because your atteto was ocused o the

red objects beore, ad ecluded other colours. Edtg s the samewhe we ocus

o oe class o detals, we automatcally eclude others. Tereore, comple edtg

tasks must be broke dow.

Over 2+ decades, I have oud the best approach through tral ad error ad by

learg rom other edtors. It mght work or you too. Note that t s based o the

use o a word processor, although most o what I descrbe below ca be doe o

paper as well.

O the rst pass, check that everythg s presetttle, authors ad addresses,

speced sectos, reereces, captos, gures, tables ad so o. Pot-by-pot

checkg o the publshers structos to authors wll greatly ad ths process.

O the second pass, check the spellg. Checkg the spellg up rot ags

the evtable rare or o-stadard spellgs that requre decsos. Kowg

these beore you start edtg wll allow you to esure cosstecy throughout the

job. It s less eectve you try to make a decso every tme you come across a

ucommo word whle you are ocused o meag. I your word processor ca

check spellg costatly (MS Word: Check spellg as you type), the leave ths

eature permaetly o. It wll save you rom troducg uotced errors, ad therrtatg red squggles wll remd you to very ay spellgs you have deerred. A

al spellg check s thus uecessary.

Te third pass s the most tesve. Start wth the abstract or summary.

However poorly wrtte t s, t wll set the scee or the documet ad allow you

to grasp the teto o the work beg descrbed. It s essetal to have a dea o

the work up rot. For readers, ay documet (act or cto) s structured to reveal

meag wth the readg. Edtors must kow that meag up rot order to

esure that the documet reveals t approprately. Tereore you must uderstad,at least vaguely, the story beore you ecouter t, so as to esure that all parts work


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together to covey the meag. Sped as much tme as t takes to uderstad

ad edt the abstract or summary. Wth the story rmly your md, the, you

are equpped to judge whether each part o the ollowg tet substatates the

summary, ad to uderstad how each part ts to the story.

Durg the thrd pass you cocetrate o local meagmeag at the levelo the setece or paragraph. Are words used correctly? Ca you substtute a word

wth a more precse or relevat meag? Does the puctuato sgal the correct

meag, or does t mslead (or eample, My brother, Joh does ot mea the

same as My brother Joh). Ca you epress the meag ewer words or more

smply (oe the same thg)?

For ow, take ay gure, table or reerece ctatos as read. You ca gore

these supports uless you eed clarcato o a uclear passage. You wll atted

to these later.Whe you reach the ed, you should have a documet that s easy to read. All

the seteces are grammatcally correct; all the spellg s correct; every tet elemet

s where t should be. It mght be osese, but t s a elegat pece o prose. All

mpedmets to readg or uderstadg have ow bee removed.

Now put t away you ca. Our bras process the days learg whle we sleep,

durg our dreamg. Numerous studes have show that people who have slept

o ew ormato are better able to recall t tha people who have ot slept o t.

Obvously ths s ot always gog to be possble, but try to structure your work so

that you always come back aer a rst edt o the ollowg day. I you dot have

tme to wat tll tomorrow, the try to puctuate the job wth aother taskaother

edtg job, a walk, a chat over coee. Comg back resh, t ever ceases to amaze

me how may thgs Ive stupdly mssed o the rst edt.

Beore you put the job away or the ght, though, make a ourth pass, checkg

all gure ad table (or other) ctatos. Use the word processors Fd ucto to

search o g ad table (or see, secto, supplemetary, reerece etc.). Atthe rst occurrece, read the tet that s relyg o the ctato to support t. Now go

to the gure. Does t support what the tet says? (A wde-scree motor or a dual-

scree set-up s valuable or ths. You ca have 3 or 4 ull-page documets ope

sde-by-sde ad compare them quckly. It sure beats costatly swtchg betwee

documets ad losg oe behd the other. Or you ca prt out the gures ad

tables.) It ca be surprsg how oe the gure or table says somethg else, eve

cotradctory. I you see a mportat pot that the tet does ot meto, pot

ths out to the authors a commetthey wll probably apprecate your drawgths to ther atteto.


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Work your way gure by gure, the table by table. Whe you reach the ed,

you ca be sure that whe you come back tomorrow, every statemet that reles o

ctatos or support s correct (or agged). Ts removes a dstracto rom the et

stage, whe you eed ocus o the meag ad dot eed your atteto dstracted

by havg to corm a pot aother documet. Whereas tally you took thesestatemets at ace value, ow you kow that they are correct.

Durg the fh pass you cocetrate o meag, both local ad overall.

Everythg youve doe up utl ths pot has prepared the documet or crtcal

aalyss. All mpedmets to uderstadg have bee strpped away, ad the real

meag s lad bare, ready or aalyss ad crtque.

Start aga wth the abstract or summary to reresh your recollecto o the story.

I there are dscrepaces betwee the summary ad the tet, you are more lkely to

spot them ow, because your ucoscous has had tme to process what you read.Te vtal role o ths pass s to esure that every aspect o the tet works together

to create a coheret pcture. Crtcal thkg s essetal. At every statemet that

you read, pause ad reect o t. Is t true? Does t t wth your world eperece?

Is t reasoable? Is t supported somewhere? Does t support other statemets

elsewhere the tet, or does t cotradct them? Uderstad t. I the words o

scece cto author Robert Hele, grok t. I t doest gel, try aga. I ts stll

y, add a commet eplag your worry.

o do ths properly, you eed to have created a md space whch you hold

the whole story ad ca tur over ad eame the varous parts. Ts s the Gestalt.

Whe youre t, you eel as though youre hummg alog a well-oled mache.

Everythg s lucd. Ts s why comg back wth a resh md s mportat. It s

also vtal to uderstad the story, both the dvdual parts ad ther teractos.

Reductosm s essetal to seeg the parts. But holsm s just as essetal to seeg

the whole.

Whe you are assmlatg the varous acts o the documet, t ca help tocreate a metal mage o them. I ts a descrpto o prote behavour, create a

metal mage o protes as they ollow a schema that maps out the process. I ts

a descrpto o drug treatmets to mce, pcture the mce ther laboratory cages

wth deret coloured plls rag dow o them. I ts a descrpto o how water

samples were collected, pcture yoursel wth the bucket ad the sample bottles ad

see whether the method would work as descrbed. I ts a descrpto o populato

statstcs, pcture the relevat coutry ad populate t. Wheever the tet returs

to a pot that depeds o oe o these acts, ts easy to brg up the metal mageaga ad test the ew ormato agast t. I metal magery st your orte, the


18/112


0

draw the cocepts o a scrap o paper. It doest matter how urealstc your metal

or graphc represetatos are, the pot o them s to ecapsulate the key pots as

they relate to oe aother (md mappg s ecellet or ths), so you ca compare

other acts to them.

Buld up the meag pece by pece. Uderstad the local meags rst (suchas key cocepts wth a setece) the lk them to a larger cocept. Gradually

brg these all together utl you have a ull pcture o a passage. I you dot

uderstad t at rst, persevere. Te authors uderstad t because they lved ad

breathed the study or several years, so dot epect that you should uderstad t all

mmedately. Its lkely that you wll have to work o the tet, rst to uderstad t,

the to get t to epress what the authors meat. You have correctly assmlated the

ormato whe you ca take ay part o a passage ad see how t relates to ay

other part; or whe you ca egate oe part ad correctly predct the cosequece that were to happe (or stace, you chage a crease the value o a

parameter to a decrease ad uderstad what the depedet varable would do

wthout recourse to the gures).

Havg satsed yoursel that a passage s correct, move oto the et. I you

later eed to revst a earler passage (or eample, to compare wth a later oe or to

help you uderstad a later cocept), remd yoursel that you have already vered

that passage. Sca the passage or key words to reresh your memory, the use that

as a support to help you uderstad the later passage.

Ts pass wll be qucker tha the rst, youll be lookg at meag more

globally, you already uderstad much o the story, ad you should have come back

resh, so cotradctos (ad cormatos) wll be easer to spot ths tme through.

I partcular, you wll otce ay earler statemets that cotradct a later statemet,

because you have ow read the later statemet, ulke the prevous pass.

At some pot you must do a sixth pass to check reereces. Very that all

ctatos are reereced ad that all reereces are cted (see p 86).Fally, you have serted commets, do a seventh pass to check these. Here

you wll pck up ay typos you made (potetally embarrassg or proessoals

who should kow how to spell), but more mportatly mght be able to dety

commets made redudat because you were able to clary the meag later.


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20/112


was paddlg the kayak: hs couldreer to the whale. o get out o such slly

assocatos, gve the dagler a reeret (somethg to reer to):

WhileJohn was paddling his kayak, the whale approached.

You wll d that daglers le beeath may o the eamples a later secto,

Based o, uder rcky or msused terms, p 60.

I ths et eample, the dagler s by mprovg, ad the setece structure

mples that the aual cost s the actor:

In India, the annual cost of providing a centralized connection of piped water to

households is expected to decline more by improving the efciency of water supply

management than by reducing unaccounted for water.

What s mprovg the ececy? I we reduce the setece to ts bascs the

cost s epected to decle more by mprovg we see that the grammatcal

structure o the setece clearly dcates the aual cost. I act, o oe s

mprovg the ececy. We ca ths by :

In India, the annual cost of providing a centralized connection of piped water to

households is expected to decline more as a result of improvements to the efciency

of water supply management ratherthan reductions in unaccounted for water.

Smply by chagg by mprovg to as a result o mprovemets to, we have

avoded the problem. (Note that ths s ot the same as supplyg a actor to adoptthe dagler.)

Heres a slghtly deret problem, whch I order to mples that the

mechasm o bosythess had a teto:

In order to get some possible solutions to these questions, the mechanism of

biosynthesis of the simplest plant hormone, ethylene, from 1-aminocyclopropane-1-

carboxylic acid (ACC) amine cation radical, was investigated.

Ts s a dagler, because there s o actoro oe to do the vestgatg. Iwe pare ths dow to ts bascs, we get I order to get some possble solutos

to these questos, the mechasm was vestgated. Te oly actor here s

the mechasm. Ts error s subtle, because we ca read the setece as Te

mechasm was vestgated. O ts ow thats clear. Normally, a dagler s

charactersed by a wrogly mpled reeret, rather tha smply a mssg oe. But

we look closely, the mpled reeret s wrog: I order to mples a teto, but

the oly actor the setece s the mechasm. Te soluto shows a ecellet

role or the rst perso:

To get some possible solutions to these questions, we investigatedthe mechanism of


21/112



carboxylic acid (ACC) amine cation radical.

Te rest are cluded or some practce:

The researchers studied the phase shift of the neutrons after traversing a strongelectric eld.

Ts says that the researchers traversed the electrc eld. Icludg the reeret

solves the problem:

The researchers studied the phase shift of the neutrons after sending them across a

strong electric eld.

After three years in ofce, seven out of ten voters are ready to vote for someone

other than Brown.

Ts says that seve out o te voters have bee oce or three years. We ca

solve ths wth:

After his three years in ofce, seven out of ten voters are ready to vote for

someone other than Brown.

Oce youre aware o daglers, you ca derve much amusemet rom spottg

them ad ca the save the authors the embarrassmet o havg ayoe else

spot them.

Filler words and phrases

Filler phrases, such as t s kow that, t was reported that, t s commoly

beleved that, are uecessary. Get rd o them. (See Apped 2Wordy

phrases o p 88 or others.) Smply make the statemet, the make sure that t has

supportg reereces. For eample,It is known that overexpression ofDWARFin transgenic tomato increases plant

height [2].

Ts ca be smpled to:

Overexpression ofDWARFin transgenic tomato increases plant height [2].

Similar cis-acting elements, named C-repeat (CRT) and low-temperature-responsive

element (LTRE), , were reported to regulate cold-inducible promoters (Harker

et al., 1993; Tian et al., 1995; Toms, 1998).

Te act that they were reported s ot relevat. Teydo regulate promoters (as


22/112


vered by the peer-revewed publshed studes). Because the statemet s supported

by reereces, we ca wrte ths as:

Similar cis-acting elements, named C-repeat (CRT) and low-temperature-responsive

element (LTRE), , regulate cold-inducible promoters (Harker et al., 1993; Tian et

al., 1995; Toms, 1998).

It has been reported that suppression of some plant genes was caused by DNA

methylation of the respective gene regions (for example, Jacobs and Mayer 1998)

s rewrtte as:

Suppression of some plant genes was caused by DNA methylation of the respective

gene regions (for example, Jacobs and Mayer 1998)

Filler verbs also crop up all too oe, as show by ths above eample, whch sa log-wded way o sayg:

Some plant genes were suppressedby DNA methylation of the respective gene

regions (for example, Jacobs and Mayer 1998).

(We ca smply ths setece urther by makg the costructo actve, but that s

ot the am o ths secto.) Fller verbs are verbs troduced to a setece to cover

or the uecessary coverso o a verb to a ou.1 Note that a perectly servceable

verb, suppressed, was tured to a ou, suppresso, creatg a vacacy or a

loger verb, was caused by. Ts just adds words wthout addg meag. I:

The appointment of a permanent ofcer will be made,

made s coverg or the coverso o appoted to appotmet. Te setece

s shorter ad clearer rewrtte as:

A permanent ofcer will be appointed.

Sampling of plots was done in September Plots were sampled in September.

The next step is to embark on the formation of smaller groups The next step isto form smaller groups.

But ote that occasoally there s o elegat way to get rd o these ller verbs:

Wester blot aalyss o ragmets was coducted caot be tured to

Fragmets were Wester blot aalysed . We have to leave them sometmes.

1. Calv: I lke to verb words. Hobbes: What? Calv: I take ous ad adjectves ad use them

as verbs. Remember whe access was a thg? Now ts somethg you do. It got verbed. Calv:Verbg werds laguage. Hobbes: Maybe we ca evetually make laguage a complete mpedmet

to uderstadg.Calv & Hobbes, by Bll Watterso


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Hesitancies

May authors overdo ucertaty. Tey wrte:

These results may suggest that the ancestral gene could have been derived by

duplication.

I other words, theyre ot prepared to admt to aythg, ad probably eel that

t was a bad dea to say aythg at all.

Where possblty s volved, t s ot ecessary to use more tha oe qualer

or codtoal. I the above eample, suggest s eough:

These results suggest that the ancestral gene was derived by duplication.

Otherwse t looks as though the authors really aret sure o aythg.

Where a qualtatve assessmet o certaty s eeded, you ca choose romwords o the ollowg scale: mpossble, mplausble, ulkely, plausble, possble,

probable, lkely, certa.

Misapplied modiers

Ts error overlaps the shortcuts error dscussed the et secto. Beware o

apparetly meagul statemets that, whe aalysed, are actually meagless,

because the moder (adjectve, adverb) s appled to the wrog word. For eample,ths headg:

Genomic DNA amplication of the resistant parent

Ts s a subtle error. Pare away the descrptors ad we get amplcato o

the paret, whch s obvously slly, because eve the cleverest geetcsts caot

amply a orgasm. As a term, geomc DNA amplcato s perectly correct.

But the authors were cocateatg two compatble deas (geomc DNA as a

adjectval phrase ad DNA as a ou). What they should have wrtte was:Amplication ofthe genomic DNA of the resistant parent

As you ca see, t was the DNA that was beg ampled, ot the paret.

Colonisation process by a fungus

Ts s ot a process by a ugus, but colosato by a ugus:

Process ofcolonisation by a fungus

Or justColonisation by a fungus


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Ts et s a commo error:

Correlation coefcients between X and Y

Te coecets do ot occur betwee varablesthe correlato does. Correct

ths to:

Coefcients ofcorrelation between

But, o course, correlato coecets or the relatoshp betwee X ad Y s

correct.

This method was based on a plasmid preparation protocol from Escherichia coli.

But the protocol does ot come rom E. colithe plasmds do:

This method was based on a protocol forpreparation ofplasmids from Escherichia

coli.

Note that ths correcto s slghtly loger tha the orgal, but the meag s

correct ad clear.

In order to get some possible solutions to these questions, the biosynthetic

mechanism of the simplest plant hormone, ethylene, from 1-aminocyclopropane-1-

carboxylic acid (ACC) amine cation radical, was investigated.

At rst glace, ths mght seem correct. But lets pare t dow to ts essetals:

Te mechasm o ethylee rom ACC was vestgated, whch smeagless. Rewrte ( rst perso) as:

To get some possible solutions to these questions, we investigatedthe mechanism of


carboxylic acid (ACC) amine cation radical.

As becomes clear, the authors are talkg about the bosythess o ethylee, ot the

mechasm o ethylee.

Polymorphic rates between cultivars Rates of polymorphism between cultivars

Te key word s polymorphsm (ou), ot polymorphc (adjectve).

Detection and analysis systems for microsatellite markers in wheat Systems for

detection and analysis of microsatellite markers in wheat

Te ollowg setece s a eample o msattrbuto:

The in vivo mutagenicity of DE was estimated by inhalation of DE.

I Te legth was estmated by the surveyor meas Te surveyor estmated

the legth, the ths setece meas Ihalato o DE estmated the in vivo

mutagecty o DE, whch s obvously slly. It should say somethg lke:


25/112


The in vivo mutagenicity of DE was estimated in a test involvingthe inhalation of DE.

Iormato has bee le out. Ts brgs us to the et error, shortcuts.

Shortcuts (or everyone knows what I mean)

Beware sloppy shortcuts that appear to say oe thg but, o aalyss, mea aother.

Ears at the stage before pollination and just after heading were collected,

homogenized in methanol, ltered, and evaporated to dryness.

Ts says that ears were evaporated, whch s osese. Authors kow what they

mea, but ts your job to esure that readers uderstad. Make t clear:

Ears at the stage before pollination and just after heading were collected and

homogenized in methanol. The homogenate was ltered and the ltrate was

evaporated to dryness.

Note how there are act three subjects here (ears, homogeate, ltrate), ot oe (ears).

Some weak effects ofAsWLK34 overexpression were observed on plant growth.

Ts setece says that the eects were observed on plat growth, stead o that the

authors observed eects on plat growth. Ts ca be wrtte stead as:

Some weak effects ofAsWLK34 overexpression on plant growth were observed.

or

We observedsome weak effects ofAsWLK34 overexpression on plant growth.

Te pot s the eects o plat growth, ot, as mpled, the observatos on plat

growth.

Collected samples were combined by oret status and organs, homogenized in

methanol, added 13C6-IAA as an internal standard, ltered and evaporated.

O aalyss, ths eample eplas that the samples added the IAA, ad thatultmately they were ltered ad evaporated (as the earler eample). Here the

shortcuts have robbed the setece o sese. It s ecessary to be clear o each pot:

Collected samples were combined by oret status and organs, andhomogenized in

methanol. 13C6-IAA was addedas an internal standard, then the solution was ltered

and evaporated.

Te setece s ow loger tha the orgal, wth the addto o crtcal

ormato, but the meag s ow clear.

How far can the inserted T-DNA activate the surrounding cDNAs?


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Ts s a subtle eample. Te serted -DNA does ot actvate surroudg cDNAs

by a certa dstace (how ar). As wrtte the setece s meagless. Cosder a

sgular cDNA:

How far can the inserted T-DNA activate a cDNA?

Te mplcato s that the -DNA s sedg the cDNA away some dstace.

Te questo the authors meat s:

What is the furthest distance at which the inserted T-DNA can activate the

surrounding cDNAs?

Do you apprecate the derece mpled meag? Te rst setece asks How

ar ca X actvate Y? Te secod asks How ar awayca X actvate Y?

Heres a aother subtle errorthe msattrbuto o purpose:

Wild-grown N. rma were used to estimate the expression level ofNfHb1 in

nodules, roots, leaves and stems.

Ts costructo casts the plats as tools, the same way as a balace mght be

used to estmate weght. Fortuately, the soluto s smple:

Wild-grown N. rma were used in the estimation ofthe expression level ofNfHb1 in

nodules, roots, leaves and stems.

Ts rewrte takes the acto away rom the plats ad correctly detes t as

separate. A eve better rewrte would be to cast the setece the actve voce:

We estimatedthe expression level ofNfHb1 in nodules, roots, leaves and stems of

wild-grown N. rma.

Shortcuts ca be useul to avod repetto o legthy prose (see Respectvely,

uder rcky or msused terms), but ca easly obscure meag ad create slly

mages.

Stacked nouns and adjectives

Te stackg o words, especally ous, log lsts s commo jouralese ad

headle wrtg, ad rampat scetc wrtg. It saves space, but that doest

justy the guarateed obscurato o the meag: t troduces ambguty (more

tha oe possble meag) ad orces the reader to sped tme terpretg t.

For clear commucato, t s essetal to rearrage the words to a descrptve

statemet rather tha a strg o words wth the same grammatcal type. Here s

the worst Ive ever ecoutered (publshed may years ago byNew Scientistas thewer a competto):


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Space telescope wide-eld planetary camera instrument denition team ground

based charged-couple-device camera

Tere are 15 words ths stack. Read the lst aga ad stop at ay ou. It

could make sese, but as you read owards to the et ou, that sese suddely

chages. I the goal s clear commucato, the meag should ot chage wtheach ew word.

Note that the word camera appears twce. Why?

So what s t? What does t look lke? I cat tellca you?

As a rule o thumb, keep the stacks to three words. I pressed, use our, but ever

go beyod our. Heres a eample (a old headle) o how etractg meag gets

progressvely harder:

wo words: bak rate. Tats easy eough. Tree: bak rate rse. Tats a rse

bak rates. Four: bak rate rse leak. Now ts gettg harder. Fve: bak rate rse

leak probe. Whats that? o get the aswer we actually have to read t backwards: a

probe (vestgato) to the leak o a rse bak rates.

Te more words a author stacks, the harder the author makes t or the reader

to keep track o everythg that has bee lsted utl the ma ou arrves, ad

to perceve whch words mody whch other words ad thus belog together. Te

reader s orced to do a jugglg act, keepg ot oly a strg o words the ar, but

also ther relatoshps betwee oe aother, whch ca chage wth the addto oeach ew word.

I a whole strg o ous, ay o them could be the teded ma ou (what

lgusts call the head o the omal group). You could stop the strg at ay pot

ad assume, erroeously, that you have reached the head. Te loger the cluster, the

more possble meags become evdet, ad thats the problem.

Tere are three good solutos, whch you ca use aloe or combato:

Ustack or rearrage the words, usg prepostos: Sheep tests growth

measuremet becomes Measuremet othe growth osheep testes. ur ous to adjectves: testcular growth, ot tests growth.

Hypheate. Ts shows the relatoshp betwee adjectves ad ous: le-tests

dameter.

Heres aother eample:

Validation of vegetation canopy lidar sub-canopy topography measurements

Wthout havg had the beet o edtg ths paper, I would ot have kow that

ths meas:Validation of measurement of vegetation canopy and sub-canopy surfaces by lidar


28/112


0

I geeral, readers should be able to uderstad each setece o ts ow merts

rather tha havg to read the etre paper to get the pot. Heres aother eample

o how ambguty s easy to acheve wth stackg:

Nine trial site soil types were recorded.

Does ths mea Ne sol types were recorded rom xtral stes or xsol types

were recorded rom e tral stes? Te author o ths kew what he meat, but

readers wouldt have. I act, t meat sol types rom e tral stes, but t doest

say how may sol types.

the WHC end function managers technology development needs specications

I ths eample, eeds s ot a verb (the developmet eeds some speccatos),

ts a ou (speccato o eeds). Ts could have ar more meagully bee

wrtte as:

specications forthe technology development needs ofthe end-function

manager ofWHC

Note how the ma ou, speccatos, s placed up rot, gvg the reader

mmedate kowledge o the subject. Te same could have bee doe wth the et

eample:

Overall Technology Development multi-year task cost baseline estimates beginning

with Fiscal Year 1994

whch could have bee wrtte more meagully as:

Overall baseline estimates forcosts oftasks overseveral years forthe Technology

Development project, beginning with Fiscal Year 1994

o summarse: ustack, rearrage, use prepostos, create adjectves ad

hypheate.

Bonus ambiguities for your amusement

Tese real eamples collected rom the Iteret are cluded purely or amusemet.

I you wat to rewrte them correctly or practce, the go ahead.

She has had no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in

bed last night.

When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.

Patient has left his white blood cells at another hospital.

Discharge status: Alive but without permission.


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On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it had completely

disappeared.

By the time he was admitted, his rapid heart had stopped, and he was feeling better.

The patient vomited a little chicken.

Golf tournament: Pzer Withdraws Viagra As Hole-In-One Prize.

Current holdup in disposal of radioactive materials is DOE decision on plutonium

waste being below economic discard limits, and DOE decision on uranium as being

either scrap or waste.

Nearly ve acres of migrating warbler corpses were found on the ground.

Volunteers are needed during mealtimes to assist residents who are bound to their

wheelchairs.

School policy: Excused absences are sickness and death.

Federal investigators are calling on the United States to stop importing food

from nations that do not meet U.S. health and safety standards, saying the Clinton

administration and Congress have failed to create a system to prevent food-borne

diseases in imports that may sicken and kill people.

Ofcials said he died of trauma suffered in the fall at a hospital across town, after

being dropped off there by an unidentied woman.

Police found an unresponsive two-year old boy who had ingested cocaine during a

drug raid.

UWS, Nepean provides computing laboratories for all its students, both PC and

Mac .

Product advert: Another night of sleep without snoring from your dentist.

And in April, a Florida reptile dealer, Freddy Mamba, was sentenced to 30 months in

prison in a case of rare reptiles smuggled from Madagascar.

Authorities said he apparently drank himself to death at an off-campus party and

bar, then returned to the fraternity where he was a pledge.

Privacy Concerns Dog Banking Industry

8th Army push bottles up Germans (a famous headline from WWII).


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Errors of substance or sequence

May authors caot wrte coheretly: some (usually but ot always speakers o

Eglsh as a secod laguage) overestmate ther laguage sklls; others caot wrte

lucdly. All eed gudace.Commo errors o substace or sequece are lsted below. Tey derve rom a

umber o sources: lack o trag wrtte epresso ad logcal argumet, lack

o structo preparg scetc tets, atteto to detal, late chages to the

documet, rushg to meet a deadle, poor plag ad lack o ocus.

Missing information

Authors ca leave out backgroud, eplaatos or data. Add a commet potgout that more ormato s eeded, such as I caot see ths pot Fgure 1,

Please epla why you dd ths or Where s ths show?

Misplaced methods

Some authors troduce ew methods the Results ad Dscusso sectos.

You ca sh the tet to the Methods secto t orms a dscrete ut, or add

a commet, such as As a method, ths ormato belogs Materals ad

Methods. Note that reports that place methods (usually called Epermetal

procedures) at the ed oe al to descrbe all methods metoed tally the

Results. For each result, you eed to corm that the correspodg method has

bee metoed.

Unsupported statements

All statemets must be supported.1 Smply say Please provde a reerece or reer to

your data, a gure or a table to support ths statemet.

1. Ecept uversal truths, t s possble to deleate these clearly. Te statemet Te Su rses

the east should oer o qubble (uless you lve o Veus, whch s upsde dow). But how do weapproach statemets such as Overeatg leads to obesty or Nety per cet o the uverse cossts

o dark eergy?


31/112


Unsupported ndings in Abstract

It s easy to assume that the authors kow what theyve doe, ad ot very what

they say the Abstract or Summary, but occasoal lapses slp through. It s

ecessary to very each pot preseted agast the ma tet. Where you spot acosstecy, sert a commet lke I caot d ths result the tet. Please

very ad ether add that ormato to the tet or delete ths setece. Further,

Abstracts must ot cota ay ormato that s ot preset elsewhere the tet.

Contradictory data

Te usual eplaato or why a table or gure cotradcts a statemet s that

authors have updated ther data but ot the tet. Such errors are commo. Youshould very every statemet agast the preseted data ad check table sums.

Oe, dealg wth the error smply requres chagg a value the tet. But a

commet s sometmes requred, such as able 3 does ot support ths statemet.

Please check your values.

Incorrect calculations

Numbers oe chage durg the process o revew ad revso, or because oroudg. Make sure that these chages are carred throughout the mauscrpt; or

eample, chages are oe made the tet but ot the Abstract.

Irrelevant information

Make sure that all ormato that authors preset s relevat to the topc.

Sometmes you ca suggest the deleto o rrelevat tet.

Unaddressed aims

Most authors dscuss ther stated ams, but occasoally some dot. Usually ths

s because theyve made late chages to the tet ad have ot updated the ams, or

because a revewer has ssted o the deleto o some results wthout rememberg

to ask that the am that led to these results also be deleted, but occasoally the aw

s more subtle. A close readg o the ams ad results sometmes reveals that the

authors beleve that they have met a am, whe they have mssed part o t. I all

cases, a commet to the eect that ths am s ot ully met by the preseted data s

warrated, usually wth a eplaato.


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Lack of agreement between literature citations and

references

Commo errors clude ctatos wth o matchg reerece, ctg the wrog

paper (read the ttle to be sure), reereces wth o matchg ctato, deret yearsbetwee ctato ad reerece, spellg mstakes authors ames, reereces

cted by rst author oly whe there are multple authors, ad multple years or the

same authors ot dstgushed by letters. Rarely wll you d a perectly prepared

reerece lst. Te use o bblographc soware, such as Edote, ca greatly reduce

these problems, but ew authors take advatage o such tools. (Uless authors set

up Edote properly, the mam garbage , garbage out wll apply, ad youre

o better o.) O-le lterature databases ad search eges make supplyg the

correct detals easy. But you caot quckly correct a error, add a commet such

as Ts reerece s ot lsted the Reereces lst. Please add t there, Ts paper

s ot cted the tet. Please delete t or cte t a approprate place or Do you

mea 1994 or 1996? Look uder Cross-checkg reereces by macro o p 86 or

a MS Word macro that makes t easy to hut or all lterature ctatos ad compare

them agast the reerece lst.

Incorrect page numbers in references

Pay specal atteto to the order o page umbers rages. Its rare that authors

traspose dgts page rages, but occasoally t happes. Its very easy to mss

somethg lke 43084039, so develop the habt o always comparg rst ad last

page umbers.

Sometmes reereces are preseted wth a sgle page umber. Ts s usually

correct, but sometmes the author has accdetally le o the other page umber. A

query s order.

Issue numbers in references

Rarely, but oe eough to matter, a author wll lst a reerece wth the wrog

year or ssue umber. Normally you have o way o kowg ths (short o checkg

every sgle reerece the o-le databases), but sometmes a error wll stad

out because the same joural s reereced several tmes ad there s a dscrepacy

betwee years ad ssue umbers. For eample, oe reerece wll say 2001 ad

the ssue umber wll be 49, the urther dow the page a reerece rom the same


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joural wll say 2004 (3 years later) ad the ssue umber wll be 53 (4 ssues later).

A query to the author s essetal.

Lack of agreement between gures or tables

and text

May authors cte a table or gure support o a statemet, but o aalyss t does

ot support the statemet. Te usual eplaato s that they have updated oe but

orgotte to update the other. Cross-check all gure ad table ctatos wth the

correspodg gures or tables. Are they all there? Do they support the reerrg

tet? Cross-check the gures ad tables wth ther captos. Do they agree? Never

blthely accept ay statemet by a author that mght cocevably cotradct a

related statemet elsewhere the mauscrpt. Youd be amazed (or perhaps ot) athow oe authors cotradct or msquote themselves or ther data.


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Errors of reasoning

We are all proe to errors o reasog. Oe o the key compoets o substatal

edtg s esurg that all argumets hold up ad are supported by evdece. Ts

secto dscusses a umber o errors o reasog o whch you should be aware.

Anonymous authority

Ts s a commo allacy scetc wrtg, caused by alure to cte reereces.

(It s commoly beleved that .) But how ca you dstgush betwee correct

ad erroeous bele that somethg s commo kowledge? Ts s somethg o

a judgmet call; whe doubt, recommed a ctato, partcularly so whe the

argumet depeds o the premse that s beg assumed.

Appeal to popularity

A proposto s held to be true because uetal people hold t to be true. (For

may years aer the dscovery that Helicobacter pylori causes stomach ulcers,

may uetal doctors reused to beleve t, sstg that the problem was ecess

stomach acd ad thereby holdg back the advace o treatmet.) Uortuately,ths s the bass or ctg the lterature! However, provded the process o dervg

the act s clear ad replcable (wth the same result), ths s the best scece ca do.

(Scece s, aer all, a work progress.) You could suggest that the author ot oly

state the prevalg wsdom, but also pot out where that wsdom doest aswer all

the questosthus, where there s room or more research, cludg replcato o

the orgal results a ew cotet.

False or implicit assumptions

Begging the question (petitio principii) s the best kow eample o usg alse

or mplct assumptos to support a argumet. I ths error o reasog, the

cocluso s based o a assumpto that s tsel questoable, so the proo caot

be correct by logc. A subtly deret deto says that beggg the questo

meas basg a argumet o the very pot you are tryg to prove. It s a orm

ocircular reasoning. It doest crop up very oe scetc wrtg, but whe

t does t s easly overlooked. Te result s that a author goes to prt wth a

usupported argumet.


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Beggg the questo should ot be take to mea rasg the questo, though

ths s probably a lost cause.1 Whe we hear o the ews Te msters atttude

begs the questo o hs commtmet to the party, t does o such thg. It merely

rases or prompts the questo. (Tk o beggg or alms ad you ca see how

beggg ths cotet s overstatemet.)Te term beggg the questo s a poor traslato o the Latpetitio

principii, whch lterally meas clamg a prcple. A better deto s to

assume the proposto.

Here are some made up eamples:

When did you start telling the truth?

Ts makes the assumpto that you were prevously lyg.

When did you stop beating your wife?

Ts makes the (utested) assumpto that you were beatg your we.

The Bible is the word of God because it says so.

But how do we kow that t s tellg the truth? Because t reports the word o God.

But how do we kow that t s the word o God? Because t says so. Ts argumet

ca go o ad innitum.

[Some species] show greater stenotopicity [intolerance to changes in salinity] due

to lesser tolerance for salinity changes.

Tus, some speces show greater tolerace o accout o lesser tolerace. Te

eplaato smply restates the proposto. It doest epla whythe speces show

greater tolerace to salty, ad comes o closer to testg the assumpto.

Non sequiturs

A non sequitur(Lat or t doest ollow) s a statemet that does ot logcallyollow the statemet t physcally ollows.

All larvae in the tunnels were dead. Therefore the insecticide killed them.

Ts s ot ecessarly truethe larvae could have starved to death or become

desccated. I a large eough sample, there wll always be atural mortalty. So the

cocluso does ot ollow logcally rom the prevous setece. Aother orm o

non sequiturcotas true statemets that evertheless do ot ollow logcally:

All teleosts are sh. This shark is a sh. Therefore it is a teleost.

1. Gve us back our eleve days! (see http://e.wkpeda.org/wk/Gregora_caledar)


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Statistical clumping as evidence

Ts s the dea that because a ew ulkely evets happeed close together, there

must be a uderlyg cause. (Bad thgs always happe threes.) Correlato

s ot causato. Where a correlato ests, the author must attempt to epla t(.e. propose a causal mechasm), or suggest the eed or urther research. Te

occurrece o several cases o leukaema ear the Sellaeld uclear power plat

the UK s ot evdece tsel that allout rom the reactor was resposble. A

mechasm o acto s also requred.

Tautologies and pleonasms

A tautology says the same thg twce deret words; a pleoasm, oe word s

mpled by aother. Te ollowg s a tautology:

Species A and species B are symbiotic because they depend on each other.

Te eplaato (because they deped o each other) s smply a restatemet o

the asserto (speces A ad speces B are symbotc). It doest epla whythe

speces are symbotc, or eve whether symboss s evdet.

Vtally alve s a eample o pleoasm: vtal meas alve.

It s possble that pleoasm s as commo as t s Eglsh because o the

hstorcal uece o Norma Frech o the (Brtsh) court system. o esure that

all partes (Eglsh speakers ad Frech speakers) uderstood a cocept, terms were

duplcated both laguages. erms stll used today clude wll ad testamet,

break ad eter, cease ad desst, ull ad vod, terms ad codtos,

wthout let or hdrace.

I ths lst o pleoasms, the redudat words are marked talcs:

at ths momet in time

close promty

completelyull

naloutcome

generalpublc

generalcosesus

huddle together

tegrated togetherjo together

mypersonalopo

ever ever

new ovato

otheralteratve

revert back

successullyreute

sucientlyeough

violenteploso

AM machineHIV virus

PIN number


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Teleology and anthropomorphism

eleology s the doctre that the ed drects the meas, whch s back to rot. Te

Concise Oxord Dictionarydescrbes t as the eplaato o pheomea by the

purpose they serve rather tha by postulated causes ad the doctre o desgad purpose the materal world. Other dctoares oer smlar detos.

I theology, ths s a vald bass o argumet. I scece, t s ot. Scetsts would

ever wttgly state that somethg estsora purpose, yet may do t uwttgly,

partcularly geetcs ad evolutoary studes. eleology s a very subtle ad

sdous error o thkg ad reasog, ad you as edtor must be aware o the

possblty. Here are three eamples:

P450 monooxygenases insert one atom of oxygen into hydrophobic molecules, to

make them more reactive and water-soluble.

Te eplaato to make them more reactve ad water-soluble s bladly

oered as a reaso or why P450 moooygeases sert the atom o oyge, the

same way as to get my clothes clea s why I put washg powder my washg

mache. I the case o the washg powder, the acto s tetoal (I choose to do

t). I the case o the P450 moooygeases, t s ot. Tere s o reaso or purpose

volved. Te P450 moooygeases do ot sert a atom o oyge so as or in

orderto make the molecules more reactve. Tey just do t. Te outcome happes tobe useul or the orgasm. Chage ths smply to:

P450 monooxygenases insert one atom of oxygen into hydrophobic molecules, thus

makingthem more reactive and water-soluble.

Purpose s ow abset, whle cosequece remas.

Note that the orgal setece s also a eample oanthropomorphism.

We mght thk o athropomorphsm ts more recogsable orm o talkg

amals cartoos, or talkg to our pets, but attrbutg teto to a amateobject or a process, such as the orgal setece, s a more subtle orm o

athropomorphsm.

However, some plants have evolved mechanisms to reduce the impact of

photorespiration.

However, some plants have evolved mechanisms that reduce the impact of

photorespiration.

Te orgal setece says that plats tetoally evolved mechasms. (Te

secod s a smple soluto.) Ts sort o costructo s a very commo error


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0

descrptos o evoluto. Evoluto s ot drected; t s radom ad bld. All

evolutoary scetsts kow ths, but some stll maage to commt ths error. For

eample, a dscusso o amal evoluto, a author wrote:

What is important here is that their external structures are different as a result of

their different lifestyles.

Ts statemet s lke sayg Brds have wgs because they y, whch s clearly

back to rot. Brds y because they have wgs. Selecto o the ttest, actg

o dvdual orgasms wth occasoal geetc alteratos that are due to pure

bld chace, esures that oly those orgasms wth useul eatures survve ad

reproduce. Te others dot. Evromets whch wgs were useul creased

the survval ad thus the reproducto o brds wth wgs, ad thats why ther

descedats ow y.What is important here is that their different lifestyles result from their different

external structures.

Times smaller?

Te phrase xtmes smaller tha crops up oe, ewspapers ad o televso,

as well as scetc tets. Uortuately, t s usually used correctly.

Cosder rst the coverse: xtimes larger than, because t llustrates theproblem more clearly. I my cat weghs 5 kg ad my dog weghs 15 kg, my dogs

weght s 2 tmes larger tha that o my cat. Tats rght, 2 tmes, ot 3 tmes. Why?

We ca uderstad most easly we start wth zero tmes larger. Ts meas ot

larger: you add the cats weght 0 tmes. So 1 tme larger meas 100% larger

(add the cats weght oce); so the cat weghs 5 kg, the 100% more s aother 5 kg,

makg a total o 10 kg. Tereore the 15-kg dog s 2 tmes heaver tha the 5-kg cat.

o put t aother way, my dog s larger tha my cat. How much larger? 10 kgor 2

tmes the cats weght (2 tmes larger). o tabulate ths:

0 larger than = no larger than = 100% (original size) = 1 the size

1 larger than = 100% more = 200% = 2 the size



Cotrast ths costructo wth xtimes the size. My 15-kg dog s 3 tmes the

sze o my 5-kg cat. Much clearer, o? Te mportat thg to remember s that

tmes larger tha does ot mea the same as tmes. I most cases you ca just

chage tmes larger tha to tmes the sze o, but be sure to check the workg.


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As aother eample, a amo acd cotet started at 0.01% ad creased

to 0.18%, t s not correct to wrte Te amo acd cotet the treated plats

was 18 tmes larger tha that the cotrol. It is correct to wrte Te amo acd

cotet the treated plats was 18 times that the cotrol. We could stead wrte

Te amo acd cotet the treated plats was 17 tmes larger tha the cotrol,but ts msleadg. Te key pot s that a rato o 18 s volved, ot 17, ad you

cocetrate o the rato, o reader wll ever be msled.

Now we ca tackle the xtimes smaller than usage. Weve all read somethg

lke Te bre s 100 tmes smaller tha the wdth o a huma har. I a huma har

s 100 m dameter, the 100 tmes ths s 10 000 m or 10 mm. So the statemet

meas that the bre s 10 000 m smaller tha 100 m. Ts s, o course, osese.

It mght ot be what the author meat, but ts what the setece says ad what

some readers mght assume. Tat mght ot matter to may people, but to ayoecommucatg scece, t should. Aer all, you thk about t, 1 tme smaller

meas o zero sze.

I ormal dscourse, we measure thgs terms o ther largeess, ot ther

smalless. We say oe pece o strg s hal as log as aother, ot twce as short.

Whe authors say 100 tmes smaller, they usually mea the verse o 100

tmes larger, but ths s ot mathematcally the same. Keep md that although

laguage st mathematcs, ths usage is mathematcs.

Tere are varous ways o rephrasg such statemets:

The bre is only 1% of the width of a human hair.

The bres width is 99% less than that of a human hair.

The bre is one-hundredth [or 1/100] the width of a human hair.

Te same problems arse wth the costructos x-old larger than ad x-old

smaller than. What does -old mea? It meas a amout multpled by or

multpled by a speced umber. Teres a bay o the South Coast o New South

Wales, Australa, called woold Bay; t has two large sub-bays. I you hear someoesay Te problems are twoold, you kow that there are two parts to the problems.

But what does t mea to say the yelds creased 2-old? Lets start aga wth zero:

Te yelds creased zero-oldthey ddt crease. So the yelds creased 1-

old meas they creased by 100%they doubled. Smlarly, the yelds creased

2-old meas they creased by 200%they trpled. Ts s the same patter as or

tmes larger tha. Such costructos are more clearly (ad correctly) epressed as:

The yield increased by 100%.

The treatment yield was 2 times the control yield.

The yield doubled.


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Improving expression

Scetc wrtg s so oe dull ad stodgy, ad authors have ot take care to

choose the rght words or to epress themselves clearly, t ca be msleadg. Ts

secto dscusses several ways you ca help your authors epress themselves betterthrough cosstecy ad covetos o clear commucato.

Abbreviations

We all kow the rules or abbrevatos:

Dee them o the rst meto.

Dee them oly they are used several tmes (e.g. at least 5 tmes). Dot abbrevate short terms (e.g. dot abbrevate postharvest to PH).

No eed to dee very commo abbrevatos, such as DNA, AIDS, EDA.

No eed to dee SI uts (e.g. m, V, A, J, kg).

Use stadard abbrevatos; dot make up your ow a stadard oe ests.

I wll add oly that abbrevatos should be mmedatelymeaningul to the

reader. Ter ucto s to save space, but that should ever be doe at the epese

o compreheso. A good eample s gve by abbrevatos o umbered terms.

For eample, you could abbrevate oe-baded bee ad two-baded bee(whatever they mght be) to OBB ad BB, but t would be more meagul

to readers you call them 1BB ad 2BB (1 ad 2 are uequvocal, but O ad

mght have may meags) or dot abbrevate them at all. Sometmes, however, a

abbrevato s so well establshed that theres othg to be gaed rom proposg a

theoretcally better alteratve. For eample, I would preer to see two-spotted mte

abbrevated as 2SM, ot SM, because 2 mmedately says two, whereas

could suggest may words; but SM s rmly etreched.

Assocate Proessor Col Hrchse o the Uversty o asmaa wrote: I

my research work I came upo part o some computer equpmet that held me up

or qute a whle. It was reerred to the maual as a ACD. I the crcut dagram

the symbol or the ACD was a a. You guessed t. A ACD s a ar crculatg

devce (or a). (Te Australian Magazine, udeted ssue, 1994, p 50)

Smlarly, the remote cotrol or my televso set has may LAs (three-

letter abbrevatos), ad I havet a clue what most o them stad or. Teyre ot

meaningul.

Te ollowg eample mght hold meag or some readers, but to most people

t would be opaque:


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FSH and RH were measured by RIA and E2, extracted with RTC, puried with TLC,

and measured by CPB.1

Your job as edtor s to esure that the teded readers wll kow what a

abbrevato meas.

I abbrevatos are very smlar, there s the possblty o msreadg oe oraother. For eample, you could abbrevate lower lt stems ad lower shaded

stems to LLS ad LSS. But because they der by oly oe letter (ad total use

oly two deret letters), t would be easy to read oe or the other. I ths case, a

better dscrmato would be gve by LSshaded

ad LSlt

.

Active versus passive voice

A passve costructo takes the orm somethg was doe by someoe, rathertha the actve someoe didsomethg. A passve setece descrbes somethg

sttg aroud watg to be doe uto. Reletless passve seteces ca make

cuttg-edge scece leless, leavg o room or the huma elemetthe people

who dd the scece ad got ected by the results.

The passive may at times cause ambiguity by submerging responsibility for an action

when a more open approach would be clearer and fairer to readers. (Snooks & Co.

2002)

A actve costructo makes the setece more orceul, puts a actor

(removg the sese o thgs beg doe to) ad ca eve use ewer words to say

the same thg a more terestg way. It also puts the actor at the begg o

the setece, where ( Eglsh at least) t has more orce.

Most passve seteces ca be mproved by beg made actve:

Passive: The owers were pollinated by the bees.

Active: The bees pollinatedthe owers.

Passive: The wetlands were restored by Council workers.

Active: Council workers restoredthe wetlands.

However, there are staces where passve s better, where the thg acted o s

more mportat tha the actor:

The Prime Minister was run over by a car.

1. FSH = ollcle-stmulatg hormoe. RH = releasg hormoe. RIA = radommuoassay. E2 = oes-

tradol. RC = rapd thermal cyclg. LC = th-layer chromatography. CPB = charged partcle beam.


42/112


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a dscrete ut (perhaps to dstgush t rom aother cohort; the cohort s) or the

dvdual members (the cohort are). Ether ca be correct depedg o cotet.

For umber o , we ca use a smple rule: a umber are, the umber s. So, a

umber o cattle are (the amals themselves), the umber o cattle s (how may).

Note that Brtsh usage ad US usage der relato to compaes ad the lke.Brtsh usage treats compaes (ad sports teams) as plural (Brtsh elecom are,

the Eglad team are), ocusg o the members o the group, whereas US usage

treats them as sgular (IBM s, the Russa volleyball team s).

Date orderavoid ambiguity

What does the date 10.11.05 mea to you? I Commowealth coutres ad the

US mltary t meas the 10th day o November 2005. I the o-mltary USAt meas the 11th day o October 2005. I Cha ad Japa t meas 5th day o

November 2010. Further, the USA, 9/11 s a date. I other places t s a racto.

Ts ambguty has o place scetc wrtg. Scientic Style and Format

(Coucl o Scece Edtors 2006) recommeds oly two date ormats. It preers

2005 November 10 (or 2005 Nov 10) but allows 10 November 2005. Note that

both ollow a logcal order, o smallest to largest or vce versa. I these eamples

the meag s obvous, as t s November 10, 2005 (but ote that ths order s

llogcal, ad etra puctuato s eeded). But whe authors must abbrevate dates,

the 10.11.05 or 10/11/05 s ambguous ad must be clared.

I abbrevatos, the oly uambguous ormat s 2005 Nov 10 (or 10 Nov

2005). Some people wrte 2005..10 (10..2005), but ths s clear oly you

already kow ths coveto.

Whe you are edtg dates, esure that they do ot ollowScientic Style and

Format, they are at least uambguousthat s, ot capable o beg terpreted

ay way other tha that teded. Ad clarty s mportat (ad t should be), the

spell out the moth ad wrte the year ull.

Be aware, too, that some coutres use deret date systems. Our 2000 was 2543

the Ta caledar ad Hese 12 Japa, or eample.

Exponents versus slashes

Most publshers requre the use o epoets mathematcal usage. For eample,

kmh1

, Wm2

s1

, m2

s1

K1

. Ts s because usg multple slashes1

ca be

1. Ts s a slash: / . Also called a oblque stroke or a soldus or a vrgule. So s ths: (also called a


44/112


ambguous. For eample, W/m2/s could be terpreted as ether W/m2 s = W/m2s

or W m2/s = Ws/m2. Te use o epoets clearly detes the umerators (those

uts wth a postve epoet, such as W here) ad the deomators (those uts

wth a egatve epoet, such as m here).

Note, however, that there s o ambguty wth just two terms. So km/h s as clearas kmh1.

I slashes are to be used, the paretheses ca remove ay ambguty. For

eample, does a/b/c mea a/bc or ac/b? (Substtutg umbers wll make ths easer

to ollow. What s 15/3/2? I what s meat s 15/3 2, the the soluto s 5 2 =

2.5. But what s meat s 15 3/2, the the soluto s 15 1.5 = 10.) Isertg

paretheses wll make t clear: (15/3)/2 = 2.5; 15/(3/2) = 10. Ad eve where they

are ot strctly ecessary (you wll remember learg at school to read equvalet

operators rom le to rght), paretheses stll clary.

First-person science

We have all read seteces lke It s cocluded that Pqr1 medates the daylegth

respose petua. Or It s thought that ths result was due to cotamato.

But t s thought, t s cocluded ad the lke are weasel words.1 Tey allow the

author to slp out o the readers grasp. Te reader cat aswer the questo Who

thks t? or Who beleves t? because the author has sdestepped the ssue.

Fowler (Modern English Usage) wrote that use o the thrd perso oe amouts to

a pusllamous shrkg rom resposblty Te perso addressed has a rght

to kow who t s that etertas a eelg he may ot share or a thought he may

cosder mstake, ad s justly resetul o the suggesto that t ests the vod.

(See also Fller words ad phrases.)

Tere ca be may reasos why authors mght use ths costructo:

Tey dont know who thinks it but dont want to admit it. Ts s sloppyscholarshp. I a act caot be vered, t s o more useul tha hearsay. I ts

mportat eough to be used a argumet, the ts mportat eough to very.

racto slash). Tey are detcal meag. Te latter gves a better appearace whe ractos are

set wth superscrpt ad subscrpt: compare 2/3 wth 23.

Ad whle were dow here, ths s a wasted decmal pot: (less precsely called a rased dot). You ca

use t epoetal equatos to separate terms. Or you ca use a th space. Te choce depeds o

the style gude youre usg; most jourals, or eample, have a preerece.

1. Statemets that are tetoally evasve or msleadg. Concise Oxord Dictionary. See also

Watsons Dictionary o Weasel Words (Watso 2004).


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Tey cant be bothered looking it up. More sloppy scholarshp.

Tey dont want to admit that theythink it or ear that it wont sound important

or reliable enough. Ts stems rom the bele that scece s objectve (see below),

or that ther opo doest cout as much as someoe elses.

Teyre unsure about the conclusion and want some wiggle room in case it turns

out to be wrong. Aga, sloppy scholarshp. I the data are clear, the the cocluso

s clear. I the data are uclear, the say so.

Tats how they learned it as students. Old habts de hard, ad are oe passed o

to the et geerato.

Tats the way reputable journals do it. Maybe some do, but may dot

(cludg Nature, Oord Uversty Press ad Behavioral Ecology, to ame aradom ew oud a Google search). Te best eample I ca gve s the paper that

ormed the oudato o all moder geetcs:

A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid

We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.).

This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest.

A structure for nucleic acid has already been proposed by Pauling and Corey1. They

kindly made their manuscript available to us in advance of publication. Their model

consists of three intertwined chains, with the phosphates near the bre axis, and

the bases on the outside. In our opinion, this structure is unsatisfactory for two

reasons:

(1) We believe that the material which gives the X-ray diagrams is the salt, not the

free acid. Without the acidic hydrogen atoms it is not clear what forces would hold

the structure together, especially as the negatively charged phosphates near the axiswill repel each other.

(2) Some of the van der Waals distances appear to be too small.

(Watson JD, Crick FHC. 1953. Nature 171: 737738.)

Because science is objective. Lets get ths straght: Scece s not objectve.

Perhaps the socal costructo theorsts have goe a bt ar ther aalyses, but

theyre certaly rght about oe thg: scece s a product o the huma md. My

md s subjectve. So s yours. So s that o ay scetst who ormulates hypotheses,

prepares tests, thks about results ad draws coclusos. Every step the process


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o scece takes place someoes md ad s subject to all the eactesses ad

the coscous ad ucoscous bases that are the product o that te orga. We

perceve the world through the les o our ow trag ad upbrgg, culture,

eperece, beles, kowledge ad epectatos. Te world mght be out there, but

the oly way we ca terpret t s subjectvely.We ca argue that a thermometer s objectve. Its a amate object that

respods accordg to the laws o physcs to ts surroudgs. So I tell you that the

temperature s 25 C, you ad I have the same uderstadg o the temperature.

Nevertheless, you mght perceve t deretly rom me. I could say thats pleasat,

but you could say ts hot today. Our terpretatos der. Eve the assumpto

that temperature s mportat could be a bas: relatve humdty mght be more

mportat.

As Albert Este showed wth hs specal theory o relatvty, our pots ovew matter. Ad as Nels Bohr showed us through quatum physcs, eve the act o

observg ca determe the outcome.

OK, you mght argue, scece ought to be objectve. But t were, t would

ot be scece. We

Stevens Subtleties of Scientific Style

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