Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Sainani Writing
Sainani Writing
Is
One more
fitness.
Crisp version
most
many
agree
rare
the three
cause
because
affect
verb
verb
verb
verb
object
object
object
object
verb
Subject
Active:
I will always remember my first visit to Boston.
From: Strunk and White
Active:
Both human and animal studies suggest that
diabetics have general immune dysfunction at the
leukocyte level.
Active:
We observed increased promoter occupancy and
transcriptional activation of p21 and other target
genes.
estimate
has expanded
emphasizes methodology
Take an assessment of
assess
Formerly
spunky verbs
transformed
into boring
nouns
review
Offer confirmation of
confirm
Make a decision
decide
Shows a peak
peaks
Take-home messages
Effective scientific writing conveys an idea clearly
and concisely.
Scientific writing should be easy and even
enjoyable to read.
Three key principles of effective writing:
1. Cut all unnecessary words and phrases.
2. Use the active voice (subject-verb-object).
3. Write with verbs.
Practice Exercises
Lets dissect this sentence:
It should be emphasized that these
proportions generally are not the result
of significant increases in moderate and
severe injuries, but in many instances
reflect mildly injured persons not being
seen at a hospital.
Practice Exercises
Dead
weight!!
Practice Exercises
positives.
In many instancesoften
Practice Exercises
Practice Exercises
Really long
subject!
Passive
voice
Practice Exercises
The fear expressed by some teachers that
students would not learn statistics well if they
were permitted to use canned computer programs
has not been realized in our experience. A
careful monitoring of achievement levels before
and after the introduction of computers in the
teaching of our course revealed no appreciable
change in students performances.
hedge word
Buried predicate
Really long
+ boring verbsubject!
Practice Exercises
Practice Exercises
SVO?
Whens the
verb
coming?
Clunky phrase
to be is a
weak verb
Practice Exercises
Possible rewrite:
We should review each centers recruitment
progress to make sure its continued
participation is cost-effective.
Further resources
Books on writing:
http://www.nature.com/authors/author_resources/how_write.html
Editorials:
http://www.aacc.org/publications/clin_chem/ccgsw/Pages/default.aspx#
www.stanford.edu/~kcobb/courses/writing