Avoiding Ambiguity and Vagueness:

Hi every one my name is ….

***

Lets take a look into the content of the pres.

It mights seen that its not much, but well take our time
at the 2nd part
**
But first well start at the importance
**
And well start with defining ambiguity
-which means more than one interpretation/ not obvi
interpretation –
- may affect the referees overall understanding of the
contribution of the paper
- Not possible to eliminate all the possible source of
ambiguity – sometimes – acceptable if a
phrase/word is open for interpretation – but in a
way that doesn’t interfere with the readers
interpretation - also other time – wish to be vague –
 when oyu are unclear about the meaning of
findings
- Typical grammar mistakes – in research papers
brings confusion in reader – lower the lvl of
readability
*****
- Reducing the number of these types of mistakes –
increase the chance of your manuscript being
accepted in journal

I brought 2 of the 3 quotes from the chapter because

they sum up it so well whats this chapter is about

****

Now well jump into the 2nd part, which will take some
time, because the author takes his time to list all the
possible ambiguities he thinks its worth talking about,
and for the sake of our better understnanign I brought
for most of them the sentence egs from the book
because with them is easier to understand h8is point
****

which/who vs that
- which/who – is a nondefinign clause because
Simply adds extra info – preceded by comma –you
can remove the clause and the sentence would still
make sense
- that – Defining/restrictive clause–defininf the the
previous noun– give essnecital info – without
which the sentence would make no sense
****
- Eg – pink in pdf - S6 the information contained
between the two commas is not essential. S6 tells
the reader that I have only one sister and she is a
researcher - the fact that she lives in Paris is just
additional information.
- in S7 I am telling you that I have more than one
sister, and that the sister that lives in Paris is a
researcher. Perhaps my other sister is a doctor and
I am using Paris to distinguish between my two
sisters
*****
A similar problem arises when the author does not use either which or that, as in the next one

*****

But we can put a which after states and we can say This is followed by a characterization of the
states, which are poorly represented at atmospheric pressure

****

which, that and who

- THESE 3 Should only refer to nouns and immediate
precedes them
With that it means that smith and jphn died
because the subject Is separated from verb, but we
make it disambigius vy changing it this way

- So we shouls Keep the subject and verb as close as

possible

****

-ing form vs. that

- Authors sometimes use the -ing form in what is effectively a relative clause (i.e. a

.
clause that begins with that, which or who

- – no ambiguity because ing comes

immediately after the noun
We can see in the given eg that its not
ambiguous at all
 ****
But in this sentence is ambiguous

Because we don’t know who the verb is

refferning to
******
And after rewriting them - S4 clarifies that it is the students
that have good English. In S5 Prof. Rossi is the subject of both verbs (teach, have), so
in this case we need to change the structure of the sentence and use since, because
or something similar.

*****

- ing form vs. subject + verb

- In unambiguous writing- verbs should
immediately be precede by their subject
- Ing – form replaced by active form of verb
preceded by the subject – this will make the
wiritng clear – so lets have a look at the
sentence- you can do this girl

- *click*Clearest way is to avoid ing and

completely replace it with subject+verb
construction
- Beginning a sentence with –ing form –
dangerous – reader doesn’t know who is
 carrying out the activity introduced by the –ing
form
****

- ing form with by and thus

- Showing true meaning – before –ing we inert thus
or by – so the sentence says … but to avoid
ambiguity we rewrite
- /click/– thus(as a consequence) or by(how
something is done)
***/*
- But also we can rewrite this way too – /click/Good
idea- break up the senteces or use and – when
giving additional info – best to repace the –ing
form with and

******

a, one and the

- This subsection deals with the definite article (the), the indefinite article (a/an), and the

difference between a / an and one

 - In scientifigc English – mistkaes with articles do
not usually have serious consequences

Lets take a look at this sentence – which is really

ambiguous and we can detect 3 mistakes
**
- General (no article) vs. specific (article must be
used) - We are talking about ambiguity in general,
so we don’t need the definite article. But we would
say the ambiguity of English, because in this case
we are talking about something specific. A good
general rule here is that if you have the sequence -
Noun A + of + Noun B - then Noun A is preceded
by the
- a/an - We might say one characteristic if we were
then going to enumerate other characteristics, but in
this sentence the main topic is ambiguity and not
the number of characteristics
- Language - We say the English language, though
we could equally say English. If we say the English
we refer to the people and not the language.
**
And we have the a vs one
In S7 we imply that we had planned a series of
experiments (at least two), but that these were interrupted
by the explosion. In S8 no such series is implied. The two
sentences thus have very different meanings.

****

Uncountable nouns
- Countbale noun – sm you can count – one, two,
apples
- Uncountable – in English you cnnot yount – cannot
say an information, these informations etc
- Confusion when an uncountable noun is referred to
in a later phrase with a plural pronoun (they, these,
those) or adjective (many, few)
- Pronouns are in any case a constant source of
ambiguity in English, /click/so the best solution is
to repeat the noun that the pronoun refers to

*****

Pronouns
- We see this sentence … we don’t know what it
refers to so in order to make it clear to the
reader we need to repeat the noun it refers to
 - ***
- In any case, if you use “it” in one sentence to refer
to a noun you have mentioned in a previous
sentence, you may be forcing to the reader to re-
read the previous sentence to remember what it
refers to.
- /click/ so if you think that there could be possible
ambiguity or that the reader may have forgotten the
subject, then simply repeat the key word/or
synonym – we may think is not very elegant – but
clearer for reader and not considered bad stly ein
technical English
- /click/ To avoid misunderstandings, be more
specific
- /click/To clarify, you just need to repeat the key
concept
- //****

Reffering backwards – the former, the latter

- When you refer back to something you mentioned
before, it is often not immediately clear what the
former and the latter refer to.
- /click/The simple solution - replace the latter with
the exact word or words it refers to
 - It is not a problem to repeat words if the result is
that the reader will be clear about what you want to
say. This is particular true if the word that the
former / the latter refers to is some distance away
***
- in this given paraghap we can see that the reader
might need to go back 4 lines in order to remember
who the former is referring to
- Clearly there are some occasions when using the
former and the latter is OK because there is no
possible ambiguity

****

Above and below

- When making reference to things that are
mentioned earlier or later in your documents, it is
best not use above and below in isolation read the
eg -/click/ If readers are interested in these things,
then they need an exact location
- However, it is acceptable to say as mentioned
above or as mentioned before when you don’t want
the reader to go back to what you said before, but
 simply to reassure them that you are aware that you
are saying the same thing again
***

Respectivliey to disambiguate
- Respectively is a very useful word for clarifying
how items are related to each other.
- Most style books recommend placing respectively
at the end of the phrase. It is best to put a comma
before respectively
***

And
- Most languages, including English, have a rule that
you cannot put a comma before and - This rule
has been abandoned by the majority of English
writers as too often it can cause ambiguity.
- If you have lists of items, you need to show how
the various items relate to each other. In such cases
semicolons can be useful
- ***
both … and, either … or
- both … and - inclusive. either … or - exclusive.
The 2 sentnecws show this
- The position of “both” can change the meaning- In S5
there are several students (and professors) involved, in S6 there are only two students and
an undefined number of professors

****
False friends
- False friends are words from two different
languages that look very similar but have different
meanings
- Most common – actually – in English means
reality * another lang means at the momenst –
- ****

Latin words
- i.e. (used for defining) and e.g. (for giving
examples) – they might not be interchangeable like
in the given example – explain them
- /click/The problem with many Latin expressions is
that you may know what they mean, but your
reader may not
- **
- If you are not short of space then it is generally
better to use alternative versions. Another way to
say i.e. is that is to say. Other ways to say e.g. are:
for example, such as, and for instance
- Unless they are commonly used in your chosen
journal, try to avoid other Latin expressions such as
a priori, a posteriori, ex ante, in itinere, ex-post,
ceteris paribus and others
- If you use Latin expressions, check with your
journal whether they should be in italics or not –
only say this
-***

Monologophobia - the constant search for

synonyms
- When you were at school learning your own
language, your teachers probably encouraged
you not to use the same word in the same
sentence more than once, and maybe not even in
the same paragraph
- Consequently, like now you suffer from
monologophobia – the fear of using the same
word twice! – it can couase ambiguity for the
reader
- In the sentence the 3 egs. For the author, they
probably have the same meaning, but not
necessarily for the reader. - The reader cannot
be sure and may try to work out what the
difference between the three terms is.
- If you decide to use words that have similar
meanings but each in a specific way, then you
should define these differences for the reader
- ****
- A very important rule in scientific English is:
never find synonyms for key words - avoid
synonymomania! - Authors come up with a lot
of solutions for not repeating the same word.
One device is to replace the key word with a
generic description of it
- Another typical device to avoid repetition is to
use one or that
- using synonyms is useful for some adjectives
and verbs, particularly when you need to use
these verbs and adjectives frequently throughout
the paper.
- ***
Be as precise as possible
- If possible aim at precision. Instead of saying
something happened in a number of cases, be
more exact: this happened in 11 cases
- A common mistake by authors is in making
assumptions about what the reader will
understand
- This is because you as the author know your
topic extremely well, in fact you may have been
working on it for several months, even years.
This means that you may use words and
expressions which to you are clear, but to the
reader may not be
- /click/So the auhor gives us a list of concise
expressions which we can use to be more precise
- Be more specific in these cases becase they can
be interepreted in many diffeetn ways – (“in the
short term, in the near future a relatively short /
long duration [quite a] high / low number of
recently, recent – bear in mind that the reader
may be reading your paper several years after its
publication”)
***
S1: using ususally - reader might want to know what happens or happened in other cases.

S2: What exactly does attention mean? It may be useful to provide details regarding the level of
attention and what it entailed.

S3:. This is a classic case of when the author knows what he / she is referring to, but the reader is left in
doubt.

. S4: Adverbs such as fairly and substantially mean different things to different people are. They can be
open to interpretation by the reader. Often they are redundant or need to be made more precise

***
And lastly
Choose the least generic word
- In this eg a generic word is followed by specific definition - this type of
construction is often an unnecessary repetition.

- Another way to be more precise is to choose the

least abstract / generic word
- Obviously, there are occasions where you may
want to be deliberately vague
- But if you can, use the most specific word
possible so that readers will be able to follow
you much better.
- ****
 - And here is a quote from the chapter about this
that reads - choose a word that is the lowest in
the ladder of abstraction

***
And now finally we are at the summary of this chapter
**
- All 3 only refer..
**
- As this quote says ..
**
- /read/
**
- /read/
**
- /read/
** and here is aother quote -..
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And there was mentioned cases of ambiguity at
the end of this chapter, were are discussed more
in depth in further chapters, like…
**
Source
**
Thanks