Transcript Basic Scientific Writing in English Lecture 1 Professor

Basic Scientific Writing in
English
Lecture 10
Professor Ralph Kirby
Faculty of Life Sciences
Extension 7323
Room B322
Quotation Marks
• Here we hit a major difference between
US and British publications
• Therefore, if you are submitting to a US
journal, you must use the US system
• If you are submitting to a British journal,
you must use the British system
• But, luckily, you should also minimize the
use of quotation marks anyway
When to use them
• To identify direct quotations from another text
– Short direct quotations should be within the text
with quotation marks
• The hospital spokesperson in Hong Kong said “SARS
is under control”.
– Longer direct quotations are separated as a
indented block without quotation marks
• The problem of gobbledygook in scientific writing is
series. Gross and Sis (1980) offer this example:
It is envisioned that the bases for statistical analyses in this
study will be predicated largely upon comparisons of the
incidence (presence or absence) and/or the rates of
incidence of histopathological conditions in samples from
primary platfroms whose attributes have been carefully
matched (p. 127)
• To identify a new term, a jargon term or to place an
emphasis on a term
– A new term
• This is really also to place an emphasis on the new words or acronym. It
should be used rarely and only if the term if totally new or not well known
– Severe acute respiratory syndrome has been shortened to “SARS” by the
medical community.
– A jargon term
• Here we are using the quotation marks to replace the words so-called.
This again should be used very rarely in a scientific paper. It is better to
use the more exact term and if necessary use an abbreviation if the term
is long and used frequently
– The term ‘pyrexia’ is now used by many writers to medical papers to replace
the word ‘fever’.
– Eco R1, a type II restriction endonuclease (RE) is one example of a
‘restriction enzyme’.
– Emphasis
• Do not use quotation marks for emphasis alone in a scientific paper, it is
out of place. This is equivalent to using exclamation marks
– The Nazi doctors killed and buried all the patients before the Allied soldiers
arrived!
– All the patients, in the care of the Nazi doctors, “died” and were buried
before the Allied soldiers arrived.
US Rules
• To set off the primary
quotation
• Double quotation marks
at beginning and end
• To set off a quotation that
appears within another
quotation
• Single quotation marks at
beginning and end
• Position of closing
quotation mark in relation
to the punctuation of the
sentence
• After a comma, period,
exclamation mark or
question mark; but before
a semicolon or colon
• The above rules stand for
all uses of quotation
marks
British Rules
• To set off the primary
quotation
• Single quotation marks at
beginning and end
• To set off a quotation that
appears within another
quotation
• Double quotation marks
at beginning and end
• Position of closing
quotation mark in relation
to the punctuation of the
sentence
• “According to the sense”
That is, before the
punctuation except when
the quotation is a
complete sentence
• Usually uses double
quotation marks for
emphasis, jargon or a
new term
Examples
• US
– Matthews states that “In his 1997 book, Digital Literacy, Paul Gilster
quotes Vannevar Bush’s seminal 1945 article, ‘As We May Think,’
and calls it ‘the first visualization of hypertext in the modern sense.’”
– The term “pyrexia” is now used by many writers to medical papers to
replace the word “fever.”
• British
– Matthews states that ‘In his 1997 book, Digital Literacy, Paul Gilster
quotes Vannevar Bush’s seminal 1945 article, “As We May Think”,
and calls it “the first visualisation of hypertext in the modern sense.”’.
– The term ‘pyrexia’ is now used by many writers to medical papers to
replace the word ‘fever’.
Or
– The term “pyrexia” is now used by many writers to medical papers to
replace the word “fever”.
Shortening a quotation
• As stated a few lectures ago, do not modify a
quotation even if they seem wrong. You may restate
or reinterpret a quotation in the text but do not
enclose it within quotation marks
• If there is something very obviously wrong and you
don’t want someone to think it is your error, use add
the Latin abbreviation sic.
– The football supporter from Newcastle said ‘The gaffer
ain’t fro’ ro’nd he’a.’(sic.).
• It is possible to shorten quotations by missing out
parts and replacing these with “…”
– Linus Pauling said “Vitamin C . . . appears to be of . . .
value.”.
• Note that care needs to be taken to avoid the word processor
making the word after . . . A capital.
Hyphenation
• If you want to avoid problems, just don’t
use hyphens
• The rules are complex, are changing all
the time and vary from journal to journal
and country to country
• Hyphens have two main purposes
– To divide words
– To compound words
To divide words
• To divide long words at the end of lines, particularly if
the text is justified
– There are many difficult to understand compound English
words
and
a
rare
one
of
these
is
“antidissestablishmentarianism”.
– There are many difficult to understand compound English
words and a rare one of these is “antidissestablishmentarianism”.
• You should always produce your papers as left
justified and leave this problem to the production end
of the printing process
– Do not trust automatic word processing hyphenation
– However, the rules are:
•
•
•
•
Divisions should be between syllables
Not all such divisions are acceptable, see a dictionary.
Anti-dissestablishmentarianism or antidissestablishment-arianism
Not antidiss-establishmentarianism or antidissestablishmentarianism
To compound words
• One way to avoid problems with hyphens and
compound words is to check a good unabridged
dictionary
• Classically, the rules follow from
– Compound word temporary, use hyphen
– Compound word permanent, no hyphen
– Compound word forms a single concept, no hyphen
• The use of hyphens in scientific writing is on the
decline and there is a preference to use new single
term words or modified words without hyphens
– postoperative rather than post-operative
– even antiinflamatory rather than anti-inflamatory
Rules (for what they are)
•
To create compound modifiers that precede a noun
– Pollen-bearing hairs (not really needed usually)
•
To avoid ambiguity
– The food co-op bought a chicken coop
– The animals were re-covered to allow them to recover
•
In compound numbers from 21 to 99
– Twenty-one, ninety-nine (Only if you have to use a number at the start of a sentence
•
In fractions and ratios that are adjectives
– A four-to-one ratio (rather use “a ratio of 4:1)
•
To reduce repetition in a series
– The first-, second- and third-born offspring were larger (Not usually necessary)
•
With a letter or number
– H-bomb (now really a single word) or 5-week-old chick
•
With strings of modifiers that express a single thought and without a starting
adverb
– Green-algae covered ponds but freshly collected samples
•
As a prefix to a proper noun
– Pre-Darwinian (but do see “postdarwinian theories of evolution”, but really wrong)
•
When the same vowel ends the prefix and starts the word
– Pre-existing and anti-inflamatory (but less often recently)
•
•
Except if there is an awkward letter combination, do not use with pre, post, re,
sub, super, micro, mini, multi, non.
Finally, use as little as possible and be consistent, and the editor will
probably not care
Bias-free inclusive language
• People attitudes to how ideas are put across in English have
changed since the 2nd World War, particularly in terms of
race and sex in the 1960’s and 1970’s, then sexual
orientation, disability and age during the 1980’s and 1990’s
• This has created a need to write bias-free scientific papers
• Readers who are offended may just stop reading
• This can be particularly difficult for persons who are not
English 1st language because the implications of a particular
word may not be obvious even from a dictionary
– The classic here is “gay”
– If I said to you in 1930, “I am gay”, You would immediately assume
that I’m actively happy”
– If I said to you in 1970 in the San Franscico, “I am gay”, you would
assume that I am homosexual
– If I said to you in 1970 in Detroit or London, “I am gay”, you would
wonder if I was happy or if I had decided to “come out”
– If I said to you in 2003 anywhere in the world, “I am gay”, you know
that I am telling you my sexual orientation and wonder why I get
offended when you as a man make a pass at me
Approaches
• Use language inclusively and avoid specifying any
unnecessary differences
– Do not use “man” to mean members of the human race. This is
because it assumes that anyone is male unless proven to be
female
• Rather use “men and women”, “human beings”, “persons”, “people”
depending on the context.
– Do not use Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss as part of a persons name
• Interestingly, many websites force the use of Mr and Ms to get
information on the sex of users which is wrong
– Do not use black or white or any similar term to designate race.
Even Chinese, Indian or African as racial adjectives are not
acceptable. “A Chinese” as a person from China is OK. “An
African” as a person from Africa is OK. But not a Chinese man, or
an African woman. However, these are not racial but geographic.
Thus a Caucasian born in Africa is an African (my brother-in-law
and all of his children) and a Caucasian born in India is an Indian
(my wife and her sister)
• Rather use a proper racial description if at all possible such
Caucasian, Indo-European, Native-American or Sioux. However, even
here we can have problems “Australian aborigine” is now becoming
unacceptable and “Native-American” is becoming “First Nation”
Approaches
• Be sensitive to what you call groups of people
– Do not categorize and make into objects
• The elderly or the demented or the sick
• Avoid a term like “normal” for a group, it implies the other group is
abnormnal
• Avoid a term like “borderline” as it implies many other ideas with
respect to mental and physical attributes
• Avoid emotional words
– such as “victims” as in “stroke victims” or “accident victims”
– such as “confined” as in “confined to a wheelchair”
– Find others ways to say it “individual who have had a stroke” and
“person who use a wheelchair”
– One problem is “suffered”. The norm in medicine is to say “This
person suffered from SARS”. This means really “This person was
infected with SARS”. Try to use the latter but sometimes “suffered”
cannot be avoided, for example, “the patient suffered a severe
stroke” feels better to me than “the patient had a severe stroke”
Alternatives to “sexist” language
– Because English lacks a gender neutral singular pronoun, this
can be difficult
– Alternatives
• Move to a gender neutral term
– instead of: man; mankind; manpower; people; man on the street;
spokesman; policeman; stewardess
– use human race; humankind; workforce; average person; speaker; police
officer; flight attendant
• Use a plural construction
– The patient was required to take his medication every day
– The patients were required to take their medication every day
• Replace the third person singular with an article, if possible
– The author sent in his manuscript
– The author sent in the manuscript
• Address persons using you rather than his or her
– The nurse must be sure that she disposes of needles carefully
– Nurses must dispose of needles carefully
• Use the passive, but as a last resort
– Each person such have received his timetable
– Timetables should have been received by everyone
• Do not go too far
– For example, replacing “motherboard” by “parentboard”. It has been done