Miscues involving prepositional phrases
Sentences with two subjects separated by “and” can be ambiguous when the first subject contains a prepositional phrase. Here’s an example I ran across recently in a chemistry paper I was editing: Data...
View ArticleNeed to shorten your paper?
Recently, I was asked to help an author shorten a paper by 10% to meet the word-count requirements of the target journal. The paper was already quite short and contained little extraneous information....
View ArticleAdverb placement: Predominantly, mainly, mostly
The placement of adverbs—which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs—can substantially change the meaning of a sentence. You’ve probably run across example sentences illustrating the importance of...
View ArticleDangling “followed”
Pick up any usage book and you’ll be sure find a discussion of dangling participles. Participles are formed from verbs but act as adjectives, and as such, they require an appropriate noun to modify....
View ArticleCompound adjectives formed with “adsorbed” and “immobilized”
Compound adjectives constructed from a noun plus the past participle of a verb are used frequently in English. Consider, for example, the sentence The skiers raced down the snow-covered slopes. Here,...
View ArticleAppositional “or”
The conjunction “or” can be used not only to indicate two or more alternatives but also to indicate synonymous or equivalent expressions. When used for the latter purpose, “or” can be translated as...
View ArticleServed as
It’s difficult to find a book on scientific writing that doesn’t inveigh against weak verbs and nominalizations, and in previous posts, I’ve suggested ways to find them in your papers and eliminate...
View ArticleTop five posts of 2012
Is improving your scientific writing among your goals for the new year? If so, you might start by revisiting the five most-read posts on The Scientist’s English for 2012: 1. Adverb placement 2....
View Article“A” or “An” with abbreviations? It depends.
Scientific papers tend to contain lots of abbreviations—acronyms, initialisms,* gene symbols and protein designations, element and isotope symbols, chemical formulas, and so on—and authors sometimes...
View ArticleDon’t omit needed words
In a review article I was reading recently to get some background information for an editing job, I encountered a sentence that I couldn’t decipher even after having read it several times. It serves as...
View ArticleHow to describe removal of protecting groups
In synthetic chemistry, protecting groups (also sometimes referred to as protective groups) are used to mask reactive functional groups, either to prevent them from being transformed by a given set of...
View ArticleNeed to shorten your paper?
Recently, I was asked to help an author shorten a paper by 10% to meet the word-count requirements of the target journal. The paper was already quite short and contained little extraneous information....
View ArticleAdverb placement: Predominantly, mainly, mostly
The placement of adverbs—which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs—can substantially change the meaning of a sentence. You’ve probably run across example sentences illustrating the importance of...
View ArticleDangling “followed”
Pick up any usage book and you’ll be sure find a discussion of dangling participles. Participles are formed from verbs but act as adjectives, and as such, they require an appropriate noun to modify....
View ArticleCompound adjectives formed with “adsorbed” and “immobilized”
Compound adjectives constructed from a noun plus the past participle of a verb are used frequently in English. Consider, for example, the sentence The skiers raced down the snow-covered slopes. Here,...
View ArticleAppositional “or”
The conjunction “or” can be used not only to indicate two or more alternatives but also to indicate synonymous or equivalent expressions. When used for the latter purpose, “or” can be translated as...
View ArticleServed as
It’s difficult to find a book on scientific writing that doesn’t inveigh against weak verbs and nominalizations, and in previous posts, I’ve suggested ways to find them in your papers and eliminate...
View ArticleTop five posts of 2012
Is improving your scientific writing among your goals for the new year? If so, you might start by revisiting the five most-read posts on The Scientist’s English for 2012: 1. Adverb placement 2....
View Article“A” or “An” with abbreviations? It depends.
Scientific papers tend to contain lots of abbreviations—acronyms, initialisms,* gene symbols and protein designations, element and isotope symbols, chemical formulas, and so on—and authors sometimes...
View ArticleDon’t omit needed words
In a review article I was reading recently to get some background information for an editing job, I encountered a sentence that I couldn’t decipher even after having read it several times. It serves as...
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