Sample 1
In writing this, I notice the care it costs me not to use certain words more than I ought to. I am
thinking about the word “just.” I almost wish I could have written that the sun just shone and the
tree just glistened, and the water just poured out of it and the girl just laughed—when it’s used
that way it does indicate a stress on the word that follows it, and also a particular pitch of the
voice. People talk that way when they want to call attention to a thing existing in excess of itself,
so to speak, a sort of purity or lavishness, at any rate something ordinary in kind but exceptional
in degree. So it seems to me at the moment. There is something real signified by that word “just”
that proper language won’t acknowledge. It’s a little like the German ge-. I regret that I must
deprive myself of it. It takes half the point out of telling the story.
I am also inclined to overuse the word “old,” which actually has less to do with age, as it
seems to me, than it does with familiarity. It sets a thing apart as something regarded with a
modest, habitual affection. Sometimes it suggests haplessness or vulnerability. I say “old
Boughton,” I say “this shabby old town,” and I mean that they are very near my heart.
I don’t write the way I speak. I’m afraid you would think I didn’t know any better. I don’t write
the way I do for the pulpit, either, insofar as I can help it. That would be ridiculous, in the
circumstances. I do try to write the way I think. But of course that all changes as soon as I put it
into words. And the more it does seem to be my thinking, the more pulpitish it sounds, which I
guess is inevitable. I will resist that inflection, nevertheless.
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (New York: Picador. 2004), 28-29.
Sample 2
The smallest of the URF’s (URFa6L), a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of
phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene has
been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H +-ATPase
subunit 8 gene. The functional significance of the other URF’s has been, on the contrary, elusive.
Recently however, immunoprecipitation experiments with antibodies to purified, rotenonesensitive NADH-ubiquinone oxido-reductase [hereafter referred to as respiratory chain NADH
dehydrogenase or complex I] from bovine heart, as well as enzyme fractionation studies, have
indicated that six human URF’s (that is, URF1, URF2, URF3, URF4, URF4L, and URF5, hereafter
referred to as ND1, ND2, ND3, ND4, ND4L, and ND5) encode subunits of complex I. This is a
large complex that also contains many subunits synthesized in the cytoplasm.
George Gopen and Judith Swan, “The Science of Scientific Writing,” American Scientist 78 (1990):
n.p.
Sample 3
As the name wireless already indicates, this communication mode involves ‘getting rid’ of
wires and transmitting signals through space without guidance. We do not need any ‘medium’
(such as an ether) for the transport of electromagnetic waves. But somehow we have to couple
the energy from he transmitter to the outside world and, in reverse, from the outside world to the
receiver. This is exactly what antennas do. Antennas couple electromagnetic energy to and from
space to and from a wire or coaxial cable (or any other appropriate conductor).
A theoretical reference antenna is the isotropic radiator, a point in space radiating with
equal power in all directions, i.e., all points with equal power are located on a sphere with the
antenna as its centre. Thus, the radiation pattern is symmetric in all directions (see Figure 2.5).
However, such an antenna does not exist in reality. Real antennas all exhibit directive
effects, i.e., the intensity of radiation is not the same in all directions from the antenna. The
simplest real antenna is a thin, centre fed dipole, also called Hertzian dipole, as shown in
Figure 2.6 (right-hand side). The length of the dipole is not arbitrary, but, for example, half the
wavelength λ of the signal to transmit results in a very efficient radiation o the energy. If mounted
on the roof of a car, the length of λ/4 is efficient.
Jochen Schiller, Mobile Communications (London: Addison-Wesley, 2000), 30.
Sample 4
TACTech’s REAL-TIME component information software is able to automatically identify what
part is being discontinued, what configuration or assemblies in the system utilize the part, identify
the common utilization across multiple equipment impacted and identifies equivalent parts by a
secondary source of supply. TACTech is also able to provide all sources of supply that are in
production for each microcircuit and discrete component listed on a programs Provisional Parts
List (PPL) and isolates any and all procurement problems in addition to printing out why the line
item is a procurement problem. TACTechs’ software tools provide component life cycle trend
analysis information for parts on a specific bill of material. All faulty part numbers are also
identified and are isolated and flagged for assisting in the configuration management process
improvement. The software tools of TACTech bridges the gap between logistics and design
engineering for new hardware designs, b7y providing component selection criteria to ensure that
the most state-of-the art type of technology is being designed in. The TACTech software tools
can also eliminate obsolete parts from being designed in and assists with the efforts of
standardization under QPL and QML qualification levels. Any engineer that uses TACTech is able
to obtain a detailed design analysis at the configuration level for whatever program they are
currently working on. If utilized properly, the software tools of TACTech can eliminate hundreds of
engineering hours in manual effort and supplier research.
Dan Jones, Technical Writing Style (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1998), 16-17.
Sample 5 (without punctuation)
George was coming down in the telemark position kneeling one leg forward and bent the other
trailing his sticks hanging like some insects thin legs kicking up puffs of snow and finally the
whole kneeling trailing figure coming around in a beautiful right curve crouching the legs shot
forward and back the body leaning out against the swing the sticks accenting the curve like points
of light all in a wild cloud of snow.
Sample 5 (with punctuation)
George was coming down in the telemark position, kneeling, one leg forward and bent, the other
trailing, his sticks hanging like some insect’s thin legs, kicking up puffs of snow, and finally the
whole kneeling, trailing figure coming around in a beautiful right curve, crouching, the legs shot
forward and back, the body leaning out against the swing, the sticks accenting the curve like
points of light, all in a wild cloud of snow.