Style Guidelines
Adjective Punctuation
Chem 241A
April 6, 2012

Efficient English Style Targets
(page 41)
Sentences/paragraph > 7
Average words/sentence
Mechanical errors/sentence
Prepositions/sentence
12 - 15
0
1.5
Large standard deviation
Prepositions/verb < 0.5
Small standard deviation
Small standard deviation
Verbs
Sentence structure/ paragraph
Sentence type/ paragraph
85% active voice
3 - 4
3-4

Readability Scores
Flesh Reading Ease
Flesh Readability Ease
Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level Score
Automatically calculated by MS Word
Quick, useful tools.

Due Monday April 9
200-word* paragraph describing your ideal lab
Use action verbs in the active voice
Double space
Print readability statistics
* maximum length (fewer words acceptable)

Adjective Punctuation
(page 37)
Commas
Commas separate coordinate adjectives of equal rank.
Coordinate adjectives can be separated with the word ‘ and ’ or reversed in order without changing meaning.
Roberto is a warm, gentle, affectionate father

Adjective Punctuation
Hyphens
Hyphens join compound adjectives so that the adjective has a new meaning.
dipole-dipole interactions home-grown tomatoes warm-winter coat foil-wrapped container thirty-first floor

Cumulative adjectives without a comma
A rich chocolate layer cake
Layer cake
And it is chocolate
And it is rich
Can’t say
A layer chocolate rich cake

Order of Cumulative
Adjectives

Coordinate adjectives separated by a comma
He is a second-generation, Spanish-speaking
American.
(The parents of the person described were born in the
United States. He knows Spanish. No information is given about his parents' language skills or his nationality.) or
He is a Spanish-speaking, second-generation
American.

Cumulative adjectives without a comma
He is a second-generation Spanish-speaking
American.
(The person described is a second-generation
American; both he and his parents speak
Spanish.) not the same as
He is a Spanish-speaking second-generation
American.
(adding commas give clarity)

Importance of adjective punctuation
We have a live virus infected mouse.
What is living? The virus or the mouse?
We have a live, virus-infected mouse.
We have a live-virus infected mouse.

Industrial example
The hot caustic corroded reactor failed.
What temperature is the reactor and what caused the corrosion?
The hot, caustic-corroded reactor failed.
The hot-caustic, corroded reactor failed.
=
The corroded, hot-caustic reactor failed

Compound Adjectives forty-five grams one-half ton
English-American agreement second-generation process three-year-old pump
100-mL flask

Hyphen Use
Do not use hyphens with adverbs that end in -ly or when the compound adjective follows the noun.
This is first-rate science
His science is first rate.
Always use hyphens when the dictionary does; for example, the adjective "up-to-date" always has hyphens.

Hyphen Use
He is a highly regarded scientist.
We used a finely polished die.
We sailed the 20-foot boat.
The boat we used was 20 feet.
We practice up-to-date research methods.
Our research methods are up-to-date.
Well-made reactor

Hyphen Misuse
Menu Item
Baby-stuffed flounder
(I did not order it!!!!)

Assignments due 4/9
(1) Complete the adjective punctuation exercises on pages 44 and 45. Make a copy to hand in. Bring original and manual to class
(2) Paragraph on your ideal lab