Hof group SOP 6. Writing major documents
Date created:
Date modified:
Created by:
Second Reader:
July 1, 2014
July 27, 2014
Fraser Hof
Alok Shaurya
Major hazards:
n/a
In addition to the things below, please buy or borrow from Fraser the small handbook “The Elements of
Style” by Strunk and Whyte. Read Section II “Elementary Principles of Composition,” before starting
any major writing project. It should only take 15 minutes.
The paragraph is the fundamental unit of written work. A paragraph should tell only one thing, and
the first sentence of each paragraph should tell the reader what that is. Then the rest of the sentences in
that paragraph should directly support or expand on that idea. An entire paper should be understandable
and in logical order when one reads the first sentence of each paragraph only.
Outlines matter. Write a detailed outline before starting your document. An outline is not just a set of
headings like “Introduction,” “Results” etc. The topic sentence of every paragraph should be written,
and the overall logical flow reviewed, prior to writing any of the main content. See above. Also outline
in detail what each Figure will look like and write its caption in full. Doing these two things before the
rest of the writing will greatly improve the quality of the product.
Don’t use the passive voice except in experimental paragraphs. The traditional passive voice of
scientific writing, wherein all of the work “was done” by an unnamed person, should be avoided in all
thesis writing. Instead, use the active voice always and indicate whether you did it or someone else in
the lab did it. You can say, “we did it” only when it was something done together with another person…
don’t use the royal “we” in place of just saying who did what.
Adverbs are often imprecise and unneeded. As an exercise, go through your document and examine
every use of a word ending in -ly. Most can be deleted altogether without clouding the meaning of your
statement (and doing so makes the statements more objective).
Know your hyphen, en-dash, and em-dash. These three characters [ - – — ] all mean something
different and have unique usage. Look it up. Figure out where each is on your keyboard. Get it right.
Plagiarism is an offense. Never copy or paraphrase anything without asking permission from the author
and attributing the source. Even using the structure of someone else’s sentence or paragraph while
changing some words is plagiarism. Citing the original work does not excuse plagiarism.
Avoid abbreviations when possible: DCM is jargon, while CH2Cl2 is an unambiguous chemical
formula that is almost as short. ACN should be written as CH3CN or MeCN. But, for example, DMF
can’t be easily represented as a simple chemical formula and so using the abbreviation DMF is
Page 1 of 3
unavoidable. When you do use abbreviations of any kind, make sure you define them the first time you
use them and provide a master list of definitions.
Do not use technical jargon in place of proper English. “Rotovapped” and “Refluxed” are not verbs
in the dictionary. Instead, one should say, “concentrated to dryness on a rotary evaporator” and “heated
at reflux.”
All synthetic compounds are numbered, with numbers always in bold. Read any J. Org. Chem.
paper to see how this works. All compounds must be numbered in the order in which they appear in the
text. Each compound must receive only one number in the whole document… even a thesis. All
compounds that are in figures must be referred to in the main text. The way to avoid the headaches of
compound re-numbering after edits change their order around is to just label them all as “compound X”
and wait until the very end of writing before actually numbering them.
Figures need titles and captions below. The first sentence of the caption is the title. It should be a onesentence statement in bold that is the conclusion one can draw from the data in the Figure. The rest of
the caption should tell the reader what is presented in the Figure.
Chemdraw Figures must be made using the Document Settings “ACS 1996” reduced to 75% of
original size before pasting out of Chemdraw. Synthesis schemes get detailed lists of reagents and
conditions above the arrow, yields below the arrow, and compound numbers under every compound.
All Figures should be as compact as possible. Use Powerpoint, Chemdraw, or Photoshop to lay out
composite graphics, and in all cases save as ≥300 dpi TIFF, JPG, or PNG files before pasting into word.
Keep both the original and TIFF/JPG/PNG files for each Figure and give them descriptive titles so
they’re easy to hunt through later.
Tables need titles above and footnotes below. The only lines in the Table must be three horizontal
lines at the head, neck, and foot of the Table. Footnotes marked a), b), c) etc. can be used to clarify data
and describe experimental conditions. Mention units for each column of data in its title line.
Significant figures matter. Use common sense. Did you really just weigh out 5.9112 grams of that
powder (even if that’s what your calculation called for)? Do you really know that Kassoc value to the
‘ones’ place (even if that’s what the fitting program says)? 1H NMR data should be reported up to two
decimal digits whereas 13C NMR data should be reported up to one, even if the instrument gives a more
precise reading.
Spacing of units. Every number should be separated from its S.I. unit by a space.
“254 mM” not “254mM”
“1 M HCl” not “1M HCl”
“298 K”
but
“25°C” is correct (°C is not an S.I. unit)
“15% yield” is correct (% is not an S.I. unit)
Page 2 of 3
The abstract should be written last. Abstracts are not just expanded introductions. The Purdue Online
Writing Lab says an abstract should have: 1-2 introduction sentences that explain topic, purpose, and
research question(s); 1-2 sentences describing your research methods (this may also include the type of
data analysis you used); 1-2 sentences describing the results / findings; 1-2 sentences containing your
conclusions.
Track Changes is a very useful option in Microsoft Word. If you are writing something, especially if
there are multiple authors, it helps to activate this option so that you can go back and see what change
was done when and by whom. Make sure to give yourself a user name (in the Track Changes option
under Review tab) so that people can identify who changed what.
Use EndNote to manage references. It is worth it to put in the time to learn this software even for a
small report with only 20 references. The bigger your document, the bigger the payback for your efforts.
Be careful if you are citing a JUST ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT or a manuscript which has not been
given doi yet. EndNote would put ‘X’ in all the fields which are undecided. Such manuscripts are
assigned doi’s within 2-3 weeks and their BibText is changed, so make sure to go back and check for
correct information to cite.
Page 3 of 3