Writing Tips
SENTENCES
1. PREFER THE ACTIVE VOICE
e.g., “The detritus was ingested by Capitella,” should be: “Capitella ingested the
detritus.”
You should use the passive construction when the performer of the action is unknown or
irrelevant or when the emphasis is (a) on the receiver of the action ; (b) on the verb ; or
(c) on the modifier. e.g., if the person or thing doing the action is unknown or
unimportant , use the passive. e.g., "Gracilaria detritus was eaten by macroconsumers.”
2. Don't make nouns out of good , strong "working verbs ".
e.g. "Mineralization of detritus occurred after aging. " should be: "Detritus mineralized
after aging."
"Smothered" verbs "-are formed by adding “-ment", "-ancy", "-im", -tion", "-ization".
note that smothered verbs and passive constructions frequently go together.
3. Be concise. Cut out excess baggage. Keep your average sentence length under 20
words.
Redundancy - don't repeat words or ideas on necessarily. Don't give the positive and
negative of an idea if one of them alone would suffice for understanding.
Wordiness - don't use more words than you need to express an idea. e.g., "It has been
noted that..."
PARAGRAPHS
PARAGRAPH ORGANIZATION: ARRANGE MATERIAL LOGICALLY.
BEGIN WITH SIMPLE TO MORE COMPLEX IDEAS, i.e., GENERAL TO
SPECIFIC.
- Say one thing in each sentence.
- If a stated idea must be qualified, do so in the very next sentence.
- Put the most important idea in each sentence at the beginning.
- A PARAGRAPH SHOULD CONTAIN ONE MAIN THOUGHT THAT IS SUMMARIZED IN THE FIRST
SENTENCE.
Words with overlapping meetings:
Absolutely complete
Assembled together
Each and every
Exactly identical
Repeat again
The reason is because
Complete
Assembled
Use either one
Identical
Repeat
Because
Roundabout prepositional phrases:
Along the lines of
At the present time
By means of
For the purpose of
In order to
In the case of
In the nature of
In connection with
In relation to
With the result that
With regard to
With reference to
Owing to the fact that
Subsequent to
On the basis of
Like
Now
With; by
For
To
If
Like
Of, in , on
Toward, to
So that
About (or leave out)
About (or leave out)
Because
After
by
Use single words in stead of phrases. E.g. “Persons who are residents of Virginia”.
Should be “Virginia residents.”
BE SPECIFIC. USE CONCRETE TERMS INSTEAD OF GENERALIZATIONS
e.g. “My pet ran away this morning and a friend of mine found him in an unusual place
on the other side of the city.”
could instead be:
“My pet alligator Hubert ran away and my friend Alfonso found him sunning on a fire
escape at the Singleton Towers Condominium on Beltsville road.”
KEEP RELATED SENTENCE ELEMENTS TOGETHER; KEEP UNRELATED
ELEMENTS APART. PLACE MODIFIERS AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO THE
WORDS THEY ARE INTENDED TO MODIFY.
Misplaced modifiers:
e.g., “We almost lost our entire worm culture.” Should be:
“We lost almost our entire worm culture.”
e.g. “Policeman shoots thief with knife.” Should be:
“Policeman shoots knife-bearing thief.”
“only” can be misplaced
e.g., “Only John mourned the death of his brother.” Or:
“John only mourned the death of his brother.”
e.g., “He only spent a dollar,” should be:
“He spent only a dollar.”
“not all”
e.g., e.g. “All mouthwashes are not alike.” should be:
“Not all mouthwashes are alike.”
Dangling modifiers – gerund phrases – ing used as a noun; participle phrases – ing used
as an adjective; infinitive phrases – to --e.g., a dangling gerund: “After climbing the mountain the view was beautiful.” Should be:
“After climbing the mountain, we saw a beautiful view.
e.g., a dangling participial phrase: “Moving to Arizona, his gout improved.”
e.g., a dangling infinitive phrase: “To save money, the thermostat must be lowered.”
Should be: “The thermostat must be lowered in order to save money.”
Squinting modifiers – when a modifier modifies two sentence elements.
e.g. “Dr. Jones instructed his patient while in the hospital to watch his diet carefully.”
Should be: “Dr. Jones instructed his patient to watch his diet, as long as the patient stays
in the hospital.”
Faulty pronoun references –
e.g., “John told Jim that he was fired.”
“John told Jim that John had been fired.”
BE CONSISTENT: AVOID UNNECESSARY SHIFTS OF SUBJECT, NUMBER
TENSE, VOICE, OR POINT OF VIEW
e.g.,
“John was born in Savannah, but Atlanta was his home in later years.” Should be “John
was born in Savannah but lived in Atlanta in later years.”
“When you look in the microscope, the cell divides in two.” Should be “When you look
in the microscope, you can see the cell divided.”
MAKE SENTENCE ELEMENTS THAT ARE PARALLEL, WHEN PARALLEL
IN FORM. BUT DO NOT USE PARALLELISM TO EXPRESS THOUGHTS
THAT ARE NOT PARALLEL.
e.g. “The sample was filtered, washed and allowed to dry.” should be: “The sample was
filtered, washed, and dried.”
n.b. To make parallelism clear, repeat articles, prepositions, or pronouns, or helping
verbs, or signs of the infinitive i.e. “to …”
Bad/badly
“Bad” and “poor” are adjectives; use them with linking verbs as “feel” and “look” e.g., I
feel bad. Badly is an adverb. Use it to modify a verb, e.g., “The pump filters poorly.”
Can/may
Can refers to capability, e.g., “Can you help me?” May refers to possibility, usually
involving permission, e.g., “May I help you?”
Comma
Use commas between all works in a series, including the last two, unless you are
considering the two as inseparable, e.g., ham and eggs.
Use a comma before conjunctions when joining independent clauses …..but …..
Enclose parenthetical insertions with a pair of commas.
(a)
restrictive (no commas) e.g. The dog that barked all night was shot.
(b)
Non-restrictive (commas) e.g., The book, which was bound in leather, cost
$3.00.
Which/that
Note (b) above:
(a)
with restrictive phrases use that
(b)
with non-restrictive phrases use which or who
Compare to/compare with
Compare similar things with each other
Compose/comprise
Comprise is “to include” e.g. “The whole comprises the parts.”
Compose is “make up the whole” e.g. The parts compose the whole
Criteria/criterion
Data/datum
Due to/Because of
“Due to” means “caused by” and follows a linking verb. E.g. “His tiredness was due to
overwork.”
“Because of” is used with non-linking verbs.
Each other/one another
Each other, when referring to a relationship between two persons.
One another, when referring to more than two.
Hyphen
Two or three work modifiers expressing a single thought should be hyphenated when they
precede a verb. E.g., “The state-of-the-art technique”
Infinitives
(to split) e.g. “to loudly talk” should be “to talk loudly” to “quickly run” should be “to run
quickly”
Intensifiers
An adverb that emphasizes e.g. quite, rather, such, too, very. LEAVE THEM OUT!
Media/medium
Noun clusters
Groups of nouns piled end to end, e.g., “secondary sewage treatment aquaculture oyster
outgrowth system.”
Preposition-ending
Avoid ending a sentence with “This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I shall
not put.”
Reduce/lessen
Reduce is a decrease in bulk
Lessen is a decrease in number
Since/because
Since denotes passing of time
Transition
Also, besides, furthermore, moreover, too, likewise, similarly.
As an illustration, for example, for instance, specifically
As a result, consequently, hence, therefore, firstly, secondly, thirdly