More on writing

When you write, yes I mean you, you use far too many words and write in a passive voice. We're all guilty of this sometimes, but the student writing that I've been reading lately is riddled with it. Scientific writing is meant to communicate information, not the place to wax poetic. I will ask students in my group to read about three ways to significantly improve their writing and to apply these to their own writing before asking me for edits:

Why My Writing Sucks discusses several common problems in writing, and gives two good examples of problems using 'too many words' and 'passive voice' in particular:

5. Do not use empty, cliche words and phrases in your writing. These include "Generally," "in general," "basically," "it went as follows," "really," "it has been proven time and time again that...," "the fact of the matter is..." Here is a very wordy example:
Bad: It is a safe assumption to state the idea that the attitudes of our forefathers have affected the entire course of history.
Better: Delete the first ten words. Begin the sentence with: The attitudes of our forefathers...(Communicates the same idea much more forcefully and directly.)

6. Avoid the passive voice wherever possible. Use the active voice instead.
Passive voice: President Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth.
The same information, recast in the active voice: John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln.
(The passive voice is usually in the form shown in the first example: the word "was," followed by the past tense of the verb, followed by a preposition.)
Overuse of the passive voice is one of the most common style errors in college student papers. The passive voice is weak; things are happening to people rather than people doing things. Also, the passive voice is wordier, therefore more boring. (One cannot always avoid the passive voice, especially if the subject is not known, or if it would sound strange [or be wordy] to specify a subject.)

One other common problem leading to wordiness and, therefore, confused readers is the overuse of prepositional phrases. Here is an exerpt from Painless Writing:

A preposition is a word used to link a noun to a sentence, and in so doing, related the noun to either another noun or a verb. Some common prepositions that we use all the time in our writing: by, under, for, near, about, on, against, to, with, next, inside, because, during, from, like, over, in, until, across, above, toward, outside.

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and a noun acting as a preposition’s object. Within this phrase, the preposition depicts a relationship to the noun. Some prepositional phrases are: on the beach, near the desk, against the wind, from the beginning, under the table, off the cuff, during his speech, across the continent, toward the end, until the last.

If your sentences contain only a few verbs, especially verbs in the passive voice, and many prepositions, your writing is probably wordy and confusing.

Here is an extreme example of overuse of unnecessary prepositions as well as passive voice sentences from Painless Writing. Notice how difficult the passage is to follow.

Exploring Mars

At this point in time, Mars is the target of the modern astronaut. By reason of its relative closeness to Earth, Mars is being studied by scientists for the purposes of a future mission. In a manner similar to the earlier study of the Moon by scientists, a probe is planned to be sent by NASA to within the immediate vicinity of the planet with a view toward collecting data with respect to the atmosphere of the planet. NASA plans to send in excess of one dozen of these probes during the course of the next five years.

From the point of view of a nonscientists, this proposed expenditure of billions of dollars for the purpose of studying an inhospitable planet appears to be a waste of money and human effort. At this point in time, our own planet and its inhabitants are in need of attention, particularly with regard to the environment. However, on the basis of what I have seen thus far, this concern will not be addressed at this point in time or at a point later into the future.

We must not succumb to this attack of viciousness on our common sense. Of course, I am writing in reference to the concerted effort of the community of scientists, the politicians, and the groups with special interests. We must persevere in our quest to bring this question of social importance to the attention of the public.

God, that was painful!

I bet you would end up with an essay half that length if you simply removed all the unnecessary words and re-wrote it in an active voice. That's most of what I do when I edit your writing. Once you learn to do that too, you can begin to write more effectively.

Writing a professional e-mail

The subject of how to write an e-mail to a professor or other senior scientist came up in our research group today. I'd like to add my two cents to some resources I found online here, here, and here (that you should spend five minutes to read). While the suggestions on these two websites are most relevant for students in a large enrollment general education course, many of the same pieces of advice should be followed when you want to contact a scientist at another university or lab. Basically, a professional e-mail should be treated more like a formal letter and not a text message to your BFF. And make sure you avoid common pitfalls (that will annoy the very person you're trying to impress).

1) First, can your question be answered by information available on their website (or on iLearn), elsewhere on the web, or by simply looking at their schedule posted outside their office door? Even senior students and grad students still ask me questions they can answer themselves. A good example from two weeks ago: A geology major graduating this semester who missed class to attend an optional geology field trip not related to any course he was taking asked "Did we miss the X lab while we were on the X field trip?". My response: "I don't know. Did you check iLearn?". I spend a lot of time maintaining course web sites to make things more convenient for both me and students. Use those resources.

2) Always (always) address the e-mail to "Dr. X" or "Prof. X". And don't forget to identify yourself: "My name is John Smith and I'm a graduate student working with Prof. Jane Doe at State University". Likewise, close your e-mail "Regards" or "Best Regards" and not "Thanks!" or nothing at all. Include a sensible subject line and keep the e-mail short, but provide enough information so that a response is easy. Don't write "May I have a copy of your 2008 paper?", write "May I have a copy of your Johnson et al. (2008) paper that appeared in the Journal of Important Scientific Discoveries"? Consider whether their response requires knowing more about the context of your question - what kinds of rocks are you working on? where did you collect your rocks? etc. It also can't hurt to start off with a compliment: "I very much enjoyed your recent paper in EPSL. May I ask a question about your EBSD results?".

3) It's always best to use your university e-mail account to send these kinds of e-mails. That makes it very clear you're actually a student at that university and not spam or some random wacko.

4) Get a professional e-mail address. "sillybear714@sfsu.edu" or "toadjuice@gmail.com" should be reserved for personal e-mail communication (if you must). Ideally, grab a firstname.lastname@univeristy.edu account, or (if it's too late for that) a firstname.lastname@gmail.com account.

5) Punctuate, capitalize appropriately, check your spelling, and write in complete sentences. A no-brainer really.

6) If you get a response to your e-mail, you need to take time to say "Thanks!". It's annoying to spend the time to answer questions, etc. and just have it disappear into the ether.

And if you're not sure how to write a tricky e-mail, run it past your advisor first... Particularly if there might be intellectual property issues with your e-mail or if there is any chance you might step on someone's research toes. Not sure? Ask your advisor.

Editing marks

Today I'm reading an M.S. thesis and two thesis proposals and noticing some problems in common. Some problems relate to formatting and style, some problems result (despite my pleas) from not having run a spell and grammar check, but mostly because it takes time to learn how to write scientifically. I think many problems would be caught by simply flipping through the paper to see how it looks before submitting (why are all my figures blue?). The formatting issues can be dealt with by following instructions for publication in a professional journal (where you will see a reminder to spell check...is anyone getting this thing about spell-checking?) or looking at a copy of a published paper. I believe the goal for every M.S. thesis should be to get it published in a peer-reviewed journal, so you should write as if you're getting your thesis ready to publish. Every journal has its own quirks in formatting (usually with regard to the references), but the main text should follow the same general rules. I edit accordingly. Hence, this post with notes about editing marks and some examples.

Editing and professional proofreading marks are similar with the main difference that editing marks are done in the line of text and professional proofreaders write the corrections in the margin. Editing marks are fairly intuitive; I had to learn what the professional proofreader's marks meant when I submitted my first manuscript for publication to Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta in 1998.

Scientific writing

As a research group, you are in different stages of your academic careers that require writing specific kinds of documents. I've found a few sets of (mostly) succinct guidelines to help both graduate students and undergraduates: a statement of purpose for admission to graduate school, a thesis proposal, a grant application, and theses. You should also know how to write an abstract.

Scientific writing also requires you to write briefly and to the point. Use an active, not passive, voice. Cite references appropriately and be consistent in how you format the text. I have several books on scientific writing style in my office including the classic Strunk and White. Strunk and White also address words and expressions that are commonly misused (e.g., affect vs. effect; and you can always search Google if you're not sure...).

It is very important to first get the words on paper (or the computer screen), without worrying if it's crap. Then sleep on it. Return to the text with a fresh perspective, improve what you wrote, and move on to write the next section.

Next, read through the text again and assess whether it is organized correctly and try to make the text more succinct: Look for redundancy and remove it, perhaps by combining sentences or deleting sentences outright. Avoid short, choppy sentences in favor of more complex sentences that combine ideas/phrases. Are the sections of the paper or individual paragraphs in the right place in the paper? Move introductory or background information to the front of the paper. Make sure your data/results are separate from your interpretations.

Have you answered the question every reader will ask - why is this work important? Have you related your results to the bigger picture?

You're not done yet. When you have a first draft, proofread it and run spell- and grammar-checkers. Then run it past a set of fresh eyes: both you and your fellow students will benefit by reading each others' work.

Add page numbers, put your name somewhere in the file name of your document (so that I don't have 15 "thesis.doc" files on my computer), then it's ready to send to me.