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.

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.