Ken Lertzman
Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, Vol. 76, No. 2 (Jun., 1995), pp. 86-90
Published by: Ecological Society of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20167913
Dr. Lertzman outlines common problems that he has found in scientific writing from his students. These problems give you insight into what someone who has reviewed many these, papers, and articles has found as common problems. He offers 21 notes to keep in mind when writing.
1) Know your audience - You must adopt a style and level of writing appropriate for your audience.
- Scientific writing is not "general purpose" and should not be tailored to be understood by everyone.
- For class papers your audience is your professor. I would extend it to the other people in your graduate seminar.
- For Journals it will be the people who read the journal. (ie Geomorphology would be read by geomorphologists.)
Think about it, you want them to use your time together to make progress with you in your research. Use someone else to fix grammer and spelling.
3) Don't turn in your first draft
I was surprised that he even had this in here. However he did say one thing that stuck with me: "Good writing is rewriting." So I understood this section is that you need to rework your writing over and over. That is how excellent writing emerges.
4) Get and use style books
5) Avoid passive constructions when possible.
Avoid passive voice. It is unclear. It is better to use a personal pronoun then to use the passive.
6) Avoid abusing word forms
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