Technical Writing for Researchers and Graduate Students

Technical Writingfor Researchers and Graduate Students Spring 2003 Lincoln Campus Instructor: Deborah Derrick

Unit 4: Style and Usage OUTLINE OF TOPICS • Writing effective paragraphs • Breaking up long sentences • Making choppy writing flow • Emphasizing the active voice • Writing with economy • Being careful with modifiers • Making words agree with each other

1. Effective paragraphs • Paragraphs are the main building blocks of writing. • When they are written tightly, they advance your thoughts in clear stages.

Effective paragraphs • A well-structured paragraph has: • A topic sentence or main idea • One or more supporting sentences that develop the idea by means of description, narration, exemplification, or analysis.

Effective paragraphs • The example in your handout, page 1, shows a pair of paragraphs with topic and supporting sentences that are linked together by a series of keywords (KW).

Effective paragraphs Use these 3 organizing principles to write paragraphs: • Unity • Development • Coherence

Effective paragraphs 1. Unity • Focus on a topic that will unify the content of the paragraph. • Do not shift to new topics in mid-paragraph!

Effective paragraphs 2. Development • Advance the topic by means of some expository strategy such as: • Description • Narrative • Exemplification (giving examples) • Definition • Comparison and contrast • Analysis

Effective paragraphs 3. Coherence • Make the paragraph sentences “hang” together through various linking strategies: • Keywords • Demonstrative pronouns • Transitions

2. Break up long sentences • Long, dense sentences, often amounting to more than 30 words, may contain more information than a reader can easily understand. • Determine the main actions of the sentence. • Then sort these into two or more shorter sentences.

Break up long sentences • Example of long, awkward sentence • “In gasoline engines, designers leave a space between the piston and its cylinder that contributes to the exhaust emission problem, because as the engine is started and begins to heat up, the cylinder liner, which is directly cooled by a surrounding coolant, expands more slowly than the piston, which allows exhaust gases to escape.” [Length: 54 words. This sentence is too long and has too many clauses/ideas.]

Break up long sentences • Improved sentence • “Gasoline engine designers leave a space between the piston and its cylinder that contributes to the exhaust emission problem. At startup, when the engine begins to heat up, this space allows the cylinder to expand rapidly without damaging the more slowly expanding cylinder liner, which is directly cooled by a surrounding coolant. The space, however, also allows exhaust gases to escape.” [Length: 61 words.]

3. Make choppy writing flow • Choppy sentences interrupt the smooth flow of thought, and they can be repetitious. • Combine overly short sentences by using: • Transitional words • Coordinating conjunctions (e.g., and, yet, but, nor, or) • Subordinating conjunctions (e.g., unless, since, because, if, when)

Make choppy writing flow • See your handout, page 3, for an example of choppy writing and how to improve it.

4. Emphasize the active voice • Overusing the passive voice can lead to indirect, wordy prose. • The passive voice inverts the straight agent-action-thing acted upon (i.e., subject-verb-direct object) sequence of the sentence. The thing acted upon becomes the subject of the sentence.

Emphasize the active voice • Example • Enzymes break down proteins. (active) • Proteins are broken down by enzymes. (passive) • Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the active verb break down is more direct and simple than the passive verb is broken down. • Thus, the word order of the direct sentence is easier to process.

Emphasize the active voice • Passive/indirect writing • Different types of protein are broken down by different enzymes, and starch is dismantled by still other enzymes into its constituent sugar molecules. • Active/direct writing • Different enzymes break down different types of protein, and still other enzymes dismantle starch into its constituent sugar molecules.

Emphasize the active voice • The question of using the passive voice is often a matter of emphasis. • The writer of the sentence we just looked at who is discussing proteins and wants to keep protein as the subject will choose the passive form. • The writer who wants to maintain sentence focus on enzymes will choose the active form, which makes enzymes the subject.

Emphasize the active voice • Here are some examples in which the passive voice leads to awkward, wordy, or ambiguous expressions. • Awkward passive • “A heat barrier installation has been carried out by the plant maintenance crew.” • Improved • “The plant maintenance crew installed a heat barrier.”

Emphasize the active voice • Wordy passive • “The cost of the filtration system was found by the research team to be justified, because a greater efficiency in the performance of the instrument was obtained.” [27 words] • Improved • “The research team justified the cost of the filtration system with the instrument’s greater efficiency.” [15 words]

Emphasize the active voice • Ambiguous passive • “Sensing information must be provided manually when the device is in the manual mode.” [Not clear who is doing what here.] • Improved • “The shift operator must provide sensing information manually when the device is in the manual mode.”

5. Write with economy • Writers often draft wordy, convoluted prose that needs to be condensed. • Cutting unnecessary words and phrases improves the clarity and impact of your writing.

Write with economy • Wordy writing • “The cooling of the thermal unit is accomplished by using electric fans which are run every other hour during the day.” [The “empty” verbs accomplish and run may be eliminated without loss of meaning.] • Improved • “The thermal unit is cooled with electric fans every other hour during the day.”

Write with economy • Wordy • “An increase in water volume would have the effect of reducing the stability of the slope along the north wall of the power plant.” [The phrase “have the effect of” contributes nothing to the sentence meaning.] • Better • “Increased water volume would reduce slope stability along the power plant’s north wall.”

Write with economy • Wordy • “There was a secondary stress that was identified with the stress caused by constrained thermal expansion of the pipe fitting.” [Avoid empty clauses like there is or there was at the start of sentences. Note also the repetitious use of stress.] • Better • “A secondary stress was caused by constrained thermal expansion of the pipe fitting.”

Write with economy • Wordiness sometimes originates in words and phrases that repeat what has already been stated or implied in the sentence. For example: • Repetitious verbs • “Ring currents were observed and demonstrated to play a role in fullerene magnetism.” • [Improved: “…were demonstrated to play…”]

Write with economy • Repetitious sentence complements • Example: “Mouse and human receptors are so different and distinct that…” • Different and distinct have the same meaning. • Improved: “Mouse and human receptors are so different that…”

Write with economy • Repetitious ideas • Example: “The main cost of the hydro unit is determined by the costs of the catalyst and the frequency of its replacement. Catalyst life also is the major factor on the overall economics of operating the hydro unit.” • Both sentences note that replacing the catalyst is the main operating cost of the unit in question. • Improved: “Catalyst life largely determines the economics of the hydro unit, because its main cost is catalyst replacement.”

INSTEAD OF: A large number of As a general rule As shown in Table 6 As yet At all times At this point in time By means of USE: Many Generally Table 6 shows Yet Always At this time, now By Write with economy

INSTEAD OF: Hold a meeting In order to In the event that In the course of Is equipped with It is clear that On the basis of With the result that USE: Meet To If During, while Has, contains Clearly By, from So that Write with economy

6. Be careful with modifiers • Science and technical prose depends heavily on modification to achieve accuracy. Thus, writers often stack up modifiers in front of the main noun. • The effect is not accuracy but ambiguity. The reader has to work out which words are modifying other words in the stack.

Be careful with modifiers • Example: “underground plant effluent soil contamination” • The adjective underground could be modifying either plant or contamination. • The phrase could be referring either to “contamination from an underground plant” or to “underground contamination from an above-ground plant.”

Be careful with modifiers • To resolve this ambiguity, put some of the modifying information after the main noun: • “underground soil contamination by a plant effluent.”

Be careful with modifiers • Stacked modifier • Large low-cost central receiver electricity generating power plants could significantly alter local desert climates by modifying their radiation balances. • [The main subject, plants, is modified by 8 preceding words. Do the adjectives large and low-cost, for example, apply to receiver or to plants?]

Be careful with modifiers • Improved • Large electricity-generating power plants of the low-cost central receiver type could significantly alter local desert climates by modifying their radiation balances. • [Some of the modifiers have been shifted to the phrase that follows the main subject.]

Be careful with modifiers • Stacked modifier • “A contributing cause of the accident was the poor communication among health protection and environmental safety group personnel and operations management.” • [The 6 modifiers in front of personnel make it hard to tell how many groups are implicated in this sentence.

Be careful with modifiers • Improved • “A contributing cause of the accident was the poor communication among the personnel of the health protection group, the environmental safety group, and operations management.” [3 groups] • Alternate improvement • “A contributing cause of the accident was the poor communication between the personnel of the health protection and environmental safety group and operations management.” [2 groups]

Be careful with modifiers • Place modifiers close to the words they modify. • A modifier is ambiguous when it is not closely linked to the item it is modifying. • Don’t put modifying words and phrases into out-of-the-way places in the sentence.

Be careful with modifiers • Misplaced modifying phrase • “The storage drums showed signs of deterioration that could be seen under severe corrosion.” [The phrase under severe corrosion appears to be modifying seen rather than drums.] • Improved • “The storage drums, which were severely corroding, showed visible signs of deterioration.”

Be careful with modifiers • Dangling modifiers are errors in logic. • In dangling modifiers, a word or phrase modifies a noun that is not the target. • Example: “Walking down the street, the tall buildings came into view.” • Here, the writer is suggesting that the tall buildings are out for a walk!

Be careful with modifiers • Dangling modifier • “By carefully adjusting the reflecting surface spacing, the desired transmission wavelength can be isolated. [The action of adjusting the spacing is misattributed to wavelength, which is the subject of the main clause.] • Improved • “By carefully adjusting the reflecting surface spacing, we can isolate the desired transmission wavelength.” [The action of adjusting the surface is now attributed to the actual agent, we.]

7. Word agreement • Make words related by number, pronoun reference, and case agree with each other. • A plural subject requires a plural verb. • A plural noun-referent requires a plural pronoun. • A pronoun must agree with the case in which it is used.

Word agreement • Subject-verb agreement: • Wrong: “The mixture of methanol and water used in the process were then recovered and distilled for further recycling.” • [The subject is mixture, which is singular and takes a singular verb.] • Improved: “The mixture of methanol and water used in the process was then recovered and distilled for further recycling.”

Word agreement • Collective nouns such as committee and team are treated as singular. • Wrong: “The five-nation Interstate Council for the Aural Sea have called for an increased cubic kilometer flow of water into the Aural basin. [Council is treated as a singular noun and should take a singular verb.] • Correct: “The five-nation Interstate Council for the Aural Sea has called for an increased…”

Word agreement • It is easy to mistake number agreement when the first part of your sentence uses a pronoun for its subject and is followed by a modifying phrase.

Word agreement • Wrong: “Each of the casings are constructed from 9 percent nickel steel, because they must withstand constant temperatures as low as -320º F.” • [Each, the subject of the sentence, is singular and requires a singular verb, is constructed. The second pronoun, they, also does not agree with its referent, each.] • Improved: “The casings are constructed from 9 percent nickel steel, because they must withstand constant temperatures as low as -320º F.”

On Wednesday: • Overusing the word “and” • Handling pronouns imprecisely • Using too many prepositions • Being redundant • Missing articles (a, an, the)

Technical Writing for Researchers and Graduate Students