Good Writing Style Dr. Mznah Al- Rodhaan

1. CSC 595 Seminar and Discussions Lecture #11_1 Good Writing StyleDr. Mznah Al-Rodhaan Book: Justin Zobel, Writing For Computer Science, 2nd Ed. Springer, 2004

2. Good Writing Style Elements of a Good Writing Style: Readability → Understandable Elegance →Interesting

3. Elements of a Good Writing Style Suggestions for making your writing understandableand interesting  1. Title and Heading • Title should be concise and informative using specific terms. • Title and section heading should not be a complete sentence. • Section heading and subheading should reflect the logical structure.

4. Elements of a Good Writing Style 2. Paragraphs • Opening Paragraphs should give the best possible impression. • Abstract should be written well. • A paragraph should be coherent; It is a group of sentences related to one basic idea. • A paragraph should include few sentences.

5. Elements of a Good Writing Style 3. Sentence structure • Keep sentences relatively short and simple. • Sentences must begin with a subject. • Words should be short, direct. Avoid the use of empty, cliché words. • Avoid the passive voice wherever possible.

6. Elements of a Good Writing Style • Do not overuse adjectives. Adjectives can add interest and clarity but too many adjectives hinder the flow of ideas. • When writing about things that happened in the past, use the past tense. • Qualifiers should be used only once in a sentence. • Do not string together prepositional phrases in a sentence. It makes it difficult for a reader to understand what you are trying to say.

7. Elements of a Good Writing Style Words • Misspelled or misused words are dangerous. • Follow a specific spelling. • Use an English equivalent to any foreign word. • Avoid repeating words and/or phrases close to each other. • Do not use contractions in formal writing. didn't → did not

8. Elements of a Good Writing Style • Do not use slang in formal writing. • Avoid using personal pronouns. • If you introduce a term that is not familiar to the typical reader, briefly explain it in the text. • Try to convert plural to singular. • Use generic reference to gender.

9. Ethical Issues Authorship Plagiarism Proper referencing Quoting

10. Authorship Authorship is the process of deciding the list of authors for the research paper. Research evolves from collaboration between experts and colleagues. Some of this assistance will require joint authorship and some will require acknowledgement

11. Plagiarism • Borrowing passages from books, articles or websites without giving them credit is considered plagiarism. • With the accessibility of new technology, digital resources, students plagiarize by copying and pasting information from other sources. • Identical, or nearly identical portions of your own work without citing the original work considered academic dishonesty . Those kind of articles referred to as duplicate or multiple publication.

12. Proper Referencing • The purpose of any paper is to show the authors ideas, not create paragraphs of borrowed ideas. • In academic papers, you need to keep mentioning authors and dates to show how your ideas are related to those of the experts. • Proper references to all the knowledge gained from reading and all the encountered ideas should be given.

13. Proper Referencing • The purpose of any paper is to show the authors ideas, not create paragraphs of borrowed ideas. • Integrate your acknowledgements into your own writing. Give the reference as soon as you’ve mentioned the idea you’re using. • No need to reference common knowledge • Facts easily found in standard reference books • Information covered in class lectures

14. Quoting • Quotation marks should be used when using someone else’s words. • If you use the author’s exact words, enclose them in quotation marks: • For short quotes, include them in the same paragraph, • For more than four lines, the quotes should be in an indent passages.