Writing Tips

Writing and Editing Tips to Improve Your Writing Our blog posts feature English writing and editing tips written by our editing staff to help emerging academic authors improve their manuscripts and prepare them for publication. To read a post that interests you, click the link below: » "How to Handle Rejection of Your Peer-reviewed Manuscript" » "Tips for Turning Your [...]

By |2024-03-03T08:35:02-08:00February 4th, 2018|

Structuring Your Paper: A Strong Thesis Statement Is the Key

First Step: A Strong Thesis Statement As an academic writer thinking about structuring your paper, the first step you must focus on is a strong thesis statement, which must stand at the top of your paper. Your thesis statement should be a single sentence that is concisely and clearly stated. If you write your paper so that every sentence and [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00May 28th, 2016|

Avoiding Orwellian Language: Writing Rules from George Orwell

George Orwell's Writing Rules George Orwell, in his essay “Politics and the English Language” provided a list of writing rules “one can rely on when instinct fails,” that is, when authors seek to use “language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.” i Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00May 6th, 2016|

Don’t Join Independent Clauses with a Comma

Grammar Rules for Independent Clauses from Strunk & White Using the Semicolon to Join the Clauses If two or more clauses, grammatically complete and not joined by a conjunction, are to form a single compound sentence, the proper mark of punctuation is a semicolon. Stevenson's romances are entertaining; they are full of exciting adventures. It is nearly half past five; we [...]

By |2018-05-06T00:46:47-07:00March 12th, 2016|

Copyediting Dashes and Hyphens

En and Em Dashes and Hyphens One thing editors do is to fuss with punctuation, especially dashes. A writer's use of dashes (hyphens, em dashes, and en dashes) is one of the typographical elements that "jump out" at editors. Dashes, if used incorrectly, can actually confuse readers (not just bother detail–oriented editors). A common mistake writers make is using a hyphen (–) where they should [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00December 2nd, 2015|

To “We” or Not to “We”–The First Person in Academic Writing

The problem: expressing your ideas in an academic setting Many of us have been taught not to use the first person, "I," "my," "we," "our" and so forth (and for that matter, the second person, "you"), when writing research papers. First person pronouns and verbs, we were told, suggest that an author may be too close to the subject matter [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00October 7th, 2015|

Avoiding Sexist Pronouns

Gender-Neutrality: Singular Pronouns "They" & "Their" The problem: sexist pronouns Grammar problems can reflect tensions within society. Consider the following sentence from an imaginary advertisement: Ask your doctor if he recommends CuresItAll™ for you and your family. Fifty years ago, when relatively few women worked as physicians, such statements were commonplace. Now, of course, the assumption that a doctor will [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00July 28th, 2015|

Writing Tip: Which or That?

A Writing Tip: That or Which The words "that" and "which" both perform a wide variety of tasks in the English language. Occasionally, their usage almost overlaps, and there arises one of the great mysteries of English grammar (or rather, one of the mysteries of American English grammar; our British cousins do not bother with the distinction discussed here). Here's an example of [...]

By |2024-03-03T08:15:20-08:00July 20th, 2015|

Readable Prose: Remove Needless Nouns

Nominalizations: "zombie nouns" You can sharpen your writing style and make your writing more readable by eliminating nominalizations. Nominalizations are unnecessary nouns, which can add wordiness to your writing and make it lifeless and indirect. Here's an example of a needless nominalization, based on one of our academic editor's edits of a text. Original text: For an adequate fish behaviour interpretation . . [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00March 4th, 2015|

First Impressions: The Cover Letter

Best foot forward: the cover letter One of the last things that comes to mind when preparing manuscripts for submission is the cover letter, yet it is the first (and sometimes only) item read by the journal editor. The editor-in-chief or subject matter editor will often use your cover letter to determine if your manuscript is appropriate for their journal. [...]

By |2019-08-26T21:05:38-07:00February 23rd, 2015|
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