Books on grammar, usage, and writing
Grammar Handbooks Alexander, L. G. Longman English Grammar. London: Longman, 1988. Crews, Frederick. The Random House Handbook. 4th ed. New York: Random House, 1984. Fernald, James G. English Grammar...
View ArticleNeed to shorten your paper?
Recently, I was asked to help an author shorten a paper by 10% to meet the word-count requirements of the target journal. The paper was already quite short and contained little extraneous information....
View ArticleAdverb placement: Predominantly, mainly, mostly
The placement of adverbs—which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs—can substantially change the meaning of a sentence. You’ve probably run across example sentences illustrating the importance of...
View ArticleDangling “followed”
Pick up any usage book and you’ll be sure find a discussion of dangling participles. Participles are formed from verbs but act as adjectives, and as such, they require an appropriate noun to modify....
View ArticleCompound adjectives formed with “adsorbed” and “immobilized”
Compound adjectives constructed from a noun plus the past participle of a verb are used frequently in English. Consider, for example, the sentence The skiers raced down the snow-covered slopes. Here,...
View ArticleTop five posts of 2012
Is improving your scientific writing among your goals for the new year? If so, you might start by revisiting the five most-read posts on The Scientist’s English for 2012: 1. Adverb placement 2....
View ArticleWhat’s the difference between “extensively” and “intensively”?
What’s the difference between studying a subject extensively and studying it intensively, between doing extensive research and intensive research? It seems like a simple enough question, one that could...
View Article“As a result” as a conjunctive adverbial phrase
“As a result” is often used as a conjunctive adverbial phrase to indicate cause-and-effect relationships; in this sense, it is synonymous with “therefore,” “hence,” “consequently,” “as a consequence,”...
View Article“A” or “An” with abbreviations? It depends.
Scientific papers tend to contain lots of abbreviations—acronyms, initialisms,* gene symbols and protein designations, element and isotope symbols, chemical formulas, and so on—and authors sometimes...
View Article“Concerning” as an adjective
When you submit a paper to a scientific journal, you want the editor and the referees to focus on the science not the writing, which should transmit your meaning without attracting attention to...
View ArticleHow to describe removal of protecting groups
In synthetic chemistry, protecting groups (also sometimes referred to as protective groups) are used to mask reactive functional groups, either to prevent them from being transformed by a given set of...
View ArticleNeed to shorten your paper?
Recently, I was asked to help an author shorten a paper by 10% to meet the word-count requirements of the target journal. The paper was already quite short and contained little extraneous information....
View ArticleAdverb placement: Predominantly, mainly, mostly
The placement of adverbs—which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs—can substantially change the meaning of a sentence. You’ve probably run across example sentences illustrating the importance of...
View ArticleDangling “followed”
Pick up any usage book and you’ll be sure find a discussion of dangling participles. Participles are formed from verbs but act as adjectives, and as such, they require an appropriate noun to modify....
View ArticleCompound adjectives formed with “adsorbed” and “immobilized”
Compound adjectives constructed from a noun plus the past participle of a verb are used frequently in English. Consider, for example, the sentence The skiers raced down the snow-covered slopes. Here,...
View ArticleTop five posts of 2012
Is improving your scientific writing among your goals for the new year? If so, you might start by revisiting the five most-read posts on The Scientist’s English for 2012: 1. Adverb placement 2....
View ArticleWhat’s the difference between “extensively” and “intensively”?
What’s the difference between studying a subject extensively and studying it intensively, between doing extensive research and intensive research? It seems like a simple enough question, one that could...
View Article“As a result” as a conjunctive adverbial phrase
“As a result” is often used as a conjunctive adverbial phrase to indicate cause-and-effect relationships; in this sense, it is synonymous with “therefore,” “hence,” “consequently,” “as a consequence,”...
View Article“A” or “An” with abbreviations? It depends.
Scientific papers tend to contain lots of abbreviations—acronyms, initialisms,* gene symbols and protein designations, element and isotope symbols, chemical formulas, and so on—and authors sometimes...
View Article“Concerning” as an adjective
When you submit a paper to a scientific journal, you want the editor and the referees to focus on the science not the writing, which should transmit your meaning without attracting attention to...
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