100 Tips To Avoid Mistakes In Academic Writing And Presenting

Who is this book for?......Page 6
What kinds of written mistakes does the book focus on?......Page 7
How is the book structured?......Page 8
Free downloadable materials......Page 9
Contents......Page 10
1 Whole paper: Concentrate above all on readability; grammar is generally less important.......Page 16
2 Titles: Ensure your title as specific as possible. Delete unnecessary words.......Page 18
3 Titles: Avoid ‘clever’ titles.......Page 20
4 Abstracts: Be concise - especially in the first sentence.......Page 21
5 Abstracts: Don’t begin the abstract with non key words.......Page 22
6 Abstracts: Make it clear why the purpose of your investigation is important.......Page 23
7 Abstracts: Clearly differentiate between the state-of-the-art and what you did in your research.......Page 24
8 Structured Abstracts - Background: Be careful of tense usage.......Page 26
9 Abstracts: When writing a single paragraph, write it like a'structured abstract'.......Page 27
10 Abstract and Introduction: Avoid the word'attempt' and avoid making bold statements beginning with 'this is the first …".......Page 29
11 Introduction: Avoid information that readers will already be very familiar with.......Page 30
12 Introduction: Describe the structure of your paper in a way that enables readers to navigate the paper easily.......Page 32
13 Review of the literature: prioritize clarity over consistency when deciding what tense to use.......Page 33
14 Review of the Literature and Discussion: Think about whether the first few words of a sentence add value for the reader or not. Be as concise as possible.......Page 34
15 Review of the literature and Discussion: Delete all unnecessary verbs.......Page 35
16 Methods: Use the past to describe what you did, but use the present to describe any protocols / regulations / typical steps.......Page 36
17 Methods: Be careful to use the right tense in a which clause when a series of steps are being described.......Page 37
18 Methods: Indicate the sequence of steps by putting firstly, secondly, finally etc at the beginning of the sentences.......Page 38
19 Methods: Put the steps in chronological order. Put dates at the beginning.......Page 39
20 Results: Ensure the reader understands whether you are talking about your results or what has already been established by others. Generally speaking, use the past tense to report your results.......Page 40
21 Results: Do not write long descriptions of your results if these could easily be put in a table. And do not repeat information that is clearly shown in a table, instead interpret it.......Page 42
22 Tables: Use the simple present to describe what the table does, and the past to discuss what the table shows.......Page 43
23 Tables: In captions, and when referring to figures and tables, use the least words possible.......Page 44
24 Tables: Avoid redundancy by avoiding repetitions.......Page 45
THE DISCUSSION......Page 46
25 Limitations: Don't finish your paper by talking about your limitations. Consider relocating the limitations to earlier in the Conclusions, or to the Discussion.......Page 47
26 Limitations: Don't just list your limitations, justify them.......Page 48
27 Conclusions: Don't write your Conclusions in a hurry.......Page 49
28 Conclusions: End with something memorable and comprehensible.......Page 50
29 Conclusions: Highlight the importance of your work by putting key findings at the beginning of the sentence, not at the end. Be as detailed as possible.......Page 51
30 Review papers: Think about what readers really want to learn, and present this info in an-easy-to-navigate way.......Page 52
31 Readability: Just because your paper or chapter is published doesn't mean that anyone will actually read it.......Page 54
32 Readability: Confused or vague writing tends to lead to a confused reader. Write clearly and logically.......Page 56
33 Readability: The first words of a paragraph or sentence should immediately tell the reader what the subject is.......Page 57
34 Readability: Do not be vague - use specific rather than generic terms......Page 58
35 Readability: Avoid vague adjectives and adjectives that add no extra information.......Page 60
36 Readability: Ensure readers can understand whose research you arereferring to.......Page 61
37 Readability: Avoid a colloquial style and idiomatic expressions.......Page 62
38 Readability: Do not use synonyms to avoid repeating a key word.......Page 63
39 Readability: Don't use a pronoun before the noun it refers to has been mentioned, or when there is more than one noun that the pronoun could refer to.......Page 65
40 Readability: Ensure it is clear what'this' refers to in phrases such as 'this study'.......Page 67
41 Readability: Avoid the former and the latter.......Page 68
42 Readability: Do not use the when talking in general. Use the when talking about your specific cases.......Page 70
43 Readability: Avoid unclear references to other papers and other parts of your paper.......Page 71
44 Readability: When referring to your own geographical area and administrative units, don't assume your readers have the same level of knowledge as you do.......Page 72
45 Readability: With certain exceptions (etc., e.g., i.e. in vivo, in vitro), avoid Latin expressions.......Page 73
46 Readability: When highlighting important information, consider beginning a new sentence or paragraph.......Page 74
47 Readability: When highlighting important information, be as concise and precise as possible.......Page 76
48 Readability: Avoid unnecessary adjectives. Don't say This is innovative / important / interesting etc. Instead explain how or why it is innovative.......Page 77
49 Readability: If the verb does not give key information, choose the most common / shortest verb possible in order not to distract the reader.......Page 79
50 Readability: Prefer verbs to nouns in sentences that already contain a high proportion of nouns.......Page 80
51 Redundancy: The more you write/say, the more mistakes you will make.......Page 82
52 Redundancy: Reduce generic words to a minimum.......Page 83
53 Redundancy: Remove unnecessary synonyms or repeated constructions.......Page 85
54 Redundancy: Delete generic phrases. Just be specific. If words in parentheses are important, remove the parentheses.......Page 87
55 Redundancy: Consider using an adjective rather than a noun.......Page 88
56 Redundancy: Consider (shorter) alternatives for allow/permit/enable.......Page 89
57 Word order: subject + main verb + object + indirect object (all as close together as possible).......Page 90
58 Word order: Ensure the reader will understand immediately where the sentence is going.......Page 92
59 Word order: Put the key concept as near as possible to the beginning of a sentence. Never at the end.......Page 94
60 Word order: Shift subject to the beginning of the sentence by deleting redundancy or rearranging the link words.......Page 95
61 Word order: Negations contain key information. Put them as near as possible to the beginning of the sentence.......Page 97
62 Word order: Keep the reason for doing x as close as possible to the explanation of how you did x.......Page 98
63 Word order: Don’t indiscriminately stack nouns together.......Page 99
64 Sentence length: Divide up a long sentence when it contains two or more distinct ideas.......Page 100
65 Sentence length: Learn the right way to break up a long sentence.......Page 102
66 Sentence length: Short sentences are good, but not every sentence has to be short.......Page 103
67 Paragraphs: Consider avoiding a series of single-sentence paragraphs or a series of short paragraphs.......Page 104
68 Paragraphs: Don’t use long paragraphs.......Page 106
69 Punctuation: Use commas to help your reader understand. But ensure they do not interrupt the flow of reading.......Page 107
70 Punctuation: Revise any sentences that contain multiple punctuation marks.......Page 109
71 Punctuation: Put a comma before and to avoid possible ambiguity. Use semicolons to divide items into groups.......Page 110
72 Punctuation and readability: Be careful of how you use acronyms.......Page 111
73 Spelling: Be consistent with the spelling of the same word. Always do a final spell check.......Page 112
74 Google: Do not use Google Translate to check your English.......Page 113
75 Google: Learn how to use Google Scholar effectively to check your English.......Page 116
76 Project proposals: Put yourself in the reviewer’s shoes.......Page 118
77 Project proposals: Make your proposal stand out by being reviewer-friendly and by differentiating it from competing proposals.......Page 120
78 Journal submissions: Check your spelling, punctuation, use of capitalization before sending your paper to a language editing service......Page 122
79 Journal submissions: Adopt a neutral style when checking status of your paper. No accusations.......Page 124
80 Journal submissions: If you are the reviewer, do not make generic comments about the poor quality of the English. Ensure you give a few concrete examples, or consider not making any comments at all.......Page 125
81 Journal submissions: Don’t delay publication by asking the editors/reviewers questions. Only challenge when strictly necessary.......Page 127
82 Rebuttal letters and emails in general: Always be positive, never angry.......Page 129
83 Journal submissions: Be concise when writing your reply (rebuttal letter) to the reviewers’ report.......Page 130
84 Journal submissions: Ensure your English is correct when writing your reply to the reviewers’ report.......Page 132
85 Journal submissions: If your paper has been edited by a professional agency but is rejected for ‘poor English’, don’t immediately blame the agency.......Page 133
86 Fake services: Beware of dubious services offered by editing agencies, journals and conference organizers......Page 135
87 Emails: Don’t underestimate the importance of writing good emails......Page 137
88 Emails: Make your subject line as specific as possible, and in the body only include relevant info.......Page 138
89 Emails: Use the same quality standards in English as you would in your own language.......Page 139
90 Emails: Be specific about deadlines......Page 140
91 Emails: Be positive and diplomatic when criticizing the work of others.......Page 141
92 Presentations: Remember all the bad presentations you have seen and accept that your presentation may be no better.......Page 143
93 Presentations: Don’t fill your sides with text. When you’ve finished your presentation look at it using the option ‘slide sequence’ - does it look clear and simple?......Page 145
94 Presentations: Ensure your title slide will immediately attract the attention of your audience (part 1).......Page 146
95 Presentations: Ensure your title slide will immediately attract the attention of your audience (part 2).......Page 148
96 Presentations: Consider having fun titles/double titles.......Page 150
97 Presentations: Background slide: Don’t cut & paste paragraphs from other texts.......Page 152
98 Presentations: Presenting and talking about statistics.......Page 154
99 Presentations: Don’t overload audience with info. Make your statistics come alive by i) making comparisons and ii) activating your audience’s brain.......Page 156
100 Presentations: Final slide - Writing Thanks for your attention is not enough.......Page 160
About the Authors......Page 163
Acknowledgements......Page 164
Index......Page 165