Categories of Common English Problems



Categories of Common English Problems

2/04 I. Lindberg

I. Elegance

A. Using the same construction over and over again. “Using this, we found that. Using that, we found this. Using another thing, we found that.”. Vary the language!

- obtained, detected, observed, found, measured etc.

B. Colloquial language

“Run, done, spun, some” should be replaced with “performed/assayed, centrifuged, certain”; saw = observed

C. Too many words when fewer will do

Be direct and concise- eliminate as many words as you can

Don’t use long strings of descriptive adjectives

- “clarified cellular monkey samples”

D. See J. Neuroscience handout

II. Mistakes in Word Usage

A. Data vs datum – the former is plural and takes ARE; the latter is singular

B. Principle vs principal: "Principal" means first in rank, importance, or consequence. It can be a noun or an adjective. “Principle” is only a noun, and means a fundamental truth, force, or rule.

-Principal – (noun)= Principal Investigators (or the principal of a school).

-Principal (adj)- The principal finding of our study was that water is volatile.

-Principle -A basic principle of physics is the Law of Relativity.

C. Effect vs affect

-Effect (noun)= We studied the effect of boiling on water.

-Effect (verb) Heat effects boiling of in most cases.

-Affect (noun)- He exhibits a low affect (= emotion-YOU WILL NEVER USE THIS)

-Affect (verb)- The inclusion of sucrose affected the density determinations adversely.

D. Which vs that

-The samples that were frozen were from primates.

III. Mistakes in Grammar

A. Dangling participle

-Running for the bus, the bag was dropped by the boy.

B. Comma instead of semicolon before however

-We did not see this in every case, however we saw this in some cases.

C. Indicate that (not indicate alone)

-The results indicated that the hypothesis was correct.

D. Hyphenation of descriptors

receptor-independent

E. Tense disagreement

F. Run-ons

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