Category: Grammar

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Grammar Scientific Style Syntax Writing Tips

Those and that: Implied antecedents

As a general rule, a pronoun should refer clearly to a single, explicitly stated antecedent and should agree with that antecedent in number. In my scientific editing, I encounter one particular violation of this rule in nearly every paper that crosses my desk. Here’s an example:

The ZnO peaks for the samples that were dried for 5 days are smaller than that for the sample that was dried immediately.

The singular demonstrative pronoun “that”  must have a singular antecedent, but the sentence contains no singular nouns. The author clearly meant “that” to refer to “ZnO peak,” which is implied but not explicitly stated. You might be inclined to leave this sentence unrevised, thinking that everyone will know what you mean. However, what about the following sentence?

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Grammar Scientific Style Syntax Writing Tips

A lost cause? Dangling “using”

With St. Jude and the late Robert Schoenfeld (former editor of the Australian Journal of Chemistry) at my side, I’m fighting a rearguard action against the ubiquitous dangling participle “using” in scientific English. I would be hard-pressed to find a single scientific paper that doesn’t contain a sentence like

Ab initio calculations were performed using the Gaussian program.

The metal content was determined using inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectroscopy.

Using a PTFE fiber filter, the scrubbed off-gas was sampled.

Who or what is doing the “using” in these sentence? A participle like “using” must have a noun or pronoun to modify, and the only candidate nouns in these sentences—”calculations,” “content,” and “gas”—do not use programs, spectroscopy, or filters. Sentences like these certainly won’t get your paper rejected by your target journal, but if you want to “impress discerning readers”1 (and discerning referees), try not to leave “using” unattached to the noun that’s doing the using.

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Grammar Syntax Writing Tips

Measurements were made

Let’s look at another way to tighten your scientific writing: Hunt for unnecessary nominalizations—nouns formed from verbs. Usage expert Bryan Garner calls them “buried verbs” and says that they “ought to be a sworn enemy of every serious writer.”1 An overstatement? Perhaps. Nominalizations are not grammatically wrong,  but replacing them with verbs is a quick and easy way to streamline your prose.

One nominalization that I encounter nearly every day in my scientific editing is the use of the noun “measurements”  instead of some form of the verb “to measure.”  Let’s look at some examples, with suggested revisions in italics:

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Grammar Syntax Writing Tips

“Omit needless words”

“Omit needless words.” So say William Strunk and E.B. White in their classic little book on good writing, The Elements of Style. Remembering this piece of advice, one of Strunk and White’s elementary principles of composition, will serve you well as you prepare to submit your latest scientific article for publication. There are many ways to pare your sentences to make “every word tell,”1 but let’s start with the expletive construction “it is known that.” Although expletive constructions have their place in good writing,2 their use often leads to unnecessary wordiness and can sometimes even confuse readers momentarily. Consider the following example:

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