Department of Materials

WRITING SKILLS

Hazel Assender

Writing skills

You are professional writers There is a difference between good writing and

bad writing The difference matters Bad writing is selfish and lazy, because you are

making the reader do work that the writer should have done

You cannot write well without considering what you write from the reader’s point of view

Story

• Storytelling is important in all human culture

Many have made their living by it You will too!

• If you tell a story you will: Keep the reader’s attention and

understanding Create a suitable structure

Plot

A story is a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence.A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality.

‘The king died and the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died and the queen died of grief’ is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but there is a sense of causality.‘The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.’ This is a plot with a mystery in it. It suspends the time-sequence, and moves as far away from the story as its limitations will allow.

Curiosity by itself takes us a very little way – only as far as the story. If we would grasp the plot we must add intelligence and memory.

Plot

“The plot maker expects us to remember, we expect him to leave no loose ends. Every action or word in a plot ought to count; it ought to be economical and spare; even when complicated it should be organic and free from dead matter. It may be difficult or easy, it may and should contain mysteries, but it ought not to mislead.”

E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel (Edward Arnold 1927, reprinted Penguin Classics 2000)

Emotional responses to ambiguously worded statements

Drivers should be cautious when approaching cross roads and train travellers more talkative to reserved seats.

Shopping mall notice: 65 per cent of freeze-dried coffee drinkers prefer Nescafé

Sign outside a farm: Pick Your Own Entrance

Semiopathy

A computer software shop in Middlesbrough promises a No Sweat Exchange Policy

A news item about a farm for endangered species: Disappearing Goat Farm.

Some conjure nasty mental images:On the wall of a car park: Flat Residents OnlyRoadside notices in Norfolk: Catseyes Removed

PAH!

Pet Assender Hates

‘Look at’

e.g. ‘If we were to look at the curing behaviour of polymer coatings’

This would be like watching paint dry…..

Try: If we were to consider the curing behaviour of polymer coatings

PAH!

This is probably a good time to introduce:

Structure

Say what you are going to say- arouse interest, curiosity - create expectations

Say it- communicate what you wish - include details here, but don’t waffle - this is not a ‘data dump’

Say what you said- emphasise the ‘take home message’ - make a clear ending

This structure is not an excuse for repetition!

Drawing the reader in“Metals and alloys are unnatural. Nature has never used them as biological parts, even though she has used metallic atoms widely in chemical substances such as haemoglobin to acquire special and literally vital biochemical properties. But lumps of metal, never. The sabre-toothed tiger never enjoyed the benefits of bronze teeth, nor the rhinoceros an iron horn. If it is a privilege to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth, why didn’t nature endow us with gold teeth? After all, the tooth is not one of nature’s happiest inventions. Many animals die through their teeth wearing out; and the decay of the human tooth causes us great general misery at the dental surgery.”

Sir Alan Cottrell, Will Anybody Ever Use Metals and Alloys Again?in The Science of New Materials, ed Andrew Briggs (Blackwell 1992)

Paragraphs

• Paragraphs can (and should) be neat and utilitarian. The ideal expository graf contains a topic sentence followed by others which explain or amplify the first.

• “Topic-sentence-followed-by-support-and-description insists that the writer organize his/her thoughts” this is good insurance against wandering away from

the topic.

• Many scientific papers and theses are marred by paragraphs that are unhelpfully short. The temptation is stronger when they are typed double-spaced.

The Toolbox

Good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals… and then filling the toolbox with the right instruments

Vocabulary

Grammar

Style

Your own personality/experience

Vocabulary – long words

“The leathery, undeteriorative, and almost indestructable quality was an inherent attribute of the thing’s form of organization, and pertained to some paleogean cycle of invertebrate evolution utterly beyond our powers of speculation.”

H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

None of these words is a substitute for an equally good short anglo-saxon word.

Vocabulary – short words

“Some of the owner men were kind because they hated what they had to do, and some of them were angry because they hated to be cruel, and some of them were cold because they had long ago found that one could not be an owner unless one were cold.”

John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Of 50 words, 39 are monosyllabic, and of the remaining eleven, three occur more than once.

PAH!

Associating actions with inanimate objects

e.g. ‘the gas diffuses through the sample by finding paths of least resistance’

PAH!

Speaking of long words: Anthropomorphisation

Sentences

SENTENCE = Subject (noun) + predicate (verb)

“Make a complete thought which starts in the writer’s head and then leaps into the reader’s.”

Verbs

Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the subject of the sentence. The subject is just letting it happen.

“Two pages of the passive voice – just about any business document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction – make me want to scream. It’s weak, it’s circuitous, and it’s frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. A simpler way to express this idea – sweeter and more forceful, as well – might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I’ll never forget it. I’m not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we’re out of that awful passive voice…”

Stephen King, On Writing (Hodder & Stoughton 2000) 133-4

The passive voice

Much scientific writing is in the passive voice Use with care If you do not use it, think carefully about

the subject or the narrator

PAH!Don’t change tense/voice mid-paragraph

Sentence Length

Long sentences can be prosaic…….

“In the heavens we discover by their light, and by their light alone, stars so distant from each other that no material thing can ever have passed from one to another; and yet this light, which is to us the sole evidence of the existence of these distant worlds, tells us also that each of them is built up of molecules of the same kinds as those which we find on earth.”

James Clark Maxwell, Discourse on Molecules (1873); in The Faber Book of Science, ed John Carey (Faber 1995)

…….but might be confusing

Long sentances are often a refuge for cowards!

Punctuation

Punctuation is a tool of good written communication

If it is used badly (or not at all), confusion can result:

In the parking area at a supermarket, Trolleys Thank Youand above a fresh food counter, Sue Your Friendly Fishmonger. On the subject of parking: No Parking Penalty £40Or: Police Notice No Parking.On a road out of Auckland, New Zealand, Extreme Care School. But perhaps punctuation might incur a fine on the Sydney Harbour Bridge: Full Stop To Pay Toll.

PAH!

Poor use of apostrophes

On Walton street: ‘Please keep gate’s clear’

Your/you’re, its/it’s

Adjectives

• Should be used to ‘describe the thing more fully and definitely’

“The operation needs considerable skill and should be performed with proper care. Effective means of stopping the spread of infection are under active consideration and there is no cause for undue alarm.”

• Cf. grateful thanks, true facts, usual habits, consequent results, definite decisions, unexpected surprise.”

Fowler’s Modern English Usage (2nd Edn, OUP 1965)

Adjectives

Attributive:The small sample

Predicative:The sample was small

Confusion between attributive and predicative adjectives induces (or follows from) confused thinking.

“The lightly-deformed sample was measured.”

Introduce each idea carefully

Sins of laziness

Clearly …

Note that …

It is interesting …

As mentioned above …

Give £1 to charity for each occurrence!

The writer’s job is to take a multi-dimensional set of

ideas, and lay them out linearly.

The Rewrite Formula

2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%.

Read aloud

PAH!

Affect/effect

An example in a letter from my financial advisor: “If we do not get a response from you on this matter within 14 days, this may effect the contract”

Conclusion

A conclusion should conclude. It should not simply restate what you have already said.

Ideally, it should make new statements that have not already been made, but which follow with inexorable logic from what has been presented, so that if the reader accepts what has come so far, they will logically have to accept the conclusions too.

Abstract

Maximum information content Neither a manifesto nor a table of contents

Avoid “will be presented”, “will be considered”, “will be discussed”

Summarize: the facts that you present the content of your considerations the conclusion of your discussion

Forms of writing

Briefing report Literature survey Presentations Journal Articles Thesis ‘Popular Science’

Who is the audience in each case?

What is the purpose of the writing?

Literature survey

Be selective Show critical judgement Do not omit any reference that, if included,

would alter the course of your researchConstruct a plot

First work out what you want to persuade the reader of, and then bring in the references as supporting evidence

Every aside is a chasm that your reader must leap over

Presentations

Little writing but lots of preparationWrite the key points, tell the storyUse of figures

PAH!

By default, Excel uses yellow symbols for charts for the 3rd column of data. This does not show up on a white background.

Journal articles

Make editor’s job easyTake referees’ comments seriously

– but do not take them to heartMake very clear what you can deduce

from your data, and what you cannotStick to the plot

Thesis

Your opportunity to present all your work Ensure it is clear what is yours

Structuring is very important Introduction not for waffle but:

To show examiner you know your science To introduce basic concepts that will be required later

3 chapters ‘at the bench’ ‘DPhil research is abandoned, not completed’

Make use of the ‘further work’ section Make your examiners’ life easy and interesting

Analyse examples of ‘good’ and ‘poor’ scientific writing

Department of Materials

Keeping lab notebooks

Hazel Assender

Why?

• Your reference document

• Others’ reference document

• Authentication of work

• Intellectual property

Reference document

• Accuracy

• Communication with supervisor

• Reports/Thesis

• Others continuing your line of research

• Could someone (possibly you!) reproduce what you have done from your notes?

• Have you recorded all that you need to? sample details/history exact conditions hypothesis under test how data have been analysed

Good practise

You may need to demonstrate this…….

Auditing by sponsors

Scrutiny of research practise

Health and safety records

Claims of discovery

you might want credit (e.g. patent)

you might want to stop others’ taking your credit

Good training

Department of Materials

Keeping lab notebooks

Hazel Assender

Guidelines

Pages should be bound and numbered sequentially;use books with permanent bindings.

Record dates clearly.

Make corrections by crossing out so they are visible;e.g. no tippex.

Write in indelible ink.

Records should be consistent and continuous;make record at the time of the experiment.

Each researcher should make a separate record.

Stick graphs etc in;no paperclips etc.

Do not change entries at a later date;cross reference as needed (liberally!).

The lab book should remain the property of the university;if you want to take away your own copy, this should be a photocopy.

Guidelines

Electronic storagerecord of dateformatdata ‘analysis’copy for supervisorcataloguingreferenceI’d recommend making a hard copy

Signing entriesyou and another competant scientist (not a co-inventor)If you/your supervisor considers this might be appropriate

Why?

Take a pride in your work

Avoid frustration