e-prime: english for scientific writing
TRANSCRIPT
Scientific writing is shit.
2@PeterHilton •
http://writers-write-creative-blog.posthaven.com/
Passive-aggressive voice in scientific writing
Active voice:
‘A study by Smith showed that…’
Passive voice:
‘It has been shown that…’
Passive-aggressive voice:
‘It has been shown [2] that…’
4@PeterHilton •
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E A R L Y C O M P L I C A T I O N S O F M I N O R H E A D I N J U R Y
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M E T H O D S
Patient population In our prospective multicenter study, data were collected on 3364 consecutively included patients between February 11, 2002, and August 31, 2004, in 4 Dutch university hospitals (Figure). Patients were included if they presented within 24 hours after blunt head injury, were older than 16 years, and had a GCS score of 13 to 14 or had a GCS score of 15 with 1 of the following risk factors: history of loss of consciousness, short-term memory deficit, amnesia for the traumatic event, posttraumatic seizure, vomiting, severe headache, clinical evidence of intoxication with alcohol or drugs, use of anticoagulants or history of coagulopathy, physical evidence of injury above the clavicles, and neurological
deficit. Patients were excluded if a CT scan could not be performed due to concurrent injury or if there were contraindications to CT scanning.
After review of our study protocol, patient informed consent was waived by the institutional review board and medical ethical committee, because patients meeting our inclusion criteria routinely undergo a head CT scan according to most local hospital policies, as is recommended in the current Dutch guidelines (10).
Clinical definitions Patients were considered to have lost consciousness when reported by a witness or by the patient. Loss of consciousness was not considered an obligatory criterion for inclusion in study, as was the case in previously published studies, but rather as
Figure. Flow of patients presenting with head injury. CT indicates computed tomography. The number of patients presenting with head injury (n = 6936) is an estimate based on the proportion of patients included from the total number of trauma patients seen by a neurologist-in-training in the emergency department of the participating center, which included the majority of patients.
6936patients with head injury
3364included in study
3181included in analysis
3572excluded
Glasgow Coma Scale score <13,age <16 years,presentation >24 hours after injury,or did not fulfil inclusion criteria
183excluded
1 contraindication for CT1 not seen by neurologist112 did not fulfil inclusion criteria16 no CT performed14 no data on history or examination39 no data on neurological examination
Smits et al, JAMA, 2005;294:1519-1525
‘data were collected… by zombies’
Ryan Polei / CC BY-ND 2.0
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E A R L Y C O M P L I C A T I O N S O F M I N O R H E A D I N J U R Y
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with traumatic findings would have been missed; 46 of these patients would have been identified with the adapted NOC, because of the presence of external injury above the clavicles other than clinical signs of a skull fracture (41 patients) or headache (5 patients). Traumatic findings on the CT scan in these patients included skull fracture (n = 30), subdural (n = 5) and epidural (n = 2) hematoma, subarachnoid hemorrhage (n = 12), hemorrhagic (n = 11) and nonhemorrhagic (n = 1) contusion, and diffuse axonal injury (n = 2). One patient with diffuse cerebral swelling did not have any risk factors using either the CCHR or NOC decision rules. Sensitivity for clinically important traumatic CT findings was very similar to that for all neurocranial traumatic CT findings for both decision rules.
Specificity for neurosurgical intervention and neurocranial traumatic CT findings was very low for the adapted NOC decision rule but higher for the adapted CCHR decision rule (Table 5). Specificity for clinically
CT scan were found in 9.8% of the patients, with the highest proportion of traumatic findings in the category of patients with a GCS score of 13 (24.5%). The most common traumatic finding on the CT scan was a skull fracture (59.6%) (Table 4). Clinically important lesions were present in 243 patients (77.9%). Epidural hematoma was present in 11.2% of patients with traumatic findings; most of these hematomas were small with no or only localized mass displacement (25 of 35 cases) and were likely to be venous in origin in 4 cases. Subdural hematoma was present in 67 patients (21.5%) with traumatic findings on CT, and also was small in most cases with no (42 patients) or minimal (14 patients) mass displacement.
Notably, in 5 (29%) of 17 patients who underwent neurosurgical intervention, no history of loss of consciousness was present. A history of loss of consciousness was also absent in 85 (27%) of 312 patients with neurocranial traumatic CT findings and in 61 (25%) of 243 patients with clinically important CT findings.
For both the NOC and CCHR decision rules, both original and adapted, sensitivity for identifying patients who underwent neurosurgical intervention was 100% (Table 5). Sensitivity for neurocranial traumatic lesions on the CT scan, however, was not 100% for both rules. The adapted NOC reached the highest sensitivity for identifying patients with neurocranial traumatic findings on the CT scan (99.4%; 95% CI, 97.7%–99.8%); the original CCHR had the lowest sensitivity (83.4%; 95% CI, 77.7%–87.9%). Two patients with neurocranial traumatic CT findings were not identified using the adapted NOC rule. One of these patients with a nonhemorrhagic contusion would have been identified by the adapted CCHR because of the presence of prolonged (>30 minutes) posttraumatic amnesia. With the adapted CCHR, 47 patients
Table 4. Traumatic findings on CT (n = 312)*
CT finding No. (%) of patients
Skull fracture 186 (59.6)Skull base 82 (26.3)Depressed 19 (6.1)Linear 114 (36.5)
Subdural effusion 2 (0.6)Subdural hematoma 67 (21.5)Epidural hematoma 35 (11.2)Subarachnoid hemorrhage 86 (27.6)Intraparenchymal lesions 142 (45.5)
Hemorrhagic contusion 118 (37.8)Non-hemorrhagic contusion 15 (4.8)Diffuse axonal injury 14 (4.5)
Intraventricular hemorrhage 5 (1.6)Clinically important lesions† 243 (77.9)
Abbreviation: CT, computed tomography. * Some patients had more than 1 CT finding. † Defined as any intracranial traumatic CT finding, including depressed skull fractures but excluding isolated linear fractures.
Marion Smits is associate professor and
neuroradiologist at Erasmus MC, Rotterdam (NL),
and honorary consultant and reader at University
College London Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
in London (UK).
https://marionsmits.net/marion-smits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0
In the English language, the verb ‘to be’ has several distinct functions:• identity - The cat is my only pet; The cat is Garfield• class membership - Garfield is a cat• class inclusion - A cat is an animal• predication - The cat is furry• auxiliary - The cat is sleeping; … being bitten by the dog• existence - There is a cat• location - The cat is on the mat; The cat is here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime
E-Prime
E’
Optimus Prime
oknidius / CC BY 2.0
E-Prime suggests a way
to improve scientific
writing.
15@PeterHilton •
E-Prime a.k.a. E’
E-Prime is a variant of English that excludes all forms of the
verb to be:
am are is was were be being been
Including contractions that use the same words:
I’m you’re we’re they’re aren’t wasn’t weren’t isn’t he’s
she’s it’s there’s here’s where’s how’s what’s who’s that’s
16@PeterHilton •
Example - auxiliary
The dog is chasing the cat
→ Joe saw the dog chasing the cat
Restore the observer
→ The dog continues to chase the cat
Restore temporal qualification
http://www.angelfire.com/nd/danscorpio/ep2.html 17@PeterHilton •
Example - identity
The electron is a particle
→ We perceive the electron as a particle
Restore the point of view with a more specific verb:
say, believe, assert, assume, perceive, insist, claim,
pronounce, hold, think, maintain, affirm, allege, suggest,
imagine, estimate, observe, declare, contend, argue18@PeterHilton •
Example - predicate
19@PeterHilton •
The dog is stupid
→ The dog behaves stupidly
Use a more specific predicate verb:
accord, act, represent, resemble, simulate, approximate,
symbolise, typify, coincide, copy, correlate, duplicate,
emulate, epitomise, equal, imitate, impersonate, match,
echo, mirror, model, paraphrase, portray, reflect
Not using E-Prime
Colloquial short forms tend to have understood meanings;
E-Prime versions would look awkward.
20@PeterHilton •
How are you?
Who are you?
I’m ready
Is anyone there?
Is there any wine?
Where’s it gone?
What’s your point?
Where were you?
History
E-Prime originates from the field of general semantics.
D. David Bourland Jr. devised E-Prime in the 1940s, as a tool to clarify thinking and writing.
Bourland published his first paper on E-Prime in 1965.
It never caught on
… but did get a Wikipedia page in 2001.
21@PeterHilton •
Consequences - eliminations
dogmatic statements such as Light is a wave pseudo-questions such as What is art? internal-instructions such as I am an imposter, therefore…abbreviated statements such as It is clear that…
22@PeterHilton •
Consequences - restorations
Actors as in Zombies collected dataPrecision and clarity
A richer vocabulary of verbs
23@PeterHilton •
Experience with E-Prime
I had fun taking up the challenge
… although using E-Prime for, say, email takes too long
I decided to try it for edited technical writing
… and eventually rewrote a 25K-word software manual
24@PeterHilton •
Experience with E-Prime
After a year or so, using E-Prime has become more of a habit
… and I tend to more critically evaluate what I write
… as well as what other people write :)
27@PeterHilton •
Further research required
Reading speed and comprehension
Word count reduction
Translation speed and accuracy
Paper acceptance and citation rate
Partial E-Prime
Effectiveness in languages other than English
28@PeterHilton •
@PeterHilton
http://hilton.org.uk/http://hilton.org.uk/presentations/e-prime