scientific english - fudan...
TRANSCRIPT
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Scientific EnglishInstructor: Antoine Riaud
Week 13: Condensing and wrapping up
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In the previous course: flow
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Type 1: teamwork: all sentences worktogether on the same topic.
Type 2: relay: sentences link each other to move from one topic to another.
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In the previous course: flow and energy
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Molecules are comprised of covaletly bonded atoms. Molecules’ reactions are controlled by the strength of the bonds. Molecules, however, sometimes reactslower than bond strength would predict.
Molecules are comprised of covaletly bonded atoms. Bond’s strength controlsa molecule’s reactions. Sometimes, however, those reactions slower thanbond strength would predict.
Molecules… bonded atoms Molecules… bonds’ strength Molecules… bond strength would predict
Topic… stress Topic… stress Topic… stress
Molecules… bonded atoms Bond’s strength… reactions Reactions… bond strength
Topic… stress Topic… stress Topic… stress
List
Story
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In the previous course: flow
• List: the reader has to find the link himself/herself
• Story: you do it for him/her.
• Make the reader’s job easy
• Link: stress-topic not always the same but related
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In the previous course: flow
• Method 1: connect stress and topic• Similar concepts
• Passive voice
• Method 2: remove the irrelevant part (clean up the arcs)
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In the previous course: energy
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opening resolution
action
subject
verb
objectTopic Stress
This is the context:Familiar schema/character
Arcs are weakened by:- passive voice- fuzzy verbs- nominalization
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In the previous course: energy
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Passive voice Fuzzy verbs Nominalization
Use with caution(allows inverting stress and topic)
Avoid Avoid
Prefer active voice
Prefer action verbs
Prefer action verbs
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In the previous course: words
Make the reader focus on your data and ideas instead of your words (and the dictionary)
• Jargon
• Technical terms
• French and Latin
• Prepositional phrases vs compound nouns
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In the previous course: words
• These rules are tricks to energize your writing and improve the flow
• Paper clarity should always remain the priority
• Sometimes you should not play by the rules:
“Despite the tantalizing evidence for Universe expansion, in no instance has dark energy interactionwith tachyons been observed.”
Passive voice+nominalization+prepositional phrase: looks really bad locally but a great choice for the paper overall.
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Power position (2-3-1)+arcs
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Condensing and wrapping up
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Condensing10-Jul-2019
Journal: Analytical ChemistryManuscript ID: ac-2019-03067hTitle: "Mechanical characterization of cells and microspheres sorted by acoustophoresis with in-line resistive pulse sensing"Author(s): Riaud, Antoine; Thai, Anh; Wang, Wei; Taly, Valerie
Dear Dr. Riaud:
Thank you for submitting your manuscript to Analytical Chemistry. We look forward to working with you to begin the publication process.
Unfortunately, the submitted version of the manuscript greatly exceeds our journal’s page limit guidelines. Experience teaches us that lengthy manuscripts often involve peer review that is slowed and less detailed. The length guidelines (http://pubs.acs.org/page/ancham/submission/authors.html) state a maximum length of eight journal pages for Articles…
http://pubs.acs.org/page/ancham/submission/authors.html
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Condensing
• Letters: length limit ~4000 words (4-6 pages)
• Method 1: just change the font size.
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Condensing
• Letters: length limit ~4000 words (4-6 pages)
• Stephen King (Carrie):• “Final length = initial length -10%”
• We are not as skilled: cut 20%?
• “prune then shake”
13Prune: remove individual wordsShake: does your paper still makes
sense?
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Condensing
• What should you check?• Redundancies
• Obvious
• Modifiers: adjectives & adverbs (“greatly increases”)
• Metadiscourse (“here we show”)
• Verbosity
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Condensing
Use several words where one does all the work that needs doing
“Here, we will develop, test and apply a new synthetic approach to produce photovoltaic plastics.”
• test ⊂ develop
• produce ⊂ synthetic
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Redundancies [pleonasm]
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Condensing
Use several words where one does all the work that needs doing
“Here, we will develop, test and apply a new synthetic approach to produce photovoltaic plastics.”
• test ⊂ develop
• produce ⊂ synthetic
“Here, we will develop, and apply a new approach to produce photovoltaic plastics.”
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Redundancies [pleonasm]
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Condensing
Use several words where one does all the work that needs doing
“Most, but not all of the transducers were usable.”
• most = a majority (not all)
“Most of the transducers were usable.”
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Redundancies [pleonasm]
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Condensing
Use several words where one does all the work that needs doing
“The effectiveness of support vector machine in flavor recognition provides a proof of principle for the feasibility of using these algorithms for explosive detection.”
• Proof of principle ⇒ feasibility
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Redundancies [pleonasm]
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Condensing
Use several words where one does all the work that needs doing
“The effectiveness of support vector machine in flavor recognition provides a proof of principle for the feasibility of using these algorithms for explosive detection.”
• Proof of principle ⇒ feasibility
“The effectiveness of support vector machine in flavor recognition suggests the feasibility of using these algorithms for explosive detection.”
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Redundancies [pleonasm]
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Condensing
Similar to redundant, except that obvious uses a well-known or implied idea instead of an explicit word
“There is evidence that acoustic fields can modulate neuron expression [Ibsen et al.].”
• Citation ⇒ evidence (or use other words: argue/suggest/propose)
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Obvious (tautology)
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Condensing
Similar to redundant, except that obvious uses a well-known or implied idea instead of an explicit word
“There is evidence that acoustic fields can modulate neuron expression [Ibsen et al.].”
• Citation ⇒ evidence (or use other words: argue/suggest/propose)
• “Acoustic fields can modulate neuron expression [Ibsen et al.].”
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Obvious (tautology)
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Condensing
Similar to redundant, except that obvious uses a well-known or implied idea instead of an explicit word
“Bandgap is a characteristic of non-conducting insulators that is critical in capacitor design.”
• Bandgap ∈ material characteristics
• Insulators are non-conducting
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Obvious (tautology)
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Condensing
Similar to redundant, except that obvious uses a well-known or implied idea instead of an explicit word
“Bandgap is a characteristic of non-conducting insulators that is critical in capacitor design.”
• Bandgap ∈ material characteristics
• Insulators are non-conducting
• “Insulator bandgap is critical in capacitor design.”
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Obvious (tautology)
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Condensing
Adjectives modify the nouns, adverbs modify the rest, but good words need no modification
“The adverb is not your friend” – Stephen King
“The entire reaction sequence takes less than one hour to complete.”
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Modifiers: adverbs and adjectives
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Condensing
Adjectives modify the nouns, adverbs modify the rest, but good words need no modification
“The adverb is not your friend” – Stephen King
“The entire reaction sequence takes less than one hour to complete.”
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Modifiers: adverbs and adjectives
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Condensing
Adjectives modify the nouns, adverbs modify the rest, but good words need no modification
“The gold layer dramatically increased the wave attenuation.”
Dramatically ∈ fuzzy adjectives: not concrete
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Modifiers: adverbs and adjectives
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Condensing
Adjectives modify the nouns, adverbs modify the rest, but good words need no modification
“The gold layer dramatically increased the wave attenuation.”
Dramatically ∈ fuzzy adjectives: not concrete
“The gold layer increased the wave attenuation by 30 dB.”
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Modifiers: adverbs and adjectives
Empty amplifiers: add no information:• Certain(ly)• Dramatic(ally)• Entire(ly)• High(ly)
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Condensing
Adjectives modify the nouns, adverbs modify the rest, but good words need no modification “The immune system uses a highly effective control mechanism that effectively discriminates between self and nonself.”Prune:“The immune system uses a highly effective control mechanism that effectively discriminates between self and nonself.”Shake:“The immune system uses a control mechanism that discriminates between self and nonself.”
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Modifiers: adverbs and adjectives
Looks empty:• What is the control mechanism?• How is it efficient?
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Condensing
Adjectives modify the nouns, adverbs modify the rest, and the modification add new information
“The first phase of the reaction sequence takes less than one hour to complete.”
“The entire reaction sequence takes less than one hour to complete.”
“Preliminary results indicate that the driving force might be dielectrophoresis.”
“Final results indicate that the driving force might be dielectrophoresis.”
In grey: no new information
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Good Modifiers: adverbs and adjectives
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Condensing
Description of your actions and thoughts, rather than just the material at hand
• We found that
• We argue that
• Our initial hypothesis was that
• These data indicate
• To conclude
• In this study
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Metadiscourse
Useful for the conclusion
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Condensing
Description of your actions and thoughts, rather than just the material at hand
• “We found that aniline did not react with…”
• If this is in the results section, it is obviously your result -> “Aniline did not react…”
• “In this study, we measured the energy consumption…”
• You measured something: very likely to be in this study.
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Metadiscourse
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Condensing
Sentences that ramble endlessly
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Verbosity
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Condensing
Sentences that ramble endlessly
• “The data show that some enhancement in the applicability of these measurements can be accomplished with freeze-fracture prior to analysis by laser-ablation mass spectroscopy”
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Verbosity
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Condensing
Sentences that ramble endlessly
• “The data show that some enhancement in the applicability of these measurements can be accomplished with freeze-fracture prior to analysis by laser-ablation mass spectroscopy”
• “Freeze-fracture improved analysis by laser-ablation mass spectroscopy.”
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Verbosity
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Condensing
Sentences that ramble endlessly
• “Maximizing the ANN accuracy requires both optimizing the network structure and the regularization hyperparameters. The network structure was an AlexNet with a dropout rate of 20%.”
• “Maximizing the ANN accuracy requires an AlexNetstructure and a dropout rate of 20%.”
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Verbosity
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Condensing
Name your variables
• 25 words per line of equation
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Equations
𝐻 =1
1 + 𝑖𝑄𝜔𝜔0
−𝜔𝜔0
2
where 𝜔0 =𝐿
𝐶 (same as an acronym)
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Condensing
Name your functions
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Equations
𝑊𝑙 =1
2𝜋𝑖𝑙න−𝜋
𝜋
𝑒−𝑖𝑙−𝑖𝒌∙𝒓𝑑ψ
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Condensing
Skip logical steps
P = nRT/V (1)
ρ = m/V (2)
m = nM (3)
ρ = Mn/V
n/V=ρ/M
Combining (1) to (3):
P = RTρ/M
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Equations
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Condensing
“In the modern of era of machine learning, access to large labeled datasets is critical, but rarely achievable for the purpose of training medical diagnostic classifier. The challenge is to effectively transfer general dataset learning into a reliable specialized medical diagnostic in ways that provide transparent decision criteria.””
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Condensing to clarify
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Condensing
“In the modern of era of machine learning, access to large labeled datasets is critical, but rarely achievable for the purpose of training medical diagnostic classifier. The challenge is to effectively transfer general dataset learning into a reliable specialized medical diagnostic in ways that provide transparent decision criteria.”
• In the modern of era of machine learning: obvious
• purpose of training: metadiscourse
• diagnostic classifier: redundant
• effectively: empty modifier
• general dataset learning: redundant
• reliable specialized medical diagnostic: obvious
• transparent decision criteria: verbose (criteria?)
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Condensing to clarify
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Condensing
“Access to large labeled datasets is critical, but rarely achievable for training medical classifiers. The challenge is to extrapolate available data to a specialized clinical field in a transparent way.”
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Condensing to clarify
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Putting it all together: real editing
While you find something wrong:
• Check the Structure• OCAR/ABDCE/LDR -- arcs
• Check the Clarity• Ideas clear and concrete?
• Check the Flow• Broken arcs? Extraneous thoughts?
• Check the Language• Make it look good
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Putting it all together: real editing
How many times should you repeat this cycle?
• Anne Lamott: 3 times
• Joshua Schimel: 7-8 times
• Young scientist: 12-15 times
• First paper: 20-30 times?
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Putting it all together: real editing
How many times should you repeat this cycle?
Mona Lisa
• Started in 1503
• Completed in …
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Putting it all together: real editing
How many times should you repeat this cycle?
Mona Lisa
• Started in 1503
• Completed in 1519
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Dealing with limitations
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What is the common point between these two gossips?
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Dealing with limitations
• Nobody likes disappointments
• Same for your paper
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Be honest
• Be clear
• Place it well (not on the power positions)
• Sandwich method:• Positive
• Negative
• Positive
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 1: The results do not answer your original question• Change the question (do not loose time trying many
journals, forget 1区 2区, use your time well)
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 2: The methods have issues:• Assumptions (the maximum current is limited by the
Joule’s heating): discuss it
• Noise: keep it and add the processed signal (or if the noise is very large, provide the data in SI)
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 3: The theory has issues:• Assumptions (small signal, linear response, toy model,
order of magnitude): spell it
• No perfect match between experiment and theory. If you mentioned your assumptions first, it should be fine.
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 4: The discussion has issues (tricky):• Do not discuss the limitations on the power positions
• At the first 10-30% of the discussion is best
• Briefly
• Honestly
• Move on
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 4: The discussion has issues (tricky):• Do not discuss the limitations on the power positions
• At the first 10-30% of the discussion is best
• Briefly
• Honestly
• Move on
“Despite the limited resolution, the hexagonal pattern of the metamaterial is clearly visible.”
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 4: The discussion has issues (tricky):• Do not discuss the limitations on the power positions
• At the first 10-30% of the discussion is best
• Briefly
• Honestly
• Move on
“Despite the limited resolution, the hexagonal pattern of the metamaterial is clearly visible.”
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Dealing with limitations
Spell out all the limitations first: “but, yes”
• Case 5: mention limitations in the conclusion (verytricky):• Best: break your conclusion in 2 paragraphs: limitations
and conclusion. Then start last paragraph with “despite these limitations”
“Despite these limitations, the method proposed here…”
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Resources
• All lectures are available on my website (http://homepage.fudan.edu.cn/ariaud/)
• Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded – Joshua Schimel (Oxford University Press)
• Reminder: 2nd assignment by December 26 (edit your 2 pages paper, use the course ideas = story structure, SUCCES, OCAR and so on)
Website
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http://homepage.fudan.edu.cn/ariaud/