Proofreading Week 12 ( ) Peiling Hsia

Contents: Proofreading guideline Revising for Cohesion Common errors of writing a paper

Proofreading guideline

A good research paper has - a clear statement of the problem the paper is addressing, - the proposed solution(s), - and results achieved. It describes clearly what has been done before on the problem, and what is new. A paper should focus on - describing the results in sufficient details to establish their validity - identifying the novel aspects of the results (what new knowledge is reported) - identifying the significance of the results (what improvements and impact do they suggest) The goal of a paper is to describe novel technical results.

General Strategies: Take a break! Leave yourself enough time. Get others involved. Place a ruler under each line as you read it. Correctness. Role-play. Information flow. Emphasis. Coherence.

1. Finding Common Errors 2. Spelling 3. Left-out and doubled words 4. Fragment Sentences 5. Run-on Sentences 6. Comma Splices 7. Subject/Verb Agreement 8. Mixed construction 9. Parallelism 10. Pronoun Reference/Agreement

Revising for Cohesion Begin sentences with short, simple words and phrases. Communicate information that appeared in previous sentences

Topics are crucial for readers because readers depend on topics to focus their attention on particular ideas toward the beginning of sentences. Topics tell readers what a whole passage is "about." If readers feel that a sequence of topics is coherent, then they will feel they are moving through a paragraph from a cumulatively coherent point of view. But if throughout the paragraph readers feel that its topics shift randomly, then they have to begin each sentence out of context, from no coherent point of view. When that happens, readers feel dislocated, disoriented, and out of focus.

1. Diagnosis Underline the first few words of every sentence in a paragraph, ignoring short introductory phrases such as "In the beginning," or "For the most part.“ If you can, underline the first few words of every clause.

Read your underlined words. Is there a consistent series of related topics? Will your reader see these connections among the topics? Decide what you will focus on in each paragraph. Imagine that the passage has a title. The words in the title should identify what should be the topics of most of the sentences. 2. Analysis

3. Revision Put most of the subjects at the beginning of your sentences. Avoid hiding your topic by opening sentences with long introductory clauses or phrases.

Questions to Ask Yourself as You Revise Sentences Do your sentences "hang together?“ Does each sentence "cohere" with the one before and after it ? Are sentences in a paragraph unified with each other ? Does the sentence begin with information familiar to the reader? Does the sentence end with interesting information the reader would not anticipate? Will your reader be able to identify quickly the "topic" of each paragraph?

Revising Your Paper revise your papers by reorganizing them to make your best points stand out: Add needed information Eliminate irrelevant information Clarify sections or sentences

1. Find your main point. 2. Evaluate your evidence. 3. Save only the good pieces. 4. Tighten and clean up your language. 5. Eliminate mistakes in grammar and usage. 6. Switch from Writer-Centered to Reader- Centered 6 Steps for Revising Your Paper:

Common errors

1) Hyphenated words—If the first word is used as an adjective, no hyphen is necessary (e.g., first generation). If the first word is a noun, then you need to hyphenate (e.g., range-limited). 2) Normally, integers less than ten are spelled out. Thus one will write “six cells” instead of “6 cells.” Integers larger than ten and fractional numbers are written in Arabic digits, i.e., 12, 5.6, etc. Fractional numbers are considered plurals. Thus, we will say “one meter,” but “0.5 meters.”

3) In technical papers, there are usually symbols, and the question arises as to which article to use in front of symbols. Should we say a M/M/1 queue or an M/M/1 queue? The rule is the same as in regular writing without symbols, i.e., if the word starts with a vowel, namely, the letters a, e, i, o, u, you will use the article “an”; otherwise, you will use “a.” However, we need to determine how the symbol is pronounced. In the case of M/M/1, we pronounce it “em- em-one,” i.e., it starts with a vowel. Compare this with a B-ISDN network. In this case, the B in B-ISDN is pronounced like “bee,” i.e., not a vowel.

4) The first time a symbol is used, explain what it means, usually with the symbol in brackets, e.g., one will write “Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).” Subsequently, use the symbol only. This is in keeping with the concept of conciseness. 5) Try avoiding negative words like “not,” “un,” “non,” etc., as well as double negatives such as “not invalid,” “not uninteresting” as much as possible. For example, use “invalid” instead of “not valid,” use “violating” instead of “not satisfying.”

7) Say “greatly improves” rather than “highly improves” or “largely improves.” 8) The words “work” and “research” are already in plural form. Thus we do not say “Existing works in this area ” or “Prior researches ” 9) Avoid using multiple superlatives. Use “best” rather than “very best,” “optimal” rather than “most optimal.” 10) Do not start a sentence with “also.” Use words such as “Besides,” “Moreover,” “In addition” instead.

11) The words “figure,” “table,” “theorem,” “lemma,” etc. may be used as proper or common nouns. Proper nouns must be capitalized. They are proper nouns when a number or some other attribute follows them. For example, we say, “Fig. 1 illustrates ” and “In this figure, we illustrate… ” 12) Semi-colons can be used to break up groups of objects. For example, “Set A comprises numbers 1, 2, 3; Set B comprises 4, 5, 6; Set C comprises 7, 8.”

13) Avoid repeated usage. (o) “ the storage required in the first case is greater than that in the second case.” (X) “ the storage required in the first case is greater than the storage required in the second case.” 14) English and American spelling is sometimes different, i.e., “colour” versus “color.” Try to be consistent throughout the text.

Web links (How to Write a PhD Thesis ) (Writing and publishing a scientific paper ) (GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWERS for ASM Journals) Instructions for Reviewers (CIGR –international Commission of Agricultural Engineering) %20EPA.htm (Example of “response to reviewers”) %20EPA.htm