The knowledge of the structure of language is essential if we want to create well-formed sentences that aptly deliver the intended idea. In this post, we look at a special…
The pseudo-generic pronoun “he,” that is, the usage of “man” to represent all humanity, supposes that the default and common human being is male. There are more critical issues in…
Research is hard enough without worrying about how to use microbial nomenclature or scientific names of bacteria correctly. Writing bacteria names in a research article can be a…
The format for writing scientific names of animals and plants is standardized and globally accepted. “Scientific nomenclature” refers to several names according to a particular…
The Temptation of Overcomplication?
Teachers are well aware of the tricks their students employ to increase the number of words in an assignment that demands a specific word…
As an objective scientist, you write to convey an unbiased and unambiguous message. State it, instead of implying it; repeat it to drive it home; and vary it to hold the reader’s…
As an academic researcher, a part of the writing process that frequently causes confusion and leads to common mistakes is word choice. While writing in English, maintaining the…
“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”
– Oscar Wilde
The previous article described the…
Commas are one of the most misunderstood punctuation marks: the idea that commas can be added to indicate pauses must be dispensed with. In writing, comma usage is guided by…
A sentence is in passive voice when the subject of a sentence is the object being acted on. Active voice, on the contrary, is where the subject performs the action. Through the…
Each time you are asked to give the characteristics of something, it’s likely that you use an adjective (i.e., a word describing a noun). In English, traditional phrase structure…
The words “number” and “amount” are used to explain how many or how much of something is there. A research report might include information on the number of contributors in the…