Some
miscellaneous notes about writing
Words
and Phrases (with a focus on science-y stuff) – Correct and Incorrect Usage:
(‘Usage’ is,
I think, badly over-used where ‘use’ is perfectly adequate – but this is maybe
a place where it is the correct word…)
1. ‘Species’ is both singular and plural when
referring to a type of organism (‘specie’ is coinage)
2. ‘Data’ and ‘media’ are both plural. A single bit of information is a datum. One mode of communication is a medium. ‘Hypothesis’ is singular; the plural form is
‘hypotheses’. The plural of ‘octopus’ is
hotly debated; there is an argument that it is ‘octopodes’, but I will not be
upset if you use octopi or octopuses. I
may be a pedant, but there are limits…
3. References are ‘cited’, not ‘sited’. A site is a location (or ‘site’ can be a verb
meaning to place something in a
location. Neither is to be confused with
‘sighted’ (although you might sight a site, or cite a sighting).
4. When something catches your fancy (a nice archaic
term…), your interest is ‘piqued’ not ‘peaked’ (at least when referring to the
thing that caught and stimulated your interest initially).
5. And, of course, ‘affect’ and ‘effect’: ‘affect’ is
usually a
verb meaning ‘to influence’ (“Temperature affects germination rate.”). ‘Effect’
is most commonly a noun (“Temperature has an effect on germination.”). But both
can play the other part of speech in particular circumstances. ‘Affect’ as a
noun means ‘appearance’ or ‘physical manifestation of mood’ (“His affect
suggested suppressed anger.”). ‘Effect’
as verb means ‘to bring into being’ (“The threat effected a change in her
behavior.”)
6.
Don’t say ‘based off of’; use 'based on' where you are referring to a basis for
something (prepositions are tricky things; think carefully about which makes
most sense or gives greatest efficiency of statement).
7. ‘Accurate’ and ‘precise’ do not mean the same thing. Accuracy concerns the correctness of a
measurement; precision refers to the degree of refinement of the
measurement. “It was 2.0 cm long”, and
“it was 2.003 cm long” report measurements of differing precision, but we know
nothing about their accuracy.
-
The Latin (Linnaean)
‘binomial’ – the combined genus and species names – should always be
italicized. Homo sapiens.
-
The Genus name should be
capitalized (Homo) but the species
name (specific epithet) is not (sapiens)
-
Names of higher
taxonomic entities (families, orders, phyla, etc.) are capitalized, but no
italicized.
22. Their, they're, there. Plural
possive, contraction of 'they are', location -- in that order.
PAY ATTENTION TO HOMONYMS, and don't let your autocomplete function make you look silly
More General Things:
Verb-subject agreement can be tricky when you have multiple
subjects in a sentence. “The abundance and distribution of organisms constitutes
the principle subject of ecology,” is grammatically wrong. Figure it out!
Be careful about unspecified pronouns. If you start a sentence with a vague ‘it’ or
‘this’ (“This reduces biodiversity.”), I am likely to use my ‘unclear
antecedent’ stamp.
Apostrophes
seem to be misused with increasing frequency. Do NOT use them to make
plurals, despite their frequent abuse in this respect on signs..
Apostrophes (not apostrophe's) indicate either possessive form OR a contraction.
An apostrophe followed by an 's' creates a singular possessive; for a
plural ending in s, just put the apostrophe after the s. "The
student's grammar was excellent," might, I hope, apply to you
individually. "The students' grammar was excellent," would be
appropriate in the (unlikely?) case that you all used apostrophes
correctly. "Grammatical usage by the students was excellent,"
would mean the same thing (with no apostrophe), even though it sounds a
bit stilted. The EXCEPTION: the possessive of "it" is "its" (no
apostrophe), because "it's" is a contraction of "it is".
It’s easy to use
more words than required. If they don’t
add to meaning or make the sentence easier to read, simplify (unless you are
too taken with the rhetorical effect of your florid prose; just be cautious
about letting elegant phrasing turn into turgidity…). Typical examples of usages with superfluous
words:
- “The reason he did it is because...” = “He did it because...”
- “The flower is colored blue.” = “The flower is blue.” (Unless
you need to be clear that you don’t mean it smelled blue.)
- “a multiple number of factors” = “multiple factors”
- “whether or not” = (usually) “whether”
- “is indicative of” = “indicates”
- frequently, prepositional phrases can be collapsed: “I plan to
study the fields of biology and chemistry” = “I plan to study biology and
chemistry.”
- be cautious about ‘that’ as a conjunction; it’s often a path to
unnecessary wordiness: “The ‘ecological niche’ is a concept that
integrates ideas about competition and natural selection.” = “The ‘ecological
niche’ concept integrates ideas about competition and natural selection.”
And so on. Keep it simple.