Write better paragraphs

By Erick García
•
13 Feb, 2019
•

I used too used to ruin my papers by writing super-long-paragraphs, but then I learnt. Have you ever wondered what makes you enjoy reading some science papers, while you hate

Paragraphs are the basic unit of information in the academic text; as such, we have to pay attention to the structure and content of a paragraph, if we want to efficiently transmit complex ideas.

Try to read the following number in just one glimpse 123,737,692,092,380. I bet that you had to count the thousand separators (at the very least) to get an idea of the magnitude of that number. If I write the number 6,239 you immediately notice that the magnitude of the number is in the order of thousands, and can even read it without pausing for breath.

What did we learn from this silly exercise? A short number is easy to read, a long number, not so much! The same thing happens with paragraphs.

Now, go on and try to read the following paragraph:

The apple tree (Malus pumila, commonly and erroneously called Malus domestica) is a deciduous tree in the rose family best known for its sweet, pomaceous fruit, the apple. It is cultivated worldwide as a fruit tree, and is the most widely grown species in the genus Malus. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, Malus sieversii, is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists. Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek and European Christian traditions. In Norse mythology, the goddess Iðunn is portrayed in the Prose Edda (written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson) as providing apples to the gods that give them eternal youthfulness.

Now, ask yourself, “What exactly did I learn about apples?” Can you tell right now what kind of information was provided by the author? Would you be able to summarize it? You will have to read the paragraph again, one or two times, to answer these questions.

Ready to try again?

The apple tree is a deciduous tree in the rose family best known for its sweet, pomaceous fruit, the apple. The apple tree Malus pumila, is often erroneously called Malus domestica. M. pumila is cultivated worldwide as a fruit tree, and is the most widely grown species in the genus Malus.

The apple tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor Malus sieversii is still found today. Apples have been grown for thousands of years in Asia and Europe, and were brought to North America by European colonists.

Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek and European Christian traditions. For example, in Norse mythology, the goddess Iðunn is portrayed in the Prose Edda (written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson) as providing apples to the gods that give them eternal youthfulness.

Now, can you easily identify the kind of information that was provided by the author?

I bet that this time you easily noticed that the author is giving information about a) what the apple tree is, b) the origin of apples trees around the world, and c) the fact that apples may have religious and mythological significance in some cultures.

Did you notice that these three topics are now contained in three independent paragraphs? If you had to look for specific details about any of these topics, all you would have to do is to look for it in the corresponding paragraph, as the text is now better organized and the information has been segmented in a logical way.

So, how do you build a perfect paragraph?

The golden rule for writing a perfect paragraph is: Express one single idea per paragraph!

In our previous example about apple trees, paragraph 1 defines what an apple tree is, paragraph 2describes the origin of apples, and paragraph 3 talks about the symbolism of apples. See? Three ideas, three paragraphs.

Easy, right? But, there’s a bit more to writing a perfect paragraph.

Let’s explore the anatomy of a perfect paragraph. Let’s take paragraph 3 from our previous text as example.

Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures, including Norse, Greek and European Christian traditions. For example, in Norse mythology, the goddess Iðunn is portrayed in the Prose Edda (written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson) as providing apples to the gods that give them eternal youthfulness.

In this text, the first sentence is called the “topic sentence”; it is the sentence that declares the single idea that is presented in that specific paragraph (i.e. the topic, in our example the mythological significance of apples). Beware; a sentence is not a topic sentence just because it is at the beginning of a paragraph. If the first sentence of a paragraph does not reflect the single idea that will be developed in that paragraph, it is NOT a topic sentence.

Perfect paragraphs ALWAYS contain a single idea, and that specific idea is ALWAYS expressed as a topic sentence.

Now, what if we wanted to enrich the information presented in paragraph 3?

The topic sentence of paragraph 3 was “Apples have religious and mythological significance in many cultures…”. Therefore, we could continue this paragraph by providing a few additional examples to illustrate how apples have religious and mythological significance. If you wanted to provide severaldetails about the meaning of apples for a specific culture, you would have to write a new paragraph and the corresponding topic sentence.

Is there an ideal paragraph length for an academic text?

In general paragraphs should never be longer than 250 words. If you wrote a paragraph close to (or over) 250 words, it probably contains more than just one idea. I would advise you to never use word counts to make decisions on paragraph length; use the golden rule, develop one SINLGE idea per paragraph!

What is the advantage of using topic sentences?

By using topic sentences you are giving your readers a clear path, so that they can easily follow your logic. If you are writing science, you are writing about complex concepts, complex ideas, and complex relationships between the two. If you want your readers to be able to understand unequivocally the ideas that you are developing in your scientific manuscript, why not give them a hand? By writing topic sentences, you are presenting the most important ideas, the ideas that guided your own logic while performing your research, at the beginning of each paragraph.

Topic sentences also act as visual aids to help the reader look for specific details within your text. After reading a series of paragraphs beginning with clear topic sentences, the mind of your readers will be primed to pay the most attention to the first sentence in each paragraph; afterwards, if they need to retrieve specific details within the text, all they have to do is to look for the single sentence that presents that specific information.

What if you are just providing a definition for a concept? Where in a paragraph should that definition be placed?

If you need to introduce a new concept along the path of your logic, but you are not giving a lot of details about it, you should present the new concept as a new independent paragraph. There’s nothing wrong with single-sentence paragraphs!

Let’s summarize!

In an academic text a perfect paragraph contains one single idea. That single idea is expressed in the form of a topic sentence. That specific idea, and no other, is developed in the body of the paragraph. Paragraphs close to 250 words probably contain more than one idea, and should be broken down into two or more independent paragraphs (you may need to write topic sentences for each new paragraph).

Writing and reading science is not be easy (it’s not like writing bout apples).

Help yourself and help your readers by presenting your ideas in a well-organized text, in which the most important ideas and all the specific details can be easily located.

Never again ruin your papers by writing super-long-paragraphs.

Until next time!

Erick García García, Ph.D.

Head editor at Casa de Lletres.

P.S. If you want to read a more “sciency” text and compare super-long-paragraphs with perfect paragraphs, click here.

P.S.2 I hope that you noticed that not all of my paragraphs contain topic sentences. That’s because I’m not really writing an academic text here ;)

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Avoid useless abbreviations

By Erick García García • February 27, 2019

What are abbreviations?

An abbreviation is a shortened form of a name or term (e.g., postop for postoperative, kg for kilogram). An acronym is an abbreviation formed from the initial letters of a term (e.g., FBI for Federal Bureau of Investigation). All acronyms are abbreviations, but not all abbreviations are acronyms.

In a paper where the term “occlusion of the left ventricle” appears dozens of times, it would be very tempting to create the acronym “OLV” , and use it throughout the text. It is pretty obvious that this abbreviation could save you a considerable amount of typing time. However, before giving up to temptation, you need to ponder whether using that acronym will make your text easier to read. If it doesn’t, you just created a useless abbreviation.

As always in academic writing, your ultimate goal is to maximize clarity. Saving text space or typing time is not a sufficient reason to abbreviate. More importantly, the abbreviation must help the reader to comprehend your point.

There are numerous standard abbreviations in academic writing. The important word here is “standard”, because it implies that most academics should be familiar with what those abbreviations mean. You may search the internet for a list of standard abbreviations in your field.

So, when is it “ok” to abbreviate?

It is “ok” to use standard abbreviations in an academic text. It is also “ok” to use abbreviations for terms that appear in the text at least three times (the abbreviation should be defined the first time that the term appears in the text). It is “ok” to use abbreviations in the main body of your manuscript, but not in the abstract.

My professional advice:

If you want to maximize clarity (you really, really want that), stay away from abbreviations as much as you can , and use them ONLY for units of measurement . If you must use abbreviations, never use more than three in the whole text.

Want to know why?

See the following text for an answer:

“In our study, OLV was reduced by low concentrations of AAD (administered two weeks PO) that were previously tested on MAP .”

Compare this last sentence with the following one:

“In our study, occlusion of the left ventricle was reduced by low concentrations of anti-arrhythmic drugs (administered two weeks post operation ) that were previously tested on mammalian atrial preparations .”

If this information was part of my Discussion, as I writer, I would have to assume that my readers memorized the meaning of ALL the abbreviations used in my manuscript. If they did not memorize them, the sentence “In our study, OLV was reduced by low concentrations of AAD (administered two weeks PO) that were previously tested on MAP.” loses all meaning. In sharp contrast, you don’t even need to be a cardiologist to fully understand the sentence that contains no abbreviations.

You may argue that you did provide the meaning of all abbreviations in the text (yeah, three pages above), or that your manuscript contains a list of abbreviations (yeah, in the first page of the manuscript). However, making the reader go back and forth through the text looking for definitions of abbreviations is not a wise move : it is annoying, time-consuming, and distracts the reader from the actual science, which is what really matters.

As a professional Science Editor I beg you, stay away from useless abbreviations. Your readers will love you for that! Trust me, I know, I’m an Editor ;)

Until next time!

PS: If you really want to save some typing time , without sacrificing the clarity of your manuscript, you may want to use MS Word find and replace function. You can write your manuscript draft using as many abbreviations as you want (which may help you save a considerable amount of time), and then instantly replace all those abbreviations with the full terms in the final manuscript version . Your readers will really, really love you!

Until next time!

Erick García García, Ph.D.

Head editor at Casa de Lletres.

I ate bananas, and

By Erick García García • February 27, 2019

That sounds a bit more logical, doesn’t it?

Essentially, the function of the word “and” is to coordinate words, clauses or sentences, and even entire ideas.

The magic word here is “coordinate”. Coordinate means “to place or classify in the same order, rank, class, or division”.

The series “apples, bananas, melons, strawberries, and motorcycles” is not “coordinated ”, because the word “motorcycles” does not belong to the same class as the other words.

You wouldn’t go to work wearing a suit and pajamas, would you? So, neither should your sentences!

So, how to make sure that you are using the word “and” correctly and efficiently in an academic text?

If you are using the word “and” at the end of a list, simply make sure that all of the elements in the list belong to the same class.

Too easy?

Let’s take a look at the following sentence:

The drug Vc345 negatively affects cell division, cell movement, cellular respiration, and the concentration of cholesterol in the blood.

Is this sentence “coordinated”?

If you answer was “no”, hooray for you! It is not a really a “coordinated” sentence, because in this sentence “division”, “movement”, and “respiration” are attributes of the cell, but “concentration of cholesterol in the blood” is not. Thus, the effect of the drug Vc345 on blood cholesterol should be part or a separate sentence.

"Coordinating” different parts of a sentence is especially important in the academic text.

Let’s see why…

The sentence “The drug Vc345 negatively affects cell division, cell movement, cellular respiration, and the concentration of cholesterol in the blood” is not necessarily incorrect, from a grammatical point of view, but as a reader gives you the feeling (maybe as a soft voice at the back of your head) that the concentration of cholesterol in the blood is somehow related to all of the other cellular functions. This may not be a serious issue in this simple sentence, but things can get way more complicated.

Ready for more?

The drug Vc345 reduces cellular respiration and the presence of additional drugs increases its negative effects in mammals [1,2].

“Coordinated”, not “coordinated”? Hooray for you?

This last example is not “coordinated”; I hope that you noticed. I bet that, when you finished reading this sentence, a few questions came to your mind: Is the reduction of cellular respiration one of the “negative effects” mentioned in the last part of the sentence? Are there negative effects other than reduced cellular respiration? Does the reduction in cellular respiration occur in mammals too? Does the presence of additional drugs reduce cellular respiration?

Now, how about this sentence?

The drug Vc345 reduces cellular respiration [1]. The presence of additional drugs increases the negative effects of Vc345 in mammals [2].

This is the same information presented in two independent sentences; however, this time now you unequivocally learn that a) the drug Vc345 reduces cellular respiration, and that b) additional drugs increase Vc345’s negative effects only in mammals.

If you are thinking that you still don’t know if the presence of additional drugs also reduces cellular respiration, hooray for you! As an author I would still need to disambiguate that; however, I’ve reduced the ambiguity of the original sentence to just one question, and not four.

So, is there an easy way to do it ALWAYS right, to efficiently use the word “and” without creating ambiguity?

Here’s the quick and dirty tip (especially useful for those who speak English as a second language):

Never use “and” to create compound sentences that contain two different subjects and two different verbs.

Sounds complicated? You’ll see that it’s not:

The drug Vc345[subject] reduces[first verb] cellular respiration, and increases[second verb] oxidative stress.
Bacteria entering the epidermis[subject] activate[first verb] local alarm mechanisms, and promote[second verb]the liberation of systemic inflammatory mediators.
The drug Vc345 impairs[verb] cellular respiration, and energy generation when combined with other drugs.
Bacteria entering the epidermis activate[verb] local alarm mechanisms, and systemic defenses that might have been quiescent.

Finally , I want you to compare these last four sentences with our “uncoordinated” examples:

[I][first subject] [ate][first verb] bananas, and [my grandma][second subject] [is][second verb] an astronaut.
The drug Vc345][first subject] [reduces][first verb] cellular respiration and [the presence of additional drugs][second subject] [increases][second verb] its negative effects in mammals.

See how messy that was?

In summary , writing science is inherently complex; if you want to transmit a clear and direct message, ambiguity should be kept to a minimum.

A useful way of reducing ambiguity in academic writing is to avoid using the conjunction “and” to join “uncoordinated” parts of a text.

The quick and dirty tip (it is quick and dirty because you don’t have to worry about grammar, you don’t have to think and it ALWAYS works) is: never use “and” to create compound sentences containing two (or more) different subjects and two (or more) different verbs.

Until next time!

Erick García García, Ph.D.

Head editor at Casa de Lletres.

Respectively is a dirty word

By Erick García • February 13, 2019

"Respectively" can be such a dirty word!