20 WRITING TIPS Dr Stephan Dombrowski 1 2

20 WRITING TIPS Dr Stephan Dombrowski

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Don’t use don’t (won’t also won’t do). Realise that switching between US and UK spelling is bad behavior. Theories such as theory of capitalisation need to be capitalised and abbreviated. e. g. and i. e. are different, e. g. they are not the same, i. e. as shown in this sentence. Use your spelchecker to correct typos. Do we really need rhetorical questions? Full grammatical sentences good. Interestingly, adverbs sound unscientific. Evidence suggests that 37. 9% of precise statements referring to research are not accompanied by a reference. Etc. is not a shortform of not being able to come up with more examples, better examples, etc. (‘and so on’ is also bad, not good and so on).

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Use ‘as’ instead of ‘because’, because it sounds better. Also, use ‘in addition’ or ‘additionally’ instead of also. As a wise scientific writer once said: “You should paraphrase rather than quote”. ‘This’ and ‘they’ need to be unambiguously linked to the previous sentence. This is what they say. Finish your words pleas. Utilise thesaurus unsubstantially for sumptuous and towering resonating words. Only use a full stop at the end of sentences that are not questions! It is good to cite primary sources if you can (Wise scientific writer 2012, as cited in Unwise scientific writer 2013) Summaries summarise. In summary, they summarise and what I also forgot to mention is that they come at the end of your essay. Using emotive language is shocking and repulsive and personal reflections make me sad.