Breck’s suggestions for a more readable project paper
Grammar and punctuation matter, not just content. People who read your work are likely to note that good form without substance is unacceptable, but substance without good form is indicative of potentially sloppy work. Typographical errors do occur. However, when such errors occur frequently, it generally indicates that the paper was not crafted with care and your grade will suffer. Examples of simple grammatical problems that should not appear in a final draft, follow.
Misspelled words
Simple typos"Wild rice saw [was] once abundant at this site."
NOTE: A spell-checker would not catch this error!”
Misuse of singular/plurals "Typha grow(s) in wetlands."
"Typha and Carex grows in wetlands."
Verb tense disagreement"In 1980 there are [were] 30 wetlands in this county."
Misused synonyms"there/their" "to/too/two"
Sentence fragment"The deep, brown, loamy soil." (No subject or verb)
Missing capitalization“water resources are important to new hampshire.”
Missing/incorrect punctuation “Why would a careful person do this."
Things that will improve the clarity of your writing (and perhaps increase your grade)
Make and use an outline
Organize your paper into concise, labeled sections and subsections rather than one long, continuous narrative.
Pick up almost any magazine article and you will see that it is divided into subsections. The purpose of subsections is to provide physical structure to the paper. There is a psychological factor at work here as well. Subsections provide benchmarks for the reader; there is a sense of accomplishment whenever you finish a subsection. A lengthy paper can then be understood as the sum of its distinct parts. Note that most professional journals have a format style that you must follow or the editor will reject your paper.
Use paragraphs and ensure that each one has a topic sentence that contains only one central theme
A common mistake is to run several ideas together in a single, long paragraph. Once you have drafted your paper, return to your outline. You should be able to see that each point in your outline has one paragraph associated with it and that each paragraph has a topic sentence that can be traced back to the outline.
Avoid run-on sentences
Students should realize that sentences that have little or no punctuation are difficult to follow because technical information is inherently difficult to digest and should be offered to the reader in small digestible chunks so that there is a better chance that they (the reader) will understand it thus increasing the chance that they (the student) will communicate the information effectively and therefore get a good grade on their report and eventually graduate with a high GPA that allows them to get a good job and live happily ever after. [Note: This sentence should have been decomposed into 2 or 3 more digestible bits.]
Avoid extensive quotes, but cite any quoted material. NEVER PLAGIARIZE.
There are reasons to quote the words of others, but do not rely too heavily on quotes. An over-reliance on quotes suggests that you lack self confidence in the material. Remember: You are not writing a Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. I would much rather read your interpretation of someone else’s thoughts than to simply read extensively quoted passages of someone else’s words. If you do insert a quote be sure to include the attribution (cite the source).
And course, never plagiarize. Remember that plagiarism is, in fact, a criminal offense.
But recall that I did say it was acceptable to clip and include particularly important figures and tables from other works. When you do this, clip just the figure or the table, not the legend. Write your own legend and number it to flow correctly in your paper. In the legend include the citation “As published in Smith (2014)” and then include the full citation to Smith (2014) in your literature cited section at the end.
Use a consistent format to cite literature that you use in your report.
The citation should be sufficiently complete so that another person could locate the work easily in a library or by searching on line. Refer to any peer-reviewed science journal for an acceptable format. I suggest the format used Ecology as a good example. For citations within your report use the “Harvard” system. In general, this is a combination of the author(s) and year of the publication. Use the full last name for one or two authors; for three or more authors follow the first author with “et al.” For example: “(Smith, 2014)”, “(Smith and Wesson, 2012)”, and “(Smith et al., 2013)”. If you use the author’s name in the sentence directly, then only the year goes in parentheses, e.g.: “Smith (2014) report that…”. Limit the use of web URL citations; they lack the permanence of peer-reviewed publication. If you must cite at URL, cite it in full. [Note: Most professional journals have a citation format that you must follow or the editor will reject your paper. Most journals do not allow URLs alone as valid citations. Follow the citation format of the journal that is your model.]
Simple grammatical suggestions
Avoid useless phrases
"...in order to..." is almost never necessary. Just say “to”.
Don't start a sentence with a numeral
"6 (Six) wetlands were sampled"
Don't use verbs as nouns especiallywith a preposition
(Identifiable as a verb +"-ing" form. Solution: use the infinitive)
"The excavating of pits was done with a back hoe."
"A backhoe was used to excavate the pits."
Whenever possible, use an "active" rather than a "passive" voice
"Six samples were taken from the wetland by the authors."
Note reversal of "actor" and "actee".
"The authors took six samples from the wetland."
Don't overuse, abuse, or confuse use of "the" and "a"
"Wetland sediments tend to immobilize the heavy metals for long periods." [Where you really mean ALL heavy metals, not a specific group. Note how the sense changes if you remove “the”.]
Use commas and semi-colons properly
Commas provide breaks were you would naturally PAUSE while speaking.
Semi-colons connect two FULL sentences that could otherwise stand alone OR connect complicated lists of phrases that have internal commas.
Maintain a "parallel" structure in sentences with comparative phrases
"As the tide went in and out, we observed that the water level went down and up."
[Logically should be “up and down”]
"At three wetland sites biomass was higher than at the control site and plant density is the same."
[“was”]
Carefully arrange modifying phrases so that they refer back to the correct object
"The rate of Typha decomposition was investigated by placing bags on the sediment surface which contained dried litter." [Is it the "bags" or the "sediment surface" that contains the plant litter?]
Remember that there are resources available to help you with your paper. Two important resources are the university reference librarians and the UVMWritingCenter. The reference librarians can help you (for free) locate information, search computer databases, and request documents from remote libraries. The UVMWritingCenter (656-4075) is located in the Learning Cooperative, 244 Commons Living and Learning and is available to assist you with writing problems or questions. You can make an appointment with a consultant and have that person go over the structure and grammar of your paper. Remember, however, that these consultants are not content specialists and probably will not be able to help you with “science” questions.