UvA Students/Staff

Strong Scientific Writing

This page is about sentence-level writing. Also see Thesis Quality; Powerpoint Slides on Manuscript Structure; Dense Correlation Table in APA 7 (Word); and external resource The CARS Method.

Editing your professional writing using the Paramedic Method can make your prose easier to read. Sentences that are easier to understand are more persuasive and more user-centered.

Professional communicators understand the need for clear, concise writing. The Paramedic Method is an industry standard for helping workplace writers achieve user-centered, persuasive, and clear prose. Using this method, you will eliminate unnecessary words. The method also helps activate your sentences by eliminating passive voice and redundancies. (Adapted from a post citing Richard Lanham.)

Circle the prepositions (of, in, by, about, for, on, …). Aim for 4-5 maximum per sentence.
Where is the key action?
Change the "action" into a simple verb
Make the doer the grammatical subject
Eliminate any unnecessary wind-ups (e.g., “it is obvious that”)
Eliminate any redundancies (e.g., “it” to refer to the subject again)

Practice on these examples

The point I wish to make is that the employees working at this company are in need of a much better manager of their money.
It is widely known that the engineers at Sandia Labs have become active participants in the Search and Rescue operations in most years.
After reviewing the results of your previous research, and in light of the relevant information found within the context of the study, there is ample evidence for making important, major changes to our operating procedures.

Concise solutions

Employees at this company need a better money manager. (Original word count: 25. New word count: 9).
In recent years, engineers at Sandia Labs have participated in the Search and Rescue operations. (Original word count: 23. New word count: 15).
After reviewing the results of your research, and within the context of the study, we find evidence supporting major changes in our operating procedures. (Original word count: 35. New word count: 24).

Abstracts

Image of an annotated Nature abstract

My one revision is that there’s now more awareness of replication and reproducibility problems and a shift towards transparency. What's missing in this handout is how the study was conducted: the design, format, population, and sample size. Not all of those need to be in every abstract—it depends.

Further suggestions

Plays a role. Avoid this phrase: it gives the illusion of explanatory depth but doesn’t specify anything about a relationship: the effect size, direction, shape, etc. Instead, talk about the relative weight of different predictors based on effect sizes, or the directional effects between them, the mediators and mechanisms, etc. If the mechanisms are unknown, say that explicitly rather than glossing over it.

Editorializing. Remove terms like much, very, important, essential, and descriptions of opinions like seems, thought to be, well-known, etc. These are telling the reader what to think, and it’s stronger writing to instead show them the evidence and argument. Similarly, don’t tell the reader how you were thinking about the writing process, nor comment on the writing.

Write about concepts, not researchers. Focus sentences and their key grammatical elements (subject, verb, object) on the variables and phenomena, not on the literature or on researchers. Put the references and citations in back. Sometimes it’s necessary to talk about whether scholars disagree or who is arguing, but for most claims it’s assumed that there is sufficient consensus, and using valuable real estate for the researchers makes it harder to understand the content of the argument.

Most researchers agree that owning a cat clearly plays a significant role in intelligence compared to owning a dog. Shallow: no direction of the effect, no methods, focus on researchers
Self-described cat people are smarter than self-described dog people (citation). Grammatically better, adds some methods, still shorter
In a study of White U.S. undergraduates published in a human-animal interaction journal, n=64 'cat people' scored slightly higher (0.4 SD) than n=331 'dog people' on the Reasoning subscale of Cattell's 16 Personality Factors test (citation). Directional effect with high transparency of methods & population. Enough information so that the reader can weigh the value of the evidence. Focus not on the literature or researchers. Example adapted from @jamesheathers.

Minimize quotes on words: e.g., “green” behavior

It’s sometimes okay to use highlighting quotes (“”), e.g., when listing examples, but avoid them in general and stop after the first introduction of a key term. Quotes have a sense of this-but-not-quite-this. Examples of how unclear they are: “Congratulations” on your new baby. Congratulations on your new “baby”.

Looking for more advice? I highly recommend this free book: https://osf.io/tzaeh by Barbara Sarnecka. Sentence construction and word choice—the mechanics of writing—start on pp. 265.

Pithy Quotes

There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting. (unknown)

Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. - Shane Parrish

Peer Review Guidelines

Please suggest improvements. I recommend using tracked changes in Word and typing a summary response at the bottom. Email the student and Cameron.

Content and themes

Was the general introduction to the topic of the paper appropriate and scientific?
Did the writer define their key concepts and jargon? What concepts need clarification?
Is the previous research integrated with a purpose or tension between possible results (theory) instead of just a list of relevant studies?
Do the references support the arguments/conclusions that are made?
Is the previous research described explained well (where too much, where too little, etc.)?
How is the logical progression of the narrative? Do any sections need to be moved?
Is the rationale for the predictions clearly explained (such that the reader would arrive at those hypotheses as well)? Sometimes, "we expect X" is written without explicit logic for why. Logic should come before the hypothesis.
Does the last paragraph/section of the Intro contain an overview of the present study including what is being tested and hypotheses for the study?
Are the hypotheses stated clearly and in a form that permits them to be tested?
Any additional comments on the paper as a whole?

Writing style

Point out any deviations from APA style.
Indicate if a sentence is awkward/vague in wording or content.
Reduce unnecessary complexity; make writing more concise.
Indicate if there are sentences that require a reference (e.g., statement of fact or mention of studies/findings, but no reference provided).
Indicate if additional subheadings would be helpful in terms of organization of the Intro.
Double check that all of the references cited in the paper are included in the References section. You can check for proper use of “et al.” at the same time. This is effortful, and someone is doing it for your paper too, so thanks for helping out.

Grammar and spelling

When you find an error, just highlight the area where the error occurs: do not re-write the paper. You can comment on the particular error in the margin if helpful.

The project is about mental and behavioral phenomena. It helps stay on target with the argument to AVOID using a researcher, paper, or literature as the subject of a sentence. AVOID: “Denk (2000) argued that men are taller than women” and instead write “On average, men are taller than women (Denk, 2000).” This also has the major benefit of clarifying what the current author is claiming.
Flag sentences with more than 3-4 prepositions (to with by of in etc.).