Tips for Editing Academic Paper

October 8, 2021

Tags: [notes] [daily]

just some tips for miserable phd students.

1. Mindset before your move

Recognize that you’re not going to have perfect draft after your first try, so stop being stressed when you prepare your manuscript. Simply put together everything you want to say, no need to use super academic language.
There is no limit on total number of words for academic paper, so try to delete redundant materials ruthlessly. Short sentences give stronger information anyway.
Writing a academic paper is hard, you should try to make it meaningful. Quit the writing-for-publication logic.
Good writing communicates an idea clearly and effectively. It matters the least writing your words in elegant style.

2. Tips for cutting the redundant

2.1. Use verbs instead of nouns

If you write a sentence using tons of nouns end with “-tion” or “-sion” words, it’s time to consider to transform clunky nounds back to verbs. Take the following sentence as an example:

These findings imply that the rates of ascorbate radical production and its recycling via dehydroascorbate reductatse to replenish the ascorbate pool are equivalent at the lower irradiance, but not equivalent at higher irradiance with the rate of ascorbate radical production exceeding its recycling back to ascorbate.

Avoding the use of production and recycling, we can rewrite the sentence as

These findings imply that, at low irradiation, ascorbate radicals are produced and recycled at the same rate, but at high irradiation, they are produced faster than they can be recycled back to ascorbate.

2.2 Avoid dead weight words and phrases

As it is well known
As it has been shown
It can be regarded that
It should be emphasized that

2.3 Avoid empty words and phrases

basic tenets of
methodologic
important

2.4 Avoid long words or phrases that could be short

Long words include unnecessary jargon and acronyms

\[\begin{array}{ll} \text { Wordy version } & \text { Crisp version } \\ \hline \text { A majority of } & \text { most } \\ \text { A number of } & \text { many } \\ \text { Are of the same opinion } & \text { agree } \\ \text { Less frequently occurring } & \text { rare } \\ \text { All three of the } & \text { the three } \\ \text { Give rise to } & \text { cause } \\ \text { Due to the fact that } & \text { because } \\ \text { Have an effect on } & \text { affect } \end{array}\]

2.5 Avoid repetitive words or phrases

studies/examples
illustrate/demonstrate
challenges/difficulties
successful solutions

Whenever you’re searching for a synonym to avoid repetition, it’s highly possible your writing is repetive at the first place.

2.6 Eliminate the negatives

$\begin{array}{ll} \text { Not honest } & \text { dishonest } \\ \text { Not harmful } & \text { safe } \\ \text { Not important } & \text { unimportant } \\ \text { Does not have } & \text { lacks } \\ \text { Did not remember } & \text { forgot } \\ \text { Did not pay attention to } & \text { ignored } \\ \text { Did not succeed } & \text { failed } \end{array}$

2.7 Eliminate there are/there is

The data confirm that there is an association between vegetables and cancer.

$\rightarrow$ The data confirm an association between vegetables and cancer.

2.8 Omit needless prepositions

“that” and “on” are often superfluous.

They agreed that it was true. $\rightarrow$They agreed it was true.

2.9 Examples of cutting clutters

Anti-inflammatory drugs may be protective for the occurrence of Alzheimer’s Disease. Anti-inflammatory drugs may protect against Alzheimer’s Disease.
Clinical seizures have been estimated to occur in 0.5% to 2.3% of the neonatal population. Clinical seizures occur in 0.5% to 2.3% of newborns.
Ultimately p53 guards not only against malignant transformation but also plays a role in developmental processes as diverse as aging, differentiation, and fertility. Besides preventing cancer, p53 also plays roles in aging, differentiation, and fertility.

3. Use Active Voice

Active voice employs strong verbs, and put subject and main verb close together at the start of your sentence. Passive voice might be appropriate in methodology section in your manuscript. It is livelier and recommanded to use “We” in sentences!

3.1 Don’t bury the main verb

The following sentence is hard to understand because the subject (the fear) is far away from the main verb in a passive tone(has not been realized).

The fear expressed by some teachers that students would not learn statistics well if they were permitted to use canned computer programs has not been realized in our experience.

We can change the sentence into: Many teachers feared that the use of canned computer programs would prevent students from learning statistics.

where we replace the noun “fear” with a verb “feared”. As an example of long subject, try to understand the following sentence:

Review of each center’s progress in recruitment is important to ensure that the cost involved in maintaining each center’s participation is worthwhile.

We change it into We should review each center’s recruitment progress to make sure its continued participation is cost-effective.

As another example, we remove dead-weight phrase to shorten the fllowing sentence:

it should be emphasized that these proportions generally are not the result of significant increases in moderate and severe injuries, but in many instances reflect mildly injured persons not being seen at a hospital.

Beside the dead weight, the sentence also has unnecessarily long phrases such as in many instance and not the result of. A possible revised sentence could be Shifting proportions in injury severity may reflect stricter hospital admission criteria rather than true increases in moderate and severe injuries.

3.2 Identify vague/hedge words

In the following sentence

Important studies to examine the descriptive epidemiology of autism, including the prevalence and changes in the characteristics of the population over time, have begun.

We can easily identify the problem of buried main verb, but the use of vague words is also glaring. Some of those words are important, change over time, and of the population. A revision of the original sentence could be Studies have begun to describe the epidemiology of autism, including recent changes in the disorder’s prevalence and characteristics.

The following sentence uses redundant hedge words, it is suspected that:

It is suspected that the importance of temperature has more to do with impacting rates of other reactions than being a mechanism of disinfection itself since ponds are rarely hot enough for temperature alone to cause disinfection.

To fix this sentence, we remove the hedge words and split it into two parts: Ponds are rarely hot enough for temperature alone to cause disinfection; thus, the effect of temperature is likely mediated through its impact on the rates of other reactions.

3.3 Some grammar tips

Compare to $=$ to point out similarities between different things
Compare with** (used more often in science) = to point out differences between similar things