Advanced project writing

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Advanced project writing

• Editing
• UniSA Learning Advisers
• August, 2006

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• Science writers will usually write against the
  tide for busy people who may not be experts but
  who need to have complex information served up in
  a brief, clear and forceful way (Eisenberg, 1992
  p. 62).

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• Editing principles
• Ideas and structure first, composition second
• Employ the language of logic and cohesion
• Follow the rules of technical writing
• Look for redundancies
• Look for inflated phrases
• Look for noisy expressions (those which do not
  add meaning)
• Long winded expressions

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• The rules of technical writing
• Explain technical terms in full
• Make sure all acronyms are given in full first
  (MSAAAGIFF)
• A glossary of technical terms in the preliminary
  pages is invaluable.

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• Language of cohesion
• Chronological order
• Firstly, secondly, thirdly
• Comparison and contrast
• in contrast, unlike, similarly, on the other
  hand
• Cause and effect
• Due to, as a result, because of
• Logical division of ideas
• First, second, third

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• Identify redundancies
• End results, final results, consequent results
• Estimated at about, estimated at nearly,
  estimated more or less
• Twelve noon twelve midnight
• Brown in colour
• Sour, sweet tasting
• All of
• Each individual
• Fewer in number
• Shorter in length
• Rarely, seldom ever
• Repeat again
• Todays modern, todays contemporary.

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• Identify inflated phrases
• At this point in time (now)
• Due to the fact that (because)
• For the simple reason that (because)
• Make a measurement (measure)
• Has a corrosive effect upon (corrodes)

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• Identify Noisy expressions
• In other words
• It goes without saying that
• It is important to note that
• Needless to say
• As already stated/said/pointed out
• Understandably there had to be various new
  methods and techniques developed

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• Identify long winded expressions
• The research team conducted an investigation of
  the problem
• An investigation of the problem was conducted by
  the research team
• We did an analysis of the data
• An analysis of the data was performed
• A data performance analysis was done
• The main aim of the project was to acquire and
  discover knowledge from

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• Reference
• Eisenberg, A. 1992 Editing for style McGraw
  Hill, New York.