Style Guides and the Garlic, Shallots, and Butter of Scientific Writing

Prescriptivists have long proscribed sentence-initial And (SIA), and sentence-initial But (SIB). However, SIA and SIB are increasingly used in newspapers and style guides have softened strictures against their use. Moreover, SIA and SIB are amongst the most frequently occurring sentence-initial connectives within their respective semantic groups of additives and contrastives. Given their use despite prohibitions, this paper examines the patterns of occurrence and function of SIA and SIB in academic writing. The data come from 1 million words of academic prose: 11 journals representing science, social science, and humanities. The data confirm the findings of Biber et al. (1999) that while coordinator and is more frequent in academic prose than but, SIA is much less frequent than SIB. The data also reveal a marked difference between low SIA and SIB occurrences in scientific writing and much higher occurrences in social science and humanities. Plus, SIA is the preferred additive connective compared with moreover, furthermore, and in addition, etc., and SIB is the second most preferred contrastive connective after however. SIA and SIB in academic writing function in three very similar ways: (i) to mark off a discourse unit by indicating the last item on a list, (ii) to indicate the development of an argument, and (iii) to indicate a discontinuity or shift with a previous discourse unit. Whereas the most common function of SIA is that of indicating the last item on a list, the most common use of SIB is in the development of arguments. SIA and SIB perform special functions that the alternatives of asyndetic or “zero” coordination, the use of similar discourse markers: moreover, furthermore, in addition, and however, respectively, or intrasentential coordination cannot perform. These special functions are derived from their particular semantic meanings, their role as coordinating conjunctions, and their reduced phonological prominence. These features allow SIA and SIB to preface a wider range of lexico-grammatical units such as interrogatives, stance adverbs and other discourse connectives and to create a tighter form of cohesion. It is these special features of cohesion rather than a move to colloquiality which are held to explain the occurrence of SIA and SIB in academic writing.

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Analysis of Reading, Reference and Information Management on the Quality of Scientific Writing

Aptisi Transactions on Management (ATM) ◽

10.33050/atm.v2i1.782 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 63-69

Author(s):

Muhammad Zarlis ◽

Sherly Astuti ◽

Muhammad Salamuddin

Keyword(s):

Information Management ◽

Scientific Writing ◽

The Internet ◽

Reference List ◽

Management Skill ◽

Library Search ◽

Important Thing ◽

Reading Material ◽

Quality Of Research

In education, for educational instruments scientific writing is a very important thing. It requires an information management skill, information management is a library search, which can be done through a computer and guided by the internet. It can also be through the quality of reading used as a reference for scientific writing. In addition, in producing a paper also must know the management of writing, not only required to pay attention to the rules of standard language, but also must be able to convey ideas and ideas well and meet scientific criteria, such as making a quote or reference list used. This paper was written with the aim of improving the quality of research through reading material, making notes and avoiding plagiarism, references using the Harvard system for journals, books, and articles. Management of citing articles either CD or internet, writing, editing, storing references electronically, writing bibliography, and quotations.

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Melissa BAILES. Questioning Nature: British Women's Scientific Writing and Literary Originality, 1750–1830

Archives of Natural History ◽

10.3366/anh.2019.0576 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 46 (1) ◽

pp. 175-176

Author(s):

Anna K. Sagal

Keyword(s):

Scientific Writing

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Graphic instinct: the account of graphic instinct: the account of rhetorical action and its instinctive roots in Peirce’s classification of practical sciences

Cognitio Revista de Filosofia ◽

10.23925/2316-5278.2020v21i1p132-151 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 132-151

Author(s):

Alessandro Topa

Keyword(s):

Scientific Writing ◽

Summum Bonum ◽

Rhetorical Action

Em um artigo intimamente relacionado a este, mostramos que o estudo mais maduro de Peirce sobre a retórica especulativa, em Ideas, Stray or Stolen, about Scientific Writing (1904), nos convida a refletir e apreender o fenômeno da retórica em sua totalidade. Seguindo pistas aristotélicas, Peirce – implicitamente – diferencia três aspectos categoriais da ação retórica, diferenciando entre (i) sua potencialidade [δύναμις] e perfeição [ἐντελέχεια] como uma faculdade instintiva de tornar signos eficazes em uma utópica arte universal, (ii) sua atualidade como um discurso prático normativo historicamente eficaz e que molda a prática retórica [τέχνη], referida como retórica comum; e (iii) sua formalidade, articulada pela investigação puramente teórica [θεωρία] das condições necessárias da eficiência dos signos em geral, intitulada Retórica Especulativa. Assim como nosso modo de ser com os outros em um mundo comum de compartilhamento de propósitos, a retórica, tanto para Aristóteles quanto para Peirce, constitui uma forma semiótica do summum bonum, cujo cultivo é essencial para o crescimento da razoabilidade concreta em qualquer comunidade política e na civilização como um todo. No presente artigo, começamos reconstruindo o relato da retórica de Peirce, no quadro de sua classificação das ciências práticas (Seção 2.1), e depois mostramos como esse relato da retórica como uma faculdade enraizada no “Instinto Gráfico” confirma a análise que apresentamos no trabalho anterior (Seções 2.2-2.3). Na seção final, tentaremos esboçar em que sentido a importância de conceber a retórica como uma δύναμις com uma ἐντελέχεια específica, ou “potencialidade-ideia” do aperfeiçoamento do desenvolvimento, pode nos ajudar a apreciar o papel histórico emancipatório que Peirce atribui às Ciências Normativas (Seção 3).

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Developing the culture and discipline of conducting and publishing scientific research: Guiding principles

Journal of Energy and Natural Resource Management ◽

10.26796/jenrm.v1i0.9 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Daniel Obeng-Ofori

Keyword(s):

Developing Countries ◽

Scientific Research ◽

Scientific Writing ◽

Weekly Schedule ◽

Academic Activities ◽

Heavy Workload ◽

Guiding Principles ◽

Mentoring System ◽

Critical Constraints

The pressure to publish is a fact of life in academia. Academics are expected to demonstrate that they are active researchersand that their work has been vetted by peers and disseminated in reputable scholarly forums. In practice, however, a numberof critical constraints hamper effective publication of scientific research in most developing countries. These include lackof effective mentoring system, poor facilities and inadequate funding for effective research and heavy workload where toomuch time and effort are spent in teaching, grading, meetings and other non-academic activities. In spite of these seeminglyinsurmountable challenges, with proper planning and commitment, one can still conduct research and publish to advanceones career and exchange of knowledge. The paper discusses the critical guiding principles in scientific writing and publishingin an unfriendly research environment as pertains in most universities in the developing world. The overriding principle isto cultivate the discipline of scientific writing consciously and follow it through religiously. This could be achieved if time isallocated for scientific writing in the scheme of weekly schedule of activities and made to be functional through meticulousplanning and commitment. Equally important is to avoid procedural mistakes in scientific writing. While the quality of theresearch is the single most important factor in determining whether an article will be published, a number of proceduralmistakes can help tip the balance against its publication. It should also be noted that when a manuscript is submitted to ascholarly journal, there are two audiences to satisfy: first the editor and external reviewers, and then the journal’s readers.That first group must be satisfied to create the opportunity to appeal to the second. Thus, familiarity with the style and tone ofthe specific journal is crucial.

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