Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the fourth edition
- 1 Start with a plan
- 2 Conduct a comprehensive literature search
- 3 Prepare for the challenge
- 4 Begin well
- 5 Compose the IMRAD core of a strong first draft
- 6 Assemble the rest of the first draft
- 7 Compile tables to develop, clarify, and support your story
- 8 Include figures for evidence, efficiency, or emphasis
- 9 Report numbers clearly and responsibly
- 10 Revise for coherence
- 11 Improve style and syntax
- 12 Improve word choice
- 13 Attend to punctuation, capitalization, and other mechanics
- 14 Address your ethical and legal responsibilities
- 15 Oral presentations: adapt the text and visuals
- 16 Share your story in public: presenting talks and posters
- 17 Publication: the rest of the story
- Thirty exercises to improve anyone’s scientific writing skills
- Selected resources
- Index
10 - Revise for coherence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the fourth edition
- 1 Start with a plan
- 2 Conduct a comprehensive literature search
- 3 Prepare for the challenge
- 4 Begin well
- 5 Compose the IMRAD core of a strong first draft
- 6 Assemble the rest of the first draft
- 7 Compile tables to develop, clarify, and support your story
- 8 Include figures for evidence, efficiency, or emphasis
- 9 Report numbers clearly and responsibly
- 10 Revise for coherence
- 11 Improve style and syntax
- 12 Improve word choice
- 13 Attend to punctuation, capitalization, and other mechanics
- 14 Address your ethical and legal responsibilities
- 15 Oral presentations: adapt the text and visuals
- 16 Share your story in public: presenting talks and posters
- 17 Publication: the rest of the story
- Thirty exercises to improve anyone’s scientific writing skills
- Selected resources
- Index
Summary
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
joseph pulitzerWritten communication has two aspects. The first is your choice of words to express your thoughts. The second, which takes place in the mind of the reader, is interpretation – the conversion of your written words into their thoughts. The essential difficulty is in trying to ensure that these aspects are congruent. Studies have shown that readers base many of their most important interpretations about what they are reading on clues they receive from its structure (Gopen and Swan, 1990).
Revising is the process by which you try to optimize writer–reader congruence. Undertaken by the Process Approach, it entails a series of nested steps, each concentrating on successively finer points. The first and broadest step concentrates on the document’s structure and basic style. It includes matters such as organization, logic, accuracy, brevity, and clarity. Coherence is the desired result.
Start with organization and logic
The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
george bernard shawDuring the process of writing a first draft, most of us include things in one place that should be in another location. We think of additional things as we write. We use words as they come to mind, even though our first thoughts are not necessarily the best and they may not be arranged in the most effective order. This step in the revision begins the process of bringing it all together into an orderly, coherent final product.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Successful Scientific WritingA Step-by-Step Guide for the Biological and Medical Sciences, pp. 123 - 140Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014