Workshop in technical writing for

new PhD candidates at IME

Stewart Clark
Rector’s Office Education
Norwegian University of Science and
Technology
stewart.clark@ntnu.no
tel. +47 73 59 52 45
 Contents
Characteristics of academic writing 2

Readability, word order, nominalization 10

Web resources 27

Stylistic issues 35

Abstract writing 50
 Theme 1:
Characteristics of academic writing
 Use appropriate language

Use formal register

• The government needs to get rid of the
deficit. (no)
• The government needs to eliminate the
deficit. (yes)

Avoid phrasal verbs, use the defining word

instead
Use formal English:
"Formal" words of classical origin "Informal" native words
arrange dinner lay on dinner
by coincidence by chance
calculate work out
collect someone pick up
commence work start work
consider weigh up
construct build
donation a gift
we will endeavour we will try
enquire ask
finalize a contract tie up a contract
determine the results fix the results
inspect look over
make a reservation book a theatre ticket
position job
review the problems look at the problems
settle matters sort out matters
settle the account pay the bill
 Formal and informal English – phrasal
verbs:
two or more words added to a verb such as:
stick at stick by

Phrasal verbs The single word

are often informal equivalent is
usually more formal
(see defining sentences)
stick at continue
stick by loyal
stick out noticeable
 Phrasal verbs in the ‘Oxford’:
Phrasal verbs are two or more words added to a verb such as:

These are often informal A single word equivalent is

usually more formal
stick around wait
stick by loyal
stick out protrude

sting someone borrow

s comare common in informal English these words/expressions so that the most formal one is 1, the next most formal is 2 and so on
1. big, large, substantial, huge, enormous, considerable
2. short of money, skint, hard up, in difficulties, insolvent, cleaned out
3. red-letter day, vital concern, big deal, no joke, a matter of life and death, important matter
4. skill, expertise, mastery, ace, gifted, wizardry, competence
5. intellectual, smart ass, egg head, highbrow, guru, boffin
 Formal and informal English:
Number these words/expressions so that the most formal one is 1, the
next most formal is 2 and so on
1. big, large, substantial, huge, enormous,
considerable
2. short of money, skint, hard up, in difficulties,
insolvent, cleaned out
3. red-letter day, vital concern, big deal, no joke, a
matter of life and death, important matter
4. skill, expertise, mastery, ace, gifted, wizardry,
competence
 Use academic vocabulary
Useful nouns
• Notion, concept, theory, idea, hypothesis, principle,
rationale
Useful verbs
• Indicate, illustrate, point out, present, embody, state,
establish, formulate, accept, reject, support

Avoid: thing, tell, say and sh…

Study: Academic Word List

(see Theme 3 in the compendium)
 IEEE - style
• For spelling, IEEE uses Webster’s College Dictionary,
4th Edition.
• For guidance on grammar and usage, consult The
Chicago Manual of Style
• Write good continuous prose
• Abstracts are stand alone texts
• ‘By nature, Abstracts shall not contain numbered
mathematical equations or numbered references’
(IEEE Style Manual)
http://www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/publications/authors/trans
jnl/stylemanual.pdf
 APA – style (6th edition)
Reference lists
• ‘Books: In U.S. need city and state abbreviation.
Internationally, include city and country
• Journals: Use of DOI for identification rather than
database name’
See: http://www.apastyle.org/learn/faqs/what-is-doi.aspx

Details about digital object identification

(example, doi:10.1000/182, available at
http://www.doi.org/hb.html)
No contractions ("I'm...won't...") = informal style

Contractions (also called short forms) are to be avoided

in serious mails/letters, reports and scientific writing.
Typical contractions: aren't, can't, don't, I'm, isn't, it's are
used in informal, conversational writing and speech
In formal English, the expected forms are: are not,
cannot (usually one word), do not, I am, is not, it is.
Using contractions in the wrong context looks sloppy
and leads to mistakes such as it's (it is) when you mean
its ("the cat hurt its tail").
 Contractions cause confusion
• Contractions are typical of informal speech and are only
correctly used in academic writing to report speech.

• Soundalikes that are often confused:

contraction it's possessive its
contraction they're possessive their, adv. there
contraction you're possessive your
contraction who's possessive whose
! exclamation mark

for emergencies only, not otherwise.

“Fire!”, he screamed

• All style guides in English agree that exclamation marks should

be avoided in formal and academic English. "These should not
be used in scholarly writing" (Modern Humanities Research
Association Style Book, 1995).

• It signals a forceful utterance that gives a warning, indicates

astonishment and surprise …”absurdity, command, contempt,
disgust, emotion, enthusiasm, pain, sorrow, a wish…” (Oxford
Dictionary for Writers and Editors)
 What is said about !!
Do you wear underpants on your head?
”The exclamation mark is the punk in the school of
punctuation. Favoured by advertisers, immature
writers and writers of ransom notes…”

In Guardian Style (2007), editor David Marsh exclaims

simply, "do not use!"

About multiple exclamation marks, novelist Terry

Pratchett calls them a "sure sign of someone who
wears his underpants on his head.”

If you still find them being used: Google the phrase

”avoid the exclamation mark”
 Avoid etc.
a. Indirectly, they also include the impact of industry,
business strategy, market, and the economic
environment etc.
b. The proposed model considers only risks, while in
real life, managers make decisions regarding other
important aspects, such as strategy, cost reduction,
and service quality etc.
c. Measures in hedging risks may be to keep
management in house and use spot contracts when
contracting carriers etc.
 Politeness - Acknowledgements
Be formal :
- I wish to thank my supervisor Professor Arne Olsen at the
Department of Computer and Information Science,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology for his
invaluable assistance.
- I would also like to thank…
- I appreciate the assistance from…
- Special mention is given to to…
- Gratitude is also given to…
- I am grateful for the help from Anne Olsen, research
technician and other departmental staff.
- Finally, I acknowledge the generous financial support from
the Research Council of Norway
(See Words a User’s Guide p. 424)
 Theme 2:
What makes texts readable?

Online readability tools

Link words
Word order
Nominalization
 The Lix readability index
"LIX" is a measure of how hard a text is to read. It is defined as
the percentage of words longer than six letters plus the
average number of words per sentence.

Enter the text in the box and analyse it.

• LIX < 20: Very easy reading
• LIX < 30 - 40: Popular reading
• LIX < 40 - 50: Normal for newspapers
• LIX < 50 - 60: Normal for academic texts
• LIX < 60 and higher: Heavy to read, should be revised

Lix works in most western European languages

 Doggerland before and
after the Storegga
megatsunami

Left: about 12 000 years ago

Right: about 7000 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland
 Test – the end of Doggerland v.1
Comment on this text:
Ancient Britain was a large peninsula until a large
tsunami flooded its land-links to Europe some
8000 years ago, this was when a large
landslide off Norway - the Storegga Slide -
triggered one of the largest tsunamis ever
recorded on Earth and a large landlocked sea in
the Norwegian trench burst its banks.

LIX – readability index – gives this text 80

(Scores of 60 or more = Very heavy language
http://www.lix.se/index.php
 Test – the end of Doggerland v.2
Ancient Britain was an extensive peninsula until a
megatsunami flooded its land-links to Europe
some 8000 years ago. This was when a substantial
landslide off Norway - the Storegga Slide -
triggered one of the greatest tsunamis ever
recorded on Earth. As a result, a vast landlocked
sea in the Norwegian trench burst its banks.

LIX – readability index – gives this text 46

(40 – 50 Average difficulty, normal for journals)
http://www.lix.se/index.php
 Analysis of the changes in v.2
Ancient Britain was an extensive peninsula until a
large megatsunami flooded its land-links to Europe
some 8000 years ago. This was when substantial
landslides in Norway - the Storegga Slide - triggered
one of the greatest tsunamis ever recorded on Earth.
As a result, a large vast landlocked sea in the
Norwegian trench burst its banks.

Consider the blessing of

punctuation, linguistic variation
and early Norwegian influence on
the UK
 Check how many sentences start with
‘the’

The last 20 years has seen overall growth. The

international business community was shaken by
the financial crisis in 2008. The banking sector was
in trouble. The calls for better regulation resulted
in…

(Four sentences). The Lix readability score is 36.

(Popularized text, easy reading)
 Check how many sentences start with
‘the’ – revised version
Although the last 20 years has seen overall growth,
the international business community was shaken
by the financial crisis in 2008. In particular, the
banking sector was in trouble and consequently the
calls for better regulation resulted in…

(Two sentences). The Lix readability score is 51.

(Normal for official texts)
 Readability – exercise

Find a text of about 100 words on your laptop and enter it in Lix

http://www.lix.se/index.php

Results over 60 need revision, aim at 50.

Discuss changes with your neighbour.
 Other readability indexes
Most other readability indexes are computed using 5 steps:
• Count the number of words in the document.
• Count the number of syllables in the document.
• Count the number of sentences in the document.
• Compute the index – formula given

The result is the number of years of formal education needed to understand the
text

Examples:
http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

http://www.standards-schmandards.com/exhibits/rix/

About the readability issue:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Readability-Metrics:-Are-They-Getting-Your-
Message?&id=351293
 Link words 1
Link words to provide a structure of
sentences:
• link words: the subconscious
structure in a text
• link words are like
signposts by the road
• links in a process
• links to orientate the reader
 Link words 2
1. Linear
First,... Second,... Third,...
Next,... Then,... Finally,...
When you have you the word 'first,' – make sure there is a
'second', a 'third', and a 'finally'.

Example:
• First, the experiments considered the effect of heating.
Second, variations in the temperature were compared at
three different pressure readings
(1 atm, 2 atm, and 3 atm). Third, the effect of pressure was
studied as an. Finally, the …

• NOT
First, the effect of heating is studied. The temperature was
varied and the pressure studied as an independent variable.
Then, …
 Link words 3
2. Loop
having completed ..., the next stage/step is
3. Flashback
previously .....
earlier .....
4. Simultaneously
during this stage ....
while ....
at the same time ....
5. Conclusion
finally,
in the last stage,
the process concludes/finishes with ...
the last step is ... make sure that this is ‘finally’
 Link words 4
Time and sequence link words
• to begin with, at first, in the first place, first
(second, third, etc.),
• then, after, afterwards, next, later, previously, soon,
subsequently,
• meanwhile, at the same time, currently,
simultaneously, for the time being, immediately,
instantly, in the meantime, in time, in turn,
presently,
at last, finally, in conclusion,
(See Words – A User’s Guide p. 431)
 Don’t throw the baby out with the
bathwater
On the one hand, fibres from
different wood species have
properties that vary. On the
other hand, each tree has a
unique distribution of fibre
dimensions due to variation
in growth factors and genetics.
Consequently, it is important
to have a good quality control
of the timber. However, only a few pulp mills
can utilize these opportunities.
 Exercise: Polish this text
Figure 5 shows the early-late gate bit
synchronizer that is developed using the Fokker-
Planck method. The Fokker-Planck method is
compared with the performance of two other
commonly used bit synchronizer circuit
topologies. The bit synchronizer circuit
topologies are shown in Figure 6.
 Verbiage – terms to avoid
at an earlier date - Use before, previously.
case - a word that can nearly always be omitted.
character - Often redundant, as in "the work was demanding in
character".
commence, initiate - Use begin or start.
due to the fact that - Use because.
end result - Use result unless there is an intermediate result.
fact, actual fact and true fact are redundant. Facts are true and
actual.
almost unique, totally unique, partially unique - Use unique or
omit
 Verbiage - exercise
Underline the terms to avoid and suggest alternatives:
Wordiness problem
1. This is an actual fact
2. Work of an experimental nature
3. At this point in time
4. We have the expectation that this work…
5. We will make the decision next month

Intensifier problem
1. This is rather/very interesting
2. The results are extremely promising

Unnecessary ‘to be’ or ‘being’

1. The software is considered to be effective
2. As the signal is being transmitted
3. The experiments were being repeated
 Verbiage - exercise
Underline the terms to avoid and suggest alternatives:

Doubling problem
1. The results give several future prospects
2. Let us reconsider again
3. PIN number; HIV virus; RSVP, please reply
4. The meeting started at 3 p.m. in the afternoon,
5. The cuttings were red in colour.
6. Both twins are ambidextrous and write well with both hands

Overused relatives such as ‘who’, ‘which’, ‘that’

1. Researchers who may be regarded as innovators
2. Results which are generally difficult to reproduce

(See Words – A User’s Guide pp. 372-373 and more examples:

http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/style-and-editing/wordiness
Word order
RULE Normal order:
S V O M P T
Subject + Verb + Object
+ Manner + Place + Time
(Adverbials in alphabetic order)
S V O
He + loved + his wife
M P T
passionately + +
RULE: Alternative order, if the time is
important:
T S V O M P
Time + Subject + Verb + Object
+ Manner + Place
T S V 0
In 2013, the world population reached 7.2 billion
M P
causing problems in many parts of the world.
A few exceptions to SVOMPT and TSVOMP
-Long adverbs of manner:
We generally/easily/probably/possibly spend too
much
-some adverbs of time:
He always/often/rarely/sometimes laughs
-adverbs that modify a whole sentence:
However,
Generally,
Usually, Mr Oxford-Smith was there.
Verbs drive on the left in English:
Example:
From these data the noise level along the profile is calculated
> The noise level along the profile is calculated from these data

S V O

Exercise:
1. At the last student festival in 2013, more
than 100 countries were represented.
2. In Bergen at a meeting, the Norwegian
Animal Research Authority carefully
discussed the report in December 2012.
 How to drive on the left
1a. Two confocal laser scanning microscopes (CLSM) and two
CLSM for fast image acquisition, as well as a two-photon
microscope are included in the instrumentation.
1b. The instrumentation includes two confocal laser scanning
microscopes (CLSM) and two CLSM for fast image acquisition, as
well as a two-photon microscope.
2a. By performing intracellular recordings and staining, the
logic of olfactory coding mechanisms is studied.
2b. The logic of olfactory coding mechanisms is studied by
performing intracellular recordings and staining.
Exercise: correct these to left-hand drive verbs,
but remember SVO
1. To follow the maintenance programme, engineers
from the airline are sent to Seattle.
2. To be included in the sample, the SMEs had to
meet two main conditions.
3. Inserting two new actions, the algorithm then
finds quantity assignments.
 Using the same order
Comment on these:
a. ‘This paper considers onshore and offshore
pipelaying. The offshore challenges are …’
b. ‘Most developing nations differ from the developed
nations in a number of ways. The developed nations
enjoy a high standard of living, whereas developing
nations are…’
c. ‘First we consider female and male students, the
boys were found to be more immature than the
girls. The men were more confident; however, the
women students worked harder and got better
grades.’
 Using the same order
When you have established an order – stick to
it. Example:
• This report will consider water temperature,
acid content, and bacterial properties.
• WT + AC + BP is the order.

Use this order in the 'introduction’, ‘methods'

and other sections.
 Avoid dangling modifiers

One morning I shot an elephant in my

pyjamas. How he got into my pyjamas I'll
never know.
– Groucho Marx
 Dangling modifiers
What the writer meant ≠ what the reader understands
1. Being in a dilapidated condition, I was able to buy the house
very cheap.
2. Walking down the hill, the trees were very beautiful.

Note the word order and the present participles (-ing)

Strategies to revise these sentences:

SVO: I was able to buy the house very cheap as it was in a
dilapidated condition.
SVO + subject: I was walking down the hill and noticed the trees
were very beautiful.
 Avoiding nominalization
Which of these texts is easiest to understand?
Why?
1. The company’s conclusion from the analysis was that
increased flexibility in attendance hours for workers has
resulted in a reduction in absenteeism.

2. The company analysed the report and concluded that

greater flexibility in attendance hours for workers has
reduced absentee rates.
 Avoiding nominalization

a) The development of a new technique for the measurement

of muscular tension by St. Olavs Hospital has made different
treatments possible.

b) Now that St. Olavs Hospital has developed a new technique

to measure muscular tension, it offers different treatments.

Analysis:
a) 2 verbs ‘has, made’, 6 nouns, (21 words)
b) 4 verbs ‘has, developed, measure, offers’, 4 nouns, (18
words)

Try to state the central actions in verbs

 Avoiding nominalization - exercise

Replace some of the nouns with suitable verbs:

In some countries today there is a requirement that

there is conformity in the population to some
standard. This requirement can lead to similarities
in speech and in beliefs. If one or more groups in
the population have different ideas, the general
opinion is that they are odd.
 Collocation - exercise
– natural word partnerships
Some words belong together naturally, others
do not.
Insert the opposites:
• Heavy traffic/ ________traffic on the roads
• He suffered from a heavy cold/_______ cold
• A cup of strong coffee/________coffee
• A strong/_________wind was blowing
 Collocations

Collocations
absolutely convinced (20) extremely convinced (0)
(adverb + verb)
slight breeze (20) light wind (25) weak wind (0)
(adjective + noun)

Numbers refer to hits on the British National Corpus

 Theme 3:
Web resources
English Matters portal
www.ntnu.edu/english-matters/
Pronunciation help
Vocabulary resources
Academic Word List
Online course in academic writing
Self study exercises
 English matters
English language tools for staff at NTNU
www.ntnu.edu/english-matters/

Online dictionaries – EN/EN

• Oxford and Longman (BE), Miriam Webster (AE),
• Roget’s Thesaurus (synonyms), Slang dictionary
• Dictionaries with pronunciation help
Online dictionaries – EN/NO and NO/EN
• Ordnett, Clue, UMB’s Green Dictionary
 English matters
Longman online dictionary - Collocations
Chance - collocations
• there's a chance (that) (=it is possible that)
• there's every chance (that) (=it is very likely)
• some chance little chance no chance a good/fair
chance (=something is likely)
• a slight/slim/outside chance (=something is
unlikely)
• a fifty-fifty chance (=the possibility of something
happening or not happening is equal)
• a million to one chance/a one in a million chance
(=something is extremely unlikely to happen)
 British National Corpus (BNC)
Exercise:
• 100 million word something that is quite
collection of BE texts likely to happen
• Oxford UP, Longman, Is it a large? great? big?
Chambers and British possibility of …
Library
or a strong/real/distinct
• Free search sampler
possibility?
http://sara.natcorp.ox.
Use Longman and BNC to
ac.uk/lookup.html
find out, and which
verb to use
 Other material on English Matters
Norwegian-English terminology
• Norwegian higher education institutions termbank
- Translated educational terms

• Norwegian legislation (UiO)

• Norwegian ministries (UD)
 Other material on English Matters
www.ntnu.edu/english-matters
Skills
• Emails and letters
• NTNU style guide
• European CV /Europass CV

Vocabulary
• BBC world service “Words in the news"
• Vocabulary exercises from Stewart
• Collocation exercises
 Academic Word List

• Inclusion criterion: An AWL term has to occur

over 100 times in the 3.5 million word Academic
Corpus (28 disciplines).

• The icing on a cake.

• BUT do not overdo it. Too many AWL terms will

be heavy to read.
Other material on English Matters:

Using English for Academic Purposes

A Guide for Students in Academic Writing

The following slides give some

suggestions about on how to use
this online resource
 Paragraph
Click on Paragraph, then Signalling = link words
Note all the examples
• Do exercises 10 and 11.
• Any contrasts?
 Functions
• Click on functions in academic writing
No.16. Introducing
- note useful phrases at the bottom

No. 9. Including tables

- note language tips at the bottom
- Click on Exercises and try Ex. 1 and 2 (Gap
filling)
 Advice on Academic Writing
Useful sections in Style and editing:
Hit Parade Of Errors In Grammar, Punctuation, And Style
Wordiness: Danger Signals and Ways to React
Punctuation
Passive voice
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/style-and-editing

PhD on track
Relevant for those starting PhD work
http://www.phdontrack.net/
 Theme 4:
Stylistic issues
Sources:
ISO standards
Standard practice in academic and scientific writing
Online version (this has much more detail):
www.ntnu.edu/english-matters/
Click on NTNU English Style Guide

Main computer science style guide:

http://www.ieee.org/documents/style_manual.pdf
 English style guidelines
Abbreviations, acronyms Apostrophe "s", plural "s"
Capitalization Contractions
Currency codes Dates
Equations Figures
Genitives Hyphenation
Proper names References
Referencing electronic Spelling (BE – AE)
documents in English
Structure Symbols
Tables Tone and sexist writing
Units Punctuation
 Abbreviations, acronyms
• An abbreviation may be formed from the initial letters in a
phrase or name and is read letter-by-letter, like I,B,M or V,I,P
in English.

• Note no full stop in BE, but period(s) in AE:

Mr Ms Dr MSc MA PhD

• An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of other

words and is pronounced as a word such as SINTEF and
NATO.
Use of articles: A/AN
RULE: THE SOUND, NOT THE SPELLING, DECIDES.
A BEFORE A CONSONANT SOUND
AN BEFORE A VOWEL SOUND

All the letters in blue will take AN if they are alone or

start an abbreviation:
A B C D E F G H I

J K L M N O P Q R

S T U V W X Y Z

(See: Words a User’s Guide p. 395)

 Indefinite article use – exercise
• In Equation 3-12, zt is a/an m x 1 design vector. The vector ηt
has unknown variances collected in a/an r x r diagonal
matrix Qt.
• Unsolicited bulk email (UBE) is a/an umbrella term for spam.
This is rarely used by serious corporations so a/an UBE ad
from IBM is unthinkable.
• The finite element method (FEM) is a common numerical
technique. However, in a Flight Control Computer (FCC)
application a/an FEM analysis will only give approximate
solutions. This means that a/an FCC needs…
• It is not enough to get a passing grade in a/an master's
degree. At NTNU, only A or B grades in a/an MSc qualify the
graduate for PhD study.
• A/an NSA researcher was rejected when he applied to
a/an NTNU research group.
• He formed a/an SME as a spinoff from a/an SINTEF research
group.
 Capitalization
Capitalize the structural words in reports when they are
followed by a number or letter, as in: Appendix B,
Figure 6, Section 2.2
Eq. Equation
Fig. Figure
Sect. Section
Ch. Chapter
App. Appendix
The same applies to Table but this is not abbreviated.
“… as is indicated by Figure 4 and Figures 6 - 8. The other figures in
this section will be discussed later, see
Section 3.5.”

Explain: Table A-5 and Equation B-32

 Capitalization
Capitalize proper nouns for specific location
(Example: North America, East Timor, Central and
Eastern Europe. Note no hyphens)

Do not capitalize: email, chemical elements, names

of methods or theories (apart from the proper
noun part, e.g. Boolean function
Do not capitalize terms that refer to a general
direction or a general location (Example:
northeastern areas, western society)

See ‘Words’ page 425

Some currencies and their three-character ISO 4217
currency code
ISO home page (http://www.iso.ch/) refers to sources of complete, updated versions of this list.

AUD Australian dollar BRL Brazilian real

CAD Canadian dollar
CNY Chinese yuan
DZD Algerian dinar
GBP British pound
INR Indian rupee
IRR Iranian rial
KRW Korea won
MXP Mexican peso
NOK Norwegian krone
PHP Philippine peso
RUB Russian rouble
CHF Swiss franc
DKK Danish krone
EUR euro
IDR Indonesian rupiah
IQD Iraqi dinar
JPY Japanese yen
KWD Kuwaiti dinar
NGN Nigerian naira
NZD New Zealand dollar
PKR Pakistan rupee
USD American dollar
 Currency codes
• Use ISO currency codes (EUR, NOK, GBP, USD etc.) - not
"krone" or "dollar", which type?
• The currency code is written first, but read last
Written English Spoken English
EUR 15.50 Fifteen euro fifty (cents)
NOK 2 million Two million Norwegian kroner
USD 25.50 Twenty-five US dollars fifty
GBP 3.20 Three pounds twenty
 Confusions with amounts of money
Consider:
Wages: "The salary is NOK 387.859 per annum"
(this means about NOK 388)
Prices: "The price is NOK 1,675 a unit”
(this means about NOK 1675)

• k for kilo (1000) as in kNOK 35 may confuse.

(write NOK 35 000)
• Avoid MEUR 25. Write EUR 25 m or EUR 25 million
• "Crowns" for monarchs, use “(Norwegian) krone"
 Writing amounts of money
Decimal point in English 34.956
(Other languages - comma 34,956)

Thousand/million/billion markers
- use spaces above 9999 (ISO) 34 956
Do not use a comma here in English

Note nothing is written after an amount

Not: 34 956,- Use: 34 956
 Writing exact amounts
NOK 1 000 000 million Abbr. (m)
avoid MNOK 1

NOK 1 000 000 000 billion Abbr. (bn)

(Norw.: milliard)

NOK 1 000 000 000 000

trillion Abbr. none
(Norw.: billion)
 Digital dates
There are three main formats in use for
writing dates in digital form:
European (day-month-year)
American (month-day-year)
Military (year-month-day)

This can cause problems in contracts,

agreements, emails and letters
Never write a date like this in English:
11/01/14 or 11.01.14
In Britain, this will be understood as
11 January 2014, whereas AE users may
understand this as November 1, 2014.
In China, they may understand the year to be 2011.
The only internationally accepted digital format:
(ISO 8601) Model: 2014-01-11(CCYY-MM-DD)
Read as ”on the 11th of January 2014*”(BE)
”on January 11th 2014”(AE)

* Read as ”twenty-fourteen”, now standard

 Formats to use with 9/11
• For all-digit dates use ISO 8601 format
The model is 2001-09-11 (CCYY-MM-DD)
• Otherwise, 11 September 2001 - normal BE format
(Read as: ”the 11th of September 2001”)
• September 11, 2001 - normal AE format
(Read as: ”September the 11th, 2001”)
• Note no ordinal numbers in modern written dates in
English (not 1st, 2nd, 3rd)
 Genitive ’s or s’?
• If the noun ends in “s”, add ’
- The teachers’ ideas
- With the /iz/ sound, write either Charles’ ideas (most
common) or Charles’s ideas
• If the noun does not end in “s”, add ’s
- The children’s dog - the cat’s tail
- Her husband’s car
• Both ’s or s’ are normal when the owner is a
person/people/an animal (animate nouns)
• ’s or s’ indicates ownership, compare:
- A painting of Munch’s
- A painting of Munch - a painting by Munch
 Genitive + of
• ‘Of genitive’ normal for inanimate and abstract nouns:
- The future of democracy
- The structure of the survey
- A series of experiments
- The origin of the universe

• Avoid doubling ‘of’, compare:

- The basics of the theory of information pricing
- The basics of information pricing theory
 Genitive ’s, s’ or ‘of’?
• ’s or s’ are also used with inanimate nouns
- place nouns (centres of population): London’s
pubs are worth visiting
- collective nouns (human organizations):
The IOC’s inspection methods

• ‘of genitive’ could be used with both to give more

formality and distance:
The pubs of London are worth visiting
The inspection methods of the IOC
See ‘Words’ page 398
 Hyphenation
A. Always hyphenate
1. Compound adjective in front of a noun
three-dimensional image sediment-filled streams
straight-sided vessel state-of-the-art model
high-energy particles low-Mg samples

But turn them around and no hyphens

The image is three dimensional The vessel has straight sides
This model is state of the art

2. Fractions and numbers

two-thirds completed one-half
nth-order equation a sixteen-year-old player
But no hyphenation, when old comes after the noun:
Lionel Messi played for Barcelona when he was sixteen years old

twenty-odd students = around 20 of them. If it is the appearance of the

students, leave open (twenty odd students)
 Hyphenation
A. Always hyphenate
3. Compounds starting with self, cross, all or half in front of a noun
self-consciousness cross-sectional
all-inclusive half-asleep
But some are closed up such as ‘halfway’.
As a noun, two words ‘a half hour passed’

4. Single letters + noun:

U-shaped tube T-shirt

5. Colours in combination
red-green colour blindness (colour terms of equal importance)
But if the first colour modifies the second, leave open
bluish green paint light blue curve

6. Words of equal weight:

wave-particle interaction noon-midnight value
east-west range
 Hyphenation
B. Do not hyphenate
1. Irregular comparatives or superlatives + nouns
better known theorem less known derivation

2. Foreign phrases
a priori solution in situ technique

3. Adverbs ending in -ly + noun

slowly flowing stream highly complex approach

4. Chemical compounds
ferric oxide layer sulfuric acid residue

5. Compounds indicating direction or placement

north central Utah upper right corner
 Hyphenation
C. Tricky issues
1. Common prefixes such as the following are generally closed up:
pre post un extra semi
ultra pseudo micro macro super
mini maxi anti co mid
But hyphenate when these are followed by a capital letter:
pre-War post-War
mid-West anti-American
Hyphenate when distinguishing between:
recover re-cover (cover again)
remark re-mark (mark again)

2. Per cent, percent, percentage

50 per cent (British English), 50 percent (American English).
Percentage is closed up in British and American English

3. Non- or non (closed up)

Hyphenate non in British English, write as one word in American English.
Thus non-linear is British and nonlinear is American English.
 Exercise 13: Hyphenation –
insert hyphens if needed
1. Two thirds of adults in the US are overweight
2. Crude oil production statistics
(or crude oil production statistics)
3. Hot and cold rolled steel
4. Occupationally damaged workers
5. A ten year old theory
6. This theory is ten years old
7. Sudan’s north south faultline
8. This is anti EU legislation
9. He asked her to resign the revised contract
10. The light blue segment in the pie chart

Chicago Manual of Style (16th Edition) pp. 375 to 384 gives many other examples,
http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html
 English - who decides?
• No official English language academy, national
committee or body with the mandate to decide
correct and incorrect English usage in the UK or
US

• Spelling standards in English are found in:

– major dictionaries such as Oxford (BE)
– Webster's (AE)
 British English (BE) or American
English (AE)?
• Latest BE dictionaries (Oxford), prefer "-ize" in "organize".
Brussels & London newspapers use ”-ise”.
• '- ize is the world English norm' New Penguin Dictionary .
• Note verbs: advise, comprise, devise and supervise have "-ise"
in BE and in AE. (See ‘Words’ page 188)
• BE > less hyphenation: Cooperate, coordinate, multiphase,
multidisciplinary.
• Statoil, NTNU and public sector in Norway have BE as the norm
on their websites and in most central publications.
 Thesis or Dissertation?

At most universities in the UK:

• thesis is used at PhD level
• dissertation is used at master's
or bachelor’s levels

At most universities in the USA:

• dissertation is used PhD level
• thesis is at master's
or bachelor’s levels
 Summary of British & American spellings
-ce, -se
British spellings American spellings
advice (noun) =advice (noun)
advise (verb) =advise (verb)
device (noun) =device (noun)
devise (verb) =devise (verb)
licence (noun) license (noun)
license (verb) =license (verb)
practice (noun) =practice (noun)
practise (verb) practice (verb)
defence defense
offence offense
 Summary of British & American spellings
-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)
American spelling avoids -ise endings in words like organize, realize
British spelling mostly uses -ise, but -ize is widely used (organise,
organize / realise,realize)
Oxford UP (BE) favours -ize/ -ization, this dominates internationally

Many verbs only take -s- in BE and AE: advise, arise, comprise,
compromise, despise, devise, exercise, revise, supervise, televise
(see ‘Words’ page 188)
-yse, -yze
-yse is British and -yze is American.
British English analyse, hydrolyse, paralyse
American English analyze, hydrolyze, paralyze
 Summary of British & American spellings
-our, -or
British spellings American spellings
colour color
harbour harbor
labour labor
neighbour neighbor

Note many -or spellings in both British and American English

such as honorary, vigorous, laborious
 Summary of British & American spellings
-re, -er
The common difference is words ending -bre or -tre:
British spellings American spellings
centre center
fibre fiber
litre liter
manoeuvre maneuver
theatre theater
metre meter
meter
Note many -er spellings in British English such as filter,
number, parameter, September and sober.
 Summary of British & American spellings
-ll, -l
British English doubling for -ed, -ing, -er, -est -or
British spellings American spellings
cancelled canceled
counsellor counselor
cruellest cruelest
labelled labeled
modelling modeling
signalling signaling
travelling traveling
Note controlled, controlling in both British and American English

American English doubling in words such as:

British spellings American spellings
enrol(ment) enroll(ment)
fulfil(ment) fulfill(ment)
skilful skillful
wilful willful
 Summary of British & American spellings
British spellings American spellings
-mme programme -m program
-m = program
in computer science only

non- non-profit nonprofit

non-linear nonlinear

-oe- diarrhoea -e- diarrhea

-ae- leukaemia -e- leukemia
-ogue- catalogue -og catalog
-oul- mould -ol- mold
 Ton or tonne?
When referring to weight there are three terms:
• Tonne or metric ton
= 1000 kg
• Short ton (USA)
= 907 kg
• Long ton (UK)
= 1016 kg
 Gallons, pint and litres
US gallons and US pints differ from the Imperial
gallons and pints
The UK ones are larger

NASA's metric
confusion caused
Mars orbiter loss (1999)
Software produced output
n in pound-seconds (lbf×s) instead
of newton-seconds (N×s)
 BE or AE? Exercise
Comment on these sentences and PP automatic help:

1. The specimen was colored grey and then analyzed.

2. The modelling of the airfoil in aluminium was part of the
program of study.
3. She could not turn off the faucet and the flat was flooded.
4. The drugstore that is open late is in the city center next to
the off-licence.
5. He asked for a one-way ticket and she replied ‘Is that a
single or return?’
(See exercise in ’English Matters’
Vocabulary exercises from Stewart)
 Theme 5:

Structure

Abstract writing
 IMRAD structure
• Abstract
• Introduction
(problems to be solved)
• Methods
• Results and Discussion
(analysis of findings)
• Conclusions and
Recommendations for Further
Research (logical results)
• Appendix: Details
 Structure
Short report or paper:
• Section used for all levels.
• Numbered as: 1. 1.1. 1.1.1.

Thesis/dissertation or book:
• Chapter is normally level 1*.
• Use section for levels 2, 3 and 4

Avoid "subchapters" and "subsections". A paragraph is several lines.

*Part could be level 1 in a thesis with an overview and publications.

Then Chapter for level 2 and Section levels 3 & 4
• Part I: Introduction and Overview
• Part II: Publications
• Part III: Appendices
 Abstract - format
(For scientific reports and theses)
Summary of the information in the report
• brief statement of why the work was undertaken
(objectives)
• brief statement of methods (methods)
• clear statement of the significant
facts/findings/ideas in the text (results-
recommendations)

• An abstract should be as long as is necessary to sum

up the essential information (250 to 500 words as a
rule of thumb)
 Two abstracts – exercise

Which of these is the most readable – why?

Do they both contain all the elements one should
include in an abstract?

Work in 2’s and analyse each other’s abstract.

Then present one of them to the group