Talking about science in English can be difficult! Be sure that you’re not making some of the most common mistakes below…also, take the time to check out the suggestions for your writing!
Common Mistakes
Run-on Sentences
When a sentence becomes too long and contains too many ideas, causing the reader to get confused.
How to fix it: Read your writing out loud. If you get lost in a sentence, it might be a run-on. Split it at a natural point into two separate sentences (or more!).
Showing Possession
We use ‘s to show possession, or just an apostrophe if it’s plural.
- Bad: “the body of the mouse” Good: “the mouse’s body”
- Bad: “the research of the scientists” Good: “the scientists’ research”
Prepositional Errors
- Bad: “scientists of Indiana University” Good: “scientists at Indiana University”
- Bad: “related with…” Good: “related to…”
- Bad: “on the Monday” Good: “on Monday”
- Bad: “the researchers are of Spain” Good: “the researchers are from Spain”
- Bad: “We are at Pobra do Caramiñal.” Good: “We are in Pobra do Caramiñal.”
Commonly Misspelled Words
- demonstrate
- population
- especially
- recognize
Subject-Verb agreement (and agreement in general!)
Check your conjugations!
Examples:
- Present simple tense of “to be”
- I am, you are, he/she/it is, we are, they are
- Present simple tense of “to have”
- I have, you have, he/she/it has, we have, they have
- Singular third-person example: “The scientist has….”
- Plural third-person example: “The scientists have….”
Also:
- This (singular) – this book
- These (plural) – these books
IMPORTANT NOTE: “The news” is actually a single object. It functions as third person singular, so a sentence might say “The news says that….” or “There was a piece of news…”
Writing Suggestions
Sentence starters for the opinion section:
- I think…
- I believe…
- I feel that…
- In my opinion…
- In my view…
- I agree…
- I disagree…. (you can disagree with something…research, someone else’s opinion, etc…or disagree that something is true. Same with agree.)
- I find it interesting that….
- It occurs to me that…
- From my point of view…
Connector Expressions:
- Therefore
- However
- Thus
- So
- On the other hand
- Still
- Nevertheless
- In contrast
- For this reason
Common Editing Symbols
Common Editing Symbols