Читать книгу Writing Scientific English - Timothy Skern - Страница 45

If you have not read your work, why should anyone else? Do this on a printout as errors, inconsistencies and discrepancies are often very difficult to detect on the computer screen. In addition, the printout lets you compare different pages. This is very time-consuming on the monitor. For instance, if there are two abbreviations for the same chemical in various parts of the manuscript, it will be very difficult to find this inconsistency on the monitor.

Reading your work is only the first step toward improving it. You must also start to think critically about it. Put your writing into question. Does the text fit together? Read it out aloud to find out. Are the sentences too complex? Read them aloud to find out. Is the text written in formal English? Look at chapter 1 to check. Did you keep the guidelines from chapter 2 in mind whilst writing? Search again for complicated sentences and needless words. Simplify the sentences and omit the needless words. Did you think about the reader whilst writing? Do all the sentences express your thoughts so that the reader will understand them? These questions are the first steps on the way to writing a coherent text in scientific English. Box 3.2 has further suggestions to help you identify problems in written work.