English for sci and tech supp

SECTION 2Run-on Sentences A run-on sentence is one where several complete sentences are simply stuck together either without punctuation or with a comma.. A coordinating conjunction con

English for Science &

TechnologySUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

This book started out as a web page that I put together for my

own graduate students in Computer Engineering and

Electri-cal Engineering I did not want to keep repeating myself over

the same kinds of issues I saw when editing papers or theses

written by my students So, I put together a quick bulleted list

of common mistakes I saw, and I asked them to read my web

page and fix those problems before I start editing their work

This turned out to be very useful that I decided to format it as

an electronic book It forces me to double-check what I wrote

and add what might be missing

This book covers common issues in grammar, style, and tools,

but it is by no means complete or comprehensive If you really

want to be a good writer, I trust that you will take your time to

learn from much better sources, including many classic books

on such topics This book is for those who don’t have the time

to study those books but need a quick check-list to catch most

of the common issues

Grammar is largely objective, but style is more subjective and

potentially debatable I ask my own students to follow the style guidelines that I either have learned from classic books

or have developed on my own I think they are pretty good, but if you know a better way to express something, feel free to

do so

Another aspect rarely covered by conventional books is the use of collaborative and formatting tools More specifically, I ask my students to write their papers in LaTeX for several rea-sons It formats the paper in a professional look, especially when it comes to math, whereas most word processors look more amateurish Bibliography support is also indispensable LaTeX also works well with a version control system such as SVN (Subversion), CVS (Concurrent Versioning System), or GIT This becomes especially useful when you work on the same paper with multiple students or other colleagues Of course, the tool part is entirely optional

In this book, I give correct and incorrect examples Incorrect ones are preceded by an asterisk (*)

i

Foreword

CHAPTER 1

Practice

Practice makes perfect The best way to improve your writing is to develop a

Keep a Daily Journal

The best way to practice writing is to develop the habit of

writ-ing a daily journal, for ten minutes a day That is, just keep

typing sentences non-stop into a computer It really doesn’t

matter what you write, as long as you just do a “brain dump.”

If you don’t know what to write, just type “I don’t know what

to write.”

Thoughts are not concrete until you put them into words So,

this exercise helps you turn thoughts into a more concrete

form that you can then manipulate, organize, and reason with

You might want to brainstorm from time to time, too, but you

should do your daily journal anyway You will probably never

look at your journals ever again, but it is not a bad idea to

keep them anyway

Read Broadly

Another way to improve your writing is to read anything that

interests you and read broadly You will get exposed to

differ-ent writing styles Although some are definitely good sources

of style to follow, not all are, but you read them anyway,

be-cause you are likely to learn new ways to express a given idea

in simpler terms or with accessible analogies

3

CHAPTER 2

Grammar

Know your grammar Buy a book on

grammar and study it if you are not sure This chapter covers the common mis-

takes seen in not only student writing but

SECTION 1

Singular vs Plural

KNOW YOUR MASS NOUNS VS. COUNT NOUNS.

A mass noun is one that cannot be counted (and therefore

cannot have a plural form) Examples include

equipment, hardware, software, middleware ,

information, knowledge, paperwork, research, furniture

A count noun is one that can have a plural form Examples

include

approach(es), impact(s), clothes

Some count nouns do not take s in their plural form but may

appear identical in both singular and plural forms For

“less” is for mass nouns, while “fewer” is for count nouns

“EACH”, “EVERY”, “ANY”

These words should modify singular nouns, not plurals

It is a mistake to say *“every computers” (plural) It should be

singular

It is more common to see “any” used with plural words It may

be almost acceptable in some cases, but strictly speaking, you really should use the singular form

5

SECTION 2

Run-on Sentences

A run-on sentence is one where several complete sentences

are simply stuck together either without punctuation or with a

comma In English, run-on sentences is considered a serious

offense, even though in other languages it is common practice

(e.g., Chinese) due to lack of strict grammar rules

Run-on sentences are further divided into several types Some

can be fixed easily by replacing a comma (,) with a period (.)

or a semicolon (;) Others require inserting words such as

“that”, “which”, “where”, to convert one of the sentences into a

clause that modifies the other sentence

“THUS”, “THEREFORE” VS “SO”

The words “thus” and “therefore” are similar to “so” in

mean-ing but they are not interchangeable The word “so” can be

used [as a conjunction] to connect two complete sentences

as cause and effect However, “thus” and “therefore” are

ad-verbs, not conjunctions, and therefore cannot connect two

complete sentences!

For example, it is correct to say

I was hungry, so I ate my apple.

but it is incorrect to say

*I was hungry, thus I ate my apple.


*I was hungry, therefore I ate my apple

Both are run-on sentences You can fix these sentences by

• replacing the comma with a semicolon,

• with a period and starting a new sentence, or

• inserting an “and” after the comma.

SECTION 3

Articles

An article is a grammatical word that indicates whether a

noun refers to something general or specific That is,

“the” is called a definite article, which means the noun that

follows refers to specific ones that either the speaker has in

mind or to certain ones in relation to other nouns being

men-tioned

“a”/“an” are called indefinite articles, which means the

noun that follows is a generic one One can almost think of it

as “any” or “one”

DEFINITE VS INDEFINITE ARTICLE

They mean different things, even though the difference may

be quite subtle

[to do]

“A”/ “AN” VS “ANY” VS “ONE”They are synonymous, but “one” emphasizes the fact there is one

AN ARTICLE IS REQUIRED IN FRONT OF A SINGULAR COUNT NOUN

This is possibly the most common mistake of some Asian native speakers of English

non-Exception: any, every, each

A MASS NOUN CAN TAKE A DEFINITE ARTICLE OR NO ARTICLE

Just because a noun is not countable does not mean you not refer to it For example

can-I drink water.


I drink the water.

The former refers to the fact that I drink water as one of the things that I do, without specifying specific source; the latter refers to specific kind or source of water

7

THE CHOICE OF “A” VS “AN” IS DETERMINED BY

PRO-NUNCIATION, NOT SPELLING.

As a specific example, it is “a” university, not “an” university,

because the “u” in university is pronounced like /yu/, even

though the letter “u” is often considered one of the five

vow-els

Some speakers may have trouble hearing the /y/ sound It is

actually a consonant, even though it sounds very much like

the vowel Specifically, it is

a year


an ear

The word “year” starts with the /y/ consonant that requires

you to tense up the part behind your upper teeth initially On

the other hand, the word “ear” does not have the /y/

conso-nant but simply has the tongue and mouth in the rather

un-stressed, neutral position as the letter E (no initial tensing

be-hind the teeth)

CERTAIN WORDS CAN BE PLURAL EVEN IF THEY DON’T

APPEAR PLURAL.

Example: faculty, deer, cattle (actually it is a plural noun)

SECTION 4

Compound Modifiers

A modifier is a word, compound word, or a phrase that serves

as an adjective to a noun A compound modifier is a modifier

that consists of a compound word

HYPHENATE A COMPOUND WORD IF YOU WANT TO USE

IT AS AN ADJECTIVE ON ANOTHER NOUN.

hy-low power consumption
 low energy efficiency

They are not hyphenated, because both “power consumption” and “energy efficiency” are compound words, and you want

“low” to modify the compound words This is in contrast to

“low-power radio”, where “low-power” modifies “radio.” ever, if hypothetically speaking “power radio” could be a com-pound word, then “low power radio” would be parsed the same way as “low power consumption.”

How-DO NOT HYPHENATE AN ADVERB-ADJECTIVE QUENCE TO TURN IT INTO AN ADJECTIVE.

SE-For example, the following are incorrect:

*It is an extremely-hot day.


*That is an incredibly-tasty cake.

No hyphens are needed because the adverb is already playing its normal role of modifying the adjective

9

DO NOT HYPHENATE LATIN COMPOUNDS SUCH AS “AD

HOC”

For example,

*ad-hoc network

This is incorrect because ad hoc is a multi-word adjective

al-ready, not a compound English word There is no parsing

am-biguity

SECTION 5

Transitive vs Intransitive

Verbs

A transitive verb is one that takes a direct object, plus

possi-bly an indirect object; an intransitive verb is one that either

does not take an object, except connected by a preposition

Example of transitive verbs include eat, drink, see, take, send,

TRANSITIVE AND INTRANSITIVE VERBS ARE NOT

INTER-CHANGEABLE, EVEN IF THEY ARE SYNONYMS.

transitive: maintain, keep


intransitive: remain, stay (except for rare cases)

The following sentences are correct:

You need to maintain a GPA of 4.0.


You need to remain in this lane.


You need to keep a GPA of 4.0.


You need to stay in this lane.

The following sentences are incorrect:

*You need to keep in this lane.


*You need to remain a good student with a 4.0 GPA.


*You need to stay this house (missing “in”)

11

SECTION 6

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are grammatical words that connect words or

sentences jointly They are further divided into several types

A coordinating conjunction connects words of the same

parts of speech, clauses, or complete sentences together They

include

• and, or, but

• for, yet, so

• nor

A subordinate conjunction marks a word, a clause, or a

sentences as a subordinate in relation to the other

• after, although, as, because, before, even if, even though, if, in

order that, once, provided that, rather than, since, so that, than,

that, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, whereas,

wherever, whether, while, why

A SUBORDINATE SENTENCE IS NOT A COMPLETE TENCE.

SEN-A subordinate sentence is a sentence after a subordinate conjunction For example,

After we ate dinner last night
 Once you hear this song


Whenever I need to take a break

Even though “we ate dinner last night”, “you hear this song”, and

“I need to take a break” are all complete sentences on their own, these subordinate sentences are no longer complete sentences, but they need to be connected to a main sentence This is a

grammatical requirement, not a style issue.

DO NOT START A SENTENCE WITH A COORDINATING CONJUNCTION AT LEAST NOT “AND”, “OR”, “BUT”

The reason is that “and”, “or”, and “but” are supposed to connect two complete sentences together, one on each side If you start a sentence with the conjunction, then you are connecting an empty sentence with another sentence An empty sentence cannot really

be considered a sentence, and this is considered bad style In practice, the writer actually does not mean an empty sentence but refers to the point that was made in the preceding sentence(s).

A SUBORDINATE SENTENCE, SUBORDINATE CLAUSE,

OR SUBORDINATE WORD SHOULD NOT BE JOINED

WITH THE MAIN SENTENCE BY A COORDINATING

CON-JUNCTION

The most common mistake is the “although but”

combina-tion

*Although I have not read the book, but I heard a lot of

good things about it.

This is not correct for several reasons “Although” marks “I

have not read the book” as a subordinate sentence, but it is

subordinate to “but I heard a lot of good things about it”

which can be viewed as a sentence that starts with a

coordinat-ing conjunction, a bad style

Another way to view this is that a coordinating conjunction

should join two units of the same type, even if the purpose is

not to form a larger unit of the same type Because “I heard a

lot of good things about it” is a complete sentence, you should

not join it with “Although I have not read the book” because it

is not a complete sentence In other words, the two parts

be-fore and after “but” are uncoordinated

13

SECTION 7

To

The word “to” serves multiple parts of speech:

1 preposition (“to the left”) precedes a noun;

2 infinitive marker (“to eat”) precedes a verb

3 adverb (“pull the door to behind me”) modifies a verb

The first two are used frequently and sometimes confused

when a verb is involved

WHEN EXPRESSING DIRECTION OF MOTION OR

LOCA-TION MARKED BY A NOUN, THE PREPOSITION “TO” IS

USED.

For example

I went to the kitchen.


The store is two blocks to the south.


You should look to your left before making a left turn.

WHEN EXPRESSING AN INTENT WITH A VERB, THE FINITIVE “TO” IS USED.

IN-For example, the following “to”s are all infinitive marker (i.e.,

#2) that express intent or purpose

I want to eat an apple.


He paid extra to support organic farmers.


I attended the seminar to learn about computers.

WHEN RELATING TO AN ACTION THAT IS NOT AN TENT, USE THE GERUND (I.E., -ING) FORM OF THE VERB RATHER THAN THE INFINITIVE.

IN-For instance

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.


They take a greedy approach to solving this problem.

In the first case, the “to” goes with “look” (e.g., “look to your left”) and is a preposition rather than an infinitive Therefore,

In the second case, the “to” goes with “approach” and marks

the “destination.” Therefore, it should also be the noun form

(“seeing”), rather than the infinitive (* “to see”)

To make or help someone do something, do not add “to”

be-fore the verb

15

CHAPTER 3

Semantics

abstract vs concrete words

SECTION 1

Abstract vs Concrete

words

ABSTRACT THINGS CANNOT BE MANIPULATED YOU

CAN MANIPULATE ONLY ITS CONCRETE

REPRESENTA-TION.

Examples of abstract concepts include

information


knowledge

Examples of concrete things include

data, figure, table, chart, plot, diagram, graph

You can't "send" or "transmit" information; you can transmit

"data", which encodes information

You can't "show" or "display" information, either; but you can show or display a graph or a chart that conveys the informa-tion

Although it is understandable when you say you send or mit information rather than data, it is imprecise and can be viewed as sloppy and confusing because it cross abstraction layers

trans-17

SECTION 2

Literal vs Figurative Use

The literal meaning of a word is its original meaning; the

figurative meaning of a word is derived based on an analogy

or a metaphor

For instance, the word “big” means literally “of large physical

size.” such as a

big car, big building, big fruit, big TV,

Figuratively, it is used for modifying abstract nouns such as

a big disadvantage, big corruption, big exam

For instance, “a big exam” usually means one that tests many

subjects from a course, can take several hours to complete, or

requires a lot of preparation Therefore, it is used figuratively

It would be rare if the exam is literally big i.e., given on an extra large sheet of paper or is extra heavy!

In technical writing you should use other verbs that express the magnitude or extent, rather than the physical size, such as

"main disadvantage" or "major disadvantage."

SECTION 3

Cannot vs Can Not

Normally, “cannot” as in “unable to” is spelled as one word,

not two

“cannot” means “unable to”


“can not” means “able not to”

This is rather strange, because of all the auxiliaries that can

have the negated form, “cannot” is the the only one that is

spelled as one word, whereas all the other ones are spelled as

two words! That is,

One very common mistake is to spell it as two words, “can not” when one means “unable to.”

Consider the following pair

He cannot breathe for two minutes


He can not breathe for two minutes

The first means he is unable to breathe for two minutes; the

second means he can hold his breath for two minutes

Because “can not” is often misunderstood, it is best to phrase the sentence by possibly using alternative words and constructs whenever possible

para-19

AUXILIARY NEG CONTRACTION FULL FORM

should shouldn’t should not

SECTION 4

Only

The word “only” can go in many places in a sentence, because

it can be either an adjective or an adverb

Normally, “only” goes in front of the word or phrase it is

fying In fact, it should go immediately before what it is

modi-fying Consider the following sentences

I only ate an apple (all I did was to eat an apple)


I ate only an apple (all I ate was an apple)

These two sentences mean different things! In the first

sen-tence, “only” modifies “ate”, an action This means among

ac-tions that I could have done, all I did was to eat an apple (and

did not do anything else) In the second sentence, “only”

modifies “an apple”, which means among all the things I could

have eaten, all I ate was an apple (and I ate nothing else)

SECTION 5

Should vs Supposed to

“Should” and “[is] supposed to” have similar meanings They

can mean

• is obligated to (i.e., it is the right thing to do )

• is assumed to (i.e., based on normal prediction)

Note that the former is a matter of “right or wrong” and is

more judgmental, while the latter is based on pattern,

statis-tics, equations, or algorithms, without necessarily making the

right or wrong judgment

Not all languages use different words or expressions to

distin-guish between these two meanings, but in English, you should

at least distinguish them, especially in technical writing

USE “SHOULD” OR “OUGHT TO” WHEN YOU MEAN

OBLI-GATION (I.E., IT IS THE “RIGHT THING” TO DO SO)

“should” and “ought to” both mean the same Actually, “ought to” is potentially stronger in emphasizing the judgmental as-pect

USE “SUPPOSED TO” WHEN YOU MEAN PREDICTION OR EXPECTATION WITHOUT NECESSARILY MAKING THE RIGHT OR WRONG JUDGMENT.

You could also use “should” and even “ought to” in informal speech when you mean “supposed to”, but it makes your writ-ing sound less stringent

misin-21

SECTION 6

Comparative and

Superla-tive

A comparative of an adjective is one that expresses “more

of” the plain adjective itself (e.g., “better” vs “good”) One

that is “less of” is also a comparative (e.g., “worse” vs “good”)

A superlative is one that expresses “the most of” the

adjec-tive (e.g., “best” vs “good”)

An absolute adjective is one that expresses an extreme

con-dition Examples include “unique”, “essential”,

“indispensa-ble”, “full”, “empty”, “complete”

ABSOLUTE ADJECTIVES SUCH AS “UNIQUE”, “

ESSEN-TIAL”, AND “INDISPENSABLE” SHOULD NOT BE USED

IN THEIR COMPARATIVE OR SUPERLATIVE FORM DUE

TO SEMANTIC CONTRADICTIONS.

For instance, the following are not quite correct:

*That is a more unique stamp than this one.


*That is the most unique stamp I have ever seen.

The word “unique” means “one of a kind.” The first sentence is incorrect because if something is “more unique” but not “the most unique,” then it is not one of a kind in the first place and is

therefore not unique (and therefore cannot be more unique)! To fix this sentence, you should pick another adjective such as “rare”, which is not an absolute adjective.

The second sentence is incorrect because something cannot be

“most unique” if there cannot be anything less unique to set the context In other words, the “most unique” would just be “unique”

in the first place In other words, “most unique” is just “unique”

by definition.

Similarly, one frequent mistake is to say

*This is the most essential function in the system.

The contradiction here is that if anything is “less essential” then it is not essential in the first place Therefore, most essen-tial is just essential

One may argue that comparatives and superlatives of absolute adjectives are still understandable in informal speech, but those adjectives are used as figurative speech rather than their literal sense You should use figurative speech sparingly in technical writing

CHAPTER 4

Style

Style is about making the writing precise, concise, easy to read, elegant It is not about grammar it is about elegance.

SECTION 1

Style Guides

Unlike grammar, style guides are not hard rules, but they are

more like (highly) recommended practices to make your

writ-ing more elegant Good style means your writwrit-ing is concise,

precise, and easy to read Readers generally appreciate

ele-gant writing, just as people in general appreciate looking at

beautiful things Moreover, you want to have a point to make

and support your point with persuasive reasoning or evidence

Style guides have been published by many Here are some

classic ones that are worth a look

• Sheridan Baker, The Practical Stylist.

• William Strunk, Jr., The Elements of Style available online,

at http://www.bartleby.com/141/

SECTION 2

Avoid Verbosity

A verbose sentence is one that uses more words than

neces-sary to express the same idea Verbosity has its place, but

usu-ally not in technical writing Verbosity is usuusu-ally a reflection

of poor mastery of language skills, sometimes as a result of

thinking in translation rather than thinking natively

While there is no formula for eliminating verbosity, one can

learn to be concise by studying alternative ways to express the

same idea

• Choose the right verb

• Use the appropriate prepositions instead of subjunctive clauses

• Eliminate weak constructs such as there is, there are,

• Consider using adverbs instead of subordinate clauses as

qualifiers

• Consider using pronouns or possessives whenever appropriate

(it, they, them, their, that, those, one, ).

EXPRESS A SENTENCE WITH A VERB INSTEAD OF THE NOUN FORM OF A VERB WHENEVER POSSIBLE.

The noun form of a verb is usually softer, more abstract, and more verbose than just the verb itself A verb often also estab-lishes the relationship between the subject and the object For instance,

The power consumption of our system is 45% lower than that of the state-of-the-art.


Our system consumes 45% less power than the the-art does.

state-of-Both sentences are grammatically correct, but the first uses more words to express largely the same idea as the second one does Unless you have really good reason to use the first sen-tence, you should choose the more concise one

ELIMINATE “THERE IS”, “THERE ARE” WHENEVER SIBLE, ESPECIALLY WHEN IN COMBINATION WITH

POS-“THAT”There-be form is considered a weak construct It is usually possible to paraphrase the same sentence without using there

is or there are The resulting sentence is therefore more cise and stronger

con-25

There are two cases that show counterintuitive results.


Two cases show counterintuitive results.

As can be seen, the second sentence conveys essentially the

same information as the first One could argue that they mean

slightly different things, but they serve mostly the same

pur-pose unless you have some compelling reasons otherwise

MOST “IN ORDER TO” CAN BE REWRITTEN AS JUST

“TO”.

“In order to” often just gives a false sense of purpose, but “to”

already covers purpose

DO NOT OVERUSE “VERY”

Say “very” only if you really mean it Non-native speakers,

es-pecially Chinese ones, have the tendency of overusing “very”

in front of virtually every adjective; but the problem is it can

sound tiresome or exaggerated, and overuse of “very” loses its

meaning which makes it verbose!

SECTION 3

Relative Pronouns

Relative pronouns are

that, which, whichever, who, whoever, whom, whose,

whosever, whomever

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "THAT" AND

"WHICH":

the former is part of the required description, while the latter

is more of an optional, add-on piece of info For example,

The book that I lent you belongs to my father.


*The book which I lent you belongs to my father.

The second sentence is incorrect, because "that I lent you" is

not a "by the way" additional piece of information In

SECTION 4

Compound Nouns

A compound noun is one that is made up of multiple words

Although it is possible to coin a new proper noun to name a

new project, it is harder to coin a generic noun to name a new

thing or concept; instead, compound nouns that turn into

ac-ronyms or initialisms are the most commonly used

Compound nouns can be made using the usual

Adjec-tive(s)+Noun construction, or possibly

Adverb+Adjec-tive+Noun, and then turned into an acronym One common

example is FAQ stands for “frequently-asked question.”

English commonly accepts two-noun compounds without

hesi-tation, and three-noun ones are now commonplace though

starting to get harder to read

speed limit


time travel


vacation package


labor force
 operating system
 usage scenario
 voltage regulator
 graphical user interface
 heart rate monitor


probability distribution function
 hypertext markup language
 hardware description language

Compound nouns with many words are inevitable as people race to develop new knowledge at a faster pace than ever However, some compound nouns are easier to read and under-stand than others Here are some guidelines

AVOID MAKING A LONG PHRASE WITH FOUR, FIVE, OR MORE NOUNS IN A ROW

Grammatically, compound nouns are not wrong and there is

no strict upper limit on the number of nouns that may be piled up, but this makes things very hard to parse if not under-stand precisely Many have escaped unnoticed because they hide behind an initialism or an acronym, but others are not Note that long noun phrases include titles, names of institu-tions, and new concepts Examples include

Computer Communication Research Center


power consumption efficiency curve


human voice communication device

Note that these are not just compound nouns with four words,

but more specifically, four nouns in a row.

Why is this a problem? Because their parts of speech are all

identical (all nouns), there is no syntax to help express how

these words are related to each other Instead, one must rely

on semantic parsing This makes things harder to process and

leaves room for ambiguity, since you would not know what is

a modifier, what is being modified, etc

Sometimes, these words are chosen in the particular order

just to make an acronym, so they are not supposed to be

natu-ral or easy to parse in the first place; instead, they are just the

excuses for coining an acronym However, in general, these

should still be paraphrased whenever possible

Try to turn some into an adjective or insert prepositions (in,

on, for, with, of, ) to make it easier to parse For instance

Center for Research on Computer Communication


efficiency curve of power consumption


communication device for human voice

29

SECTION 5

Prepositions

Prepositions are often misused and among the hardest for

non-native speakers to master English offers several

preposi-tions to either establish relapreposi-tionships between concepts or to

express specific manners of an action Certain words

pre-scribe a specific preposition to be used, even though several

alternatives might all seem reasonable; other words can be

used with several similar prepositions but with very specific

meaning in each combination

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “IN”, “ON”, “AT”

This is possibly the most common mistake in most writing

KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “FOR” AND “OF”

SECTION 6

Colloquial and Informal

Speech

Technical writing is supposed to be precise, concise, and easy

to understand The question though is how formal should it

be? How much of informal speech or colloquial style should

you use?

DO NOT USE “A LOT” IN TECHNICAL WRITING.

“A lot” is colloquial Instead, use “many” for count nouns or

“much” for mass nouns

AVOID USING “GET” IN TECHNICAL WRITING UNLESS

YOU ARE USING IT WITH PRECISE MEANING.

The word “get” in English is an overloaded word It is not

clear if it is an active “pull” (which is its original meaning) or a

passive “receive” (which is colloquial meaning) as a result of a

push

DO NOT USE CONTRACTIONS SUCH AS “DON’T”,

“CAN’T”, “SHOULDN’T”, ETC.Instead, always spell out the full form as “do not”, “cannot”, and “should not”

31

SECTION 7

Oxford Comma

USE THE OXFORD COMMA FOR THREE OR MORE

NOUNS, BUT NOT FOR TWO.

The Oxford comma is the comma that precedes the “and”

before the last item in a list When you have a list of nouns,

the proper formats are

• “apples” (for one item, no comma and no conjunction)

• “apples and oranges” (for two items, joined by “and” but not

comma)

• “apples, oranges, bananas, and pears” (comma after each except

for the last, and “and” only immediately before the last.)

The “,” before “and pears” is called the Oxford comma It applies

to a comma-separated list of three or more items.

Some people do not write the Oxford comma because they feel it is

redundant given that there is already an “and” to join the last

item However, the Oxford comma serves a purpose in that it enables you to express a hierarchical list.

DO NOT USE A COORDINATING CONJUNCTION “AND”

IN A COMMA-SEPARATED LIST EXCEPT BEFORE THE LAST ITEM.

In other words, don’t say something like

*apples and oranges and bananas and pears

OXFORD COMMA DOES NOT APPLY WHEN YOU HAVE MULTIPLE ADJECTIVES TO MODIFY A NOUN, ESPE- CIALLY IF YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A COORDINATING CONJUNCTION IN THE FIRST PLACE.

An example of a sentence is

This is a nice, quiet, modern building.

There is no “and” to join the list of adjectives, and the comma before “modern” is not considered an Oxford comma.

SECTION 8

Slash (/)

The slash symbol (“/”) has been showing up more and more in

recent decades, especially in technical writing Originally, it is

part of the fraction, such as 1/2, 2/3, 3/4, etc However, it has

gone beyond a fraction marker and has been used as am

am-biguous “and-or conjunction,” which I frown on For

in-stance,

*Everyone should bring his/her own lunch.


*We achieved high performance and/or low power in

the latest design.


*The algorithm can be found in Leiserson/Cormen/

Rivest’s book.

Problems with the slash include

• How do you pronounce it in the text? Literally as a “slash”? As

an “or”? Or just silently as with commas and periods?

• What does it really mean? As far as I can tell, it has at least three different meanings.

AVOID USING A SLASH AS A VAGUE COORDINATING CONJUNCTION INSTEAD, USE EITHER “AND” OR “OR”.

In other words, make up your mind Do you mean conjunction (and) or disjunction (or)?

33

vague coordinating conjunction his/her his or herexclusive-or operator to

make an inclusive one and/or or

list operator Leiserson/Cormen/

Rivest

Leiserson, Cormen, and Rivest 
 (i.e., use comma)

CHAPTER 5

Editing

This chapter provides a checklist of items that should be addressed every time you

SECTION 1

Checklist

ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SPELLING WITH A SPELL

CHECKER.

This is very mechanical and there is no reason not to do this

ALWAYS GO THROUGH YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY AND

CHECK PEOPLE'S NAMES.

It is a big faux pas to misspell someone's name If you write

the paper in LaTeX with BibTeX, you can check spelling on

the bbl file or bib file

IN BIBTEX, PROTECT MULTI-WORD NAMES OR WORDS

WITH UNUSUAL CAPITALIZATION USING { }.

For example, {O'Neill}, {CPU} The reason is that BibTeX

of-ten tries to be smart by applying its own capitalization rules

for you, particularly in the name and title fields Not all ography styles (as defined by the bst file) do this, but most

keep your brainstorming text Make sure you have a good outline before you start flushing out the text.

A typical outline for a paper should have

SECTION 1

Introduction

The introduction serves several purposes The most important

ones are

• the importance of the problem (why should they care?)

• novelty of the approach or solution (why is the solution not

obvious?)

• merit or effectiveness of the solution (why is the solution

good?)

• a roadmap for the rest of the paper

WRITE THE INTRODUCTION AFTER YOU FINISH

WRIT-ING EVERYTHWRIT-ING ELSE.

Often time you need to have developed the insight first before

you can write a good introduction So, as you write the rest of

your paper, if you think of some good points to make, you can

“take notes” by adding the points as brief phrases or sentences

to the introduction However, the rest of your paper should

never be stalled by your introduction

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SECTION 2

Background and Related

Work

Background is the domain-specific knowledge that the reader

should know but might not know in order to understand your

work Not all papers need to have a background section, but

some might

Related work is your competitors They might provide

alterna-tive solutions to the same problem or solutions to related

prob-lems You can compare related work at both the problem level

or solution level That is how you show contributions: are you

solving another, harder or easier problem? Or are you solving

the same problem but better?

SECTION 3

Problem Statement

Problem statements are almost always given in terms of

re-quirements, objectives, and constraints

Requirements

Requirements are statement of what it is supposed to do or

be It can be expressed in terms of the input/output

character-istics For example, sorting problem statement inputs an

ar-ray of items, outputs the same items but arranged in

increas-ing or decreasincreas-ing order

Functional requirements are statements on the

functional-ity that the system or algorithm must deliver in order to be

called a solution

Timing requirements are those on the time of the action or

associated with the data item, rather than the data value

There may be other non-functional requirements such as size, weight, etc

Objectives

Objectives (as in objective functions) are the aspects that

de-termine how good a solution is compared to another solution

Examples of objectives include

minimize code size
 minimize power consumption
 maximize data delivery rate
 maximize battery life

Often time, students only care about the “functional

require-ments” (whether it works) but not necessarily objectives (how

well it works).

Objectives are not always explicitly stated but may be sumed for certain classes of problems For example, sorting has the objective of minimum runtime complexity, with or without space complexity; or space might be a secondary ob-jective

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