I hope I didn’t drive you dotty with the last instalment dealing with all the dots and dashes called punctuation. Today its time to see how writing can be done in style.

What is style?
The word style can mean several things: (1) the slender part of the gynoecium bearing the stigma; (2) the way in which something is done: good or bad; (3) a distinctive, formal or characteristic manner of expression in words, music, painting, etc.; (4) the particular mode of orthography, punctuation, design, etc., followed in a book, journal, etc., or in a publishing or printing house. If you write it with an i, it will help you to climb over a fence a most useful implement for a botanist.

Style: good and bad
Evelyn Waugh, the English novelist, wrote of one of his fellow-writers: To see him fumbling with our rich and delicate language is to experience all the horror of seeing a precious vase in the hands of a chimpanzee. Don’t subject your readers to this. Rather follow the advice of another famous author, Jonathan Swift: Proper words in proper places make the true definition of style.

Style of science writing
In science writing the primary consideration is clarity and comprehensibility: make yourself understood. The second is to write concisely and in a style suitable to the subject. The style of science writing should be formal without being pompous or pedantic. Here are some elements of good science writing:

Brevity
Brevity is the soul of wit, as Shakespeare put it, or, to quote Dorothy Parker: Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

Brevity generally makes for clarity, for faster reading and comprehensiveness and for lower printing costs. It is achieved by using shorter and fewer words and sentences and by avoiding superfluous phrases.

Shorter, simpler words
Avoid four- and five-syllable words when one or two syllables convey the idea just as well:

Replace:	with:
accordingly	so
address (in the sense of deal with)	tackle, deal with, consider
aggregate (noun)	total
ameliorate	improve
commence	start, begin
deficiency	lack
discontinue	stop, end
erroneous	wrong, mistaken
facilitate	help
indebtedness	debt
modification	change
nevertheless	even so, however, yet
prioritise	rank
remuneration	pay, wages, salary
terminate	end
utilise	use

Fewer words/shorter expressions

Replace:	with:
at this moment in time	now
be of the opinion	believe
due to the fact that	because
few in number	few
for the reason that	because, since
green in colour	green
in spite of the fact that	although
in view of the fact that	since, because
it would therefore appear	apparently
joined together	joined
large in size	large
on two separate occasions	twice
rectangular in shape	rectangular
take into consideration	consider
the tree is 10 m in height	the tree is 10 m high

Avoid superfluous phrases
Some scientists seem to think that the naked truth is indecent and should be clothed with excess verbiage such as: in fact; in actual fact; it will be noted that; it has long been known that; it should be borne in mind; it is interesting to note that. When you read such gems, you appreciate the truth of the utterance by I.B. Singer: The wastepaper basket is a writer’s best friend.

Shorter sentences
In writing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigour it will give to your style (Sidney Smith). The average length of your sentences should be no more than 15 to 20 words.

Prefer the active voice
The difference between active and passive voice is the difference between the botanist identified the plant, and the plant was identified by the botanist; or the flower gives off scent, and scent is given off by the plant. The active voice has more vigour and force, and generally uses fewer words. Passive verbs, however, have their uses, for example to defuse hostility or to evade responsibility: your file has been lost, rather than I have lost your file.

Use non-sexist language
Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half as good. Luckily, that is not difficult (Charlotte Whitton). To make it even easier for them, it is recommended to use non-sexist language. Any writing habit that builds a barrier between you and half your readers must reduce the impact of your message.

Now that the Ms has been invented, women can also keep their marital status a secret. And that’s a good start. If we use the masculine pronoun he, the reader may wonder whether both women and men are included. It is better therefore to avoid he, his and him when you have both women and men in mind. Instead of writing: Before a botanist goes collecting, he must arm himself with a collecting permit, write: Before going collecting, botanists must arm themselves with a shotgun. (You have used the plural.) If it is clear that you are addressing botanists, you could simply use you: Before you go collecting, you must…. The option of he/she is clumsy, and when this leads to himself/herself, downright unacceptable.

Using sex-neutral words means avoiding words which suggest that maleness is the norm or superior or positive and that femaleness is non-standard, subordinate or negative (or vice versa). Here are a few examples:

Sex-specific:	Sex-neutral:
chairman	chair
foreman	supervisor
heroine	hero
layman	lay person
man-hours	work-hours
man-made	manufactured
policeman	police officer
postman	letter carrier
salesman	salesperson
spokesman	representative
statesman	diplomat
watchman	guard

The art of one-upping for one-upmanship is a bit over the top, and don’t ask me for sex-neutral alternatives for craftsmanship or manned space flight. Before going off this sexy subject I want to quote from a standard manual of style published in 1979: The use of he as a pronoun embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. He has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances. He has obviously found it again in a hurry.

Avoid overworked, stale phrases
As Venolia (1986) puts it: Television and newspapers can turn a popular phrase into a raging epidemic overnight. Don’t howl with the wolves; sing your own song. A few wolf howls:
at this point in time
a ballpark figure
bite the bullet
conspicuous by its absence
levelling the playing field
the bottom line
the thin end of the wedge

Use of I and we
It is a myth that I and we should be avoided in science writing to sound more polite and learned. If you write it was discovered, or it is considered, or experiments were conducted, your readers won’t know who discovered or considered or conducted experiments. If you write I discovered; I consider; I conducted experiments, they will know. Don’t write the writers are of the opinion, write we think.

Warning: never use we if you refer only to yourself. As Mark Twain puts it: Only presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial we. (He forgot the pregnant authors). Use I and we judiciously lest people think you are big-headed.

Commonly misused words
affect: primarily a verb meaning to have an influence on (the pill affected you)
effect: as a noun it means result or consequence (the effect of the pill was easy to see); as a verb, it means to bring about (the pill effected a cure)
as (in the sense of because, since or for): should be used with caution as it may be ambiguous: The flowers did not open as the sun was shining
farther: to be used with physical distance (he can see farther than I can); or as Wernher von Braun put it: There is just one thing I can promise you about the outer-space program: Your tax dollar will go farther
further: to be used to indicate extent or degree (let’s study the results further)
fewer/less: use fewer when referring to individual numbers or units; use less when referring to quantity (fewer stamens, less advanced) or is it the other way round?
homogeneous (accent on ge): means similar owing to common descent (a homogeneous group of species)
homogenous (accent on mo): means consisting of parts all of the same kind (a homogenous mass)
that/which: use that to introduce a defining or restrictive clause (a clause that can not be left out without changing the meaning of the sentence); use which to introduce a non-defining or non-restrictive clause (a clause that can be omitted without changing the meaning of the sentence and that is surrounded by commas): your manuscript, which was written in golden letters, is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good (with apologies to Samuel Johnson)

Test your style
Here are a few flawed sentences you may want to put right. They include sentences with typos that produce legitimate words; biased words in the area of sex and age; ambiguous or unclear sentences due to a lack of punctuation or wrong word order, or misused or superfluous words:
I have discussed how to fill the empty containers with my employees. After eating the delegates returned to the poster session. If a child lives with approval he learns to live with himself. Botanists have developed a computer program that stimulates plant distribution. Old people will be omitted for half-price. Erica Plant is the daughter of a well-known collector who died when she was 10 years old. The weather conditions effected the experiment. The flower contains less stamens and emits fewer scent. It is interesting to note that the tree is actually 20 m height. The petiole is 25 mm in length. He is a self made man and warships his curator.

Conclusion
This instalment is so riddled with quotations that I feel obliged to end with a few more: Good writing is good manners. You will both please and help your readers when you learn how to be the first victim of your writing, how to anticipate a reader’s difficulties and to hear yourself as others hear you (R.R. Ward).
This article is not to be tossed lightly aside, but to be hurled with great force (Dorothy Parker).
By the way—the next one will deal with putting it all together.

—by Dr Otto Leistner

SABONET News 3.3: 120

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KILLICK, D.J.B. 1981. Guide to science writing. Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, RSA.