Writing Clearly

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Writing Clearly

• Strategies in Grantwriting
• 8/04/06
• Erica Whitney, Office of Research

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Clarity

• Why do we need to be concerned with sentence
  clarity?
• To communicate effectively to the reader
• To make writing persuasive
• To show credibility and authority as a writer

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Starting the Writing Process
Familiarize yourself with the agencys
guidelines. Follow NIHs instructions!!! Fonts M
argins Spacing Page numbers
Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, or Palatino Linotype
11-point
0.5 inches all around
No less than single spaced, 6 lines per inch, 15
characters per inch.
If it says 25 pages, it means 25 pages!
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Starting the Writing Process
Every agency has specific guidelines for
formatting a proposal. Every agency reserves the
right to return a proposal without review if you
do not follow their guidelines.
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Starting the Writing Process

• Understand the composition of a proposal
• Specific Aims
• Background and Significance
• Preliminary Results
• Research Design and Methods

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Starting the Writing Process
Create an outline.
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The Writing Process
Just sit down and do it! It doesnt have to be
perfect the first time around. Thats why youve
scheduled plenty of time to rewrite and edit!
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The Writing Process

• Make the reviewers happy
• Say what you mean.
• Say it clearly.

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The Writing Process

• Look carefully at what you write.
• Does it say what you want it to say?
• Do you need to use so many words to say it?
• Put the most important information first.

Tables 1 and 2 contain the summarization of the
results of the experiments done before noon last
Thursday morning.
Tables 1 and 2 summarize the results of last
Thursday mornings experiments.
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The Writing Process
Real quotes from the Lung Cellular, Molecular,
and Immunobiology Study Section I picked up
this grant and thought Oh my god, what is
this? This grant was beyond descriptive. I
couldnt find even a hint of a hypothesis. Hes
got the bait, hes got the tackle, hes got the
best boat he can buy equipped with sonar, but
its still a high tech fishing trip.
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Reviewers want
Clearly labeled material. Make it easy for
reviewers to find information.
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Headings

• A.
• A.1.
• A.2.
• B.
• B.1.
• B.1.a.
• B.1.b.
• B.2.

• SPECIFIC AIMS
• Specific Aim 1
• Specific Aim 2
• BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE
• Secondary Heading
• Tertiary Heading
• Tertiary Heading
• Secondary Heading

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Graphics

• Label and number your graphics.
• E.g., Figure 1, Table 3, Algorithm 2.

Figure 1. Punctuation is your friend.
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Reviewers want

• Short and simple text. Start with basic ideas and
  move progressively to more complex ones. State
  the key points directly, and write basic concepts
  as nontechnically as possible. You may want to
  use Scientific American as a model for the level
  of writing to use for your nontechnical parts.

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Reviewers want
Graphics. A picture is worth a thousand words,
probably more. Graphics can help reviewers grasp
a lot of information quickly and easily, and they
break up the monotony of the hundreds of pages of
text that each reviewer contends with. Edited
and proofed text. Your presentation can also make
or break your application. Though reviewers
assess science, they are also influenced by the
writing and appearance of your application. If
there are lots of typos and internal
inconsistencies in the document, your score can
suffer.
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Pet Peeve 1
When people dont use commas.
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Commas
Id like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
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Commas
Id like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.
serial comma
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Commas
Id like to thank my coworkers, Superwoman and
Batman.
Id like to thank my coworkers, Superwoman, and
Batman.
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Commas

• Poor I had eggs, toast and jam and orange juice
  for breakfast.
• (Jam and orange juice? Eew!!!)

• Better I had eggs, toast and jam, and orange
  juice for breakfast.

Door prizes will include lab equipment, books
written by members of the bio department and a
fruitcake.
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Commas
Consider We will look at the hues that make up
green, blue and yellow. vs. We will look at the
hues that make up green, blue, and yellow.
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Commas
By 2020, a hotel and conference center, the
Graduate School of Management's new building, an
art museum combining three campus museums and the
Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food
Science will be up and running in the south
entrance area, the region's door to the
university.
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Commas
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Pet Peeve 2
When people dont use semicolons properly!
The true measure of civility is the proper use
of the semicolon. -Henry James
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Semicolons

• Two uses
• In lists of items.
• To link to complete phrases.

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Semicolons
Between items in a series containing internal
punctuation.
The only sensible ends of literature are first,
the pleasurable toil of writing second, the
gratification of ones family and friends and
lastly, the solid cash. -Nathanial Hawthorne
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Semicolons
The results of this research are presented in a
paper titled, A Leadership System for Emergency
Action Teams Rigid Hierarchy and Dynamic
Flexibility, co-authored by Katherine J. Klein,
Jonathan C. Ziegert, a visiting scholar at
Wharton, Andrew P. Knight, a Wharton doctoral
student, and Yan Xiao, a professor and lead
researcher at the School of Medicine, University
of Maryland, Baltimore.
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Semicolons
The results of this research are presented in a
paper titled, A Leadership System for Emergency
Action Teams Rigid Hierarchy and Dynamic
Flexibility, co-authored by Katherine J. Klein
Jonathan C. Ziegert, a visiting scholar at
Wharton Andrew P. Knight, a Wharton doctoral
student and Yan Xiao, a professor and lead
researcher at the School of Medicine, University
of Maryland, Baltimore.
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Semicolons
Between 1815 and 1850 Americans constructed
elaborate networks of roads, canals, and early
railroad lines opened up wide areas of newly
acquired land for settlement and trade and began
to industrialize manufacturing.
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Semicolons

• Uniting sentences
• Between independent clauses
• The conditions of 52 of the patients improved
  greatly 4 of the patients withdrew from the
  study.
• Jack broke his crown Jill wasnt seriously
  injured.
• Five slides were prepared with solution REB six
  slides were prepared with solution TRP.

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Semicolons

• Between clauses joined by a conjunctive adverb
• The patients fever had subsided however, his
  condition was still critical.
• The values from the two studies disagree
  therefore, definitive results cannot be given at
  this time.
• No refinement is necessary that is, one merely
  has to derive a single set of rules to describe
  the wings final shape.

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Clarity

• Misplaced modifiers
• Dangling modifiers
• Passive voice and jargon

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Misplaced Modifier

• a word or phrase that causes confusion because it
  is located within a sentence so far away from the
  word(s) to which it refers

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Misplaced Modifiers

• Consider the different meanings in the following
  sentences
• The dog under the tree bit Carrie.
• vs.
• The dog bit Carrie under the tree.

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Misplaced Modifiers

• Sometimes misplaced modifiers are used for comic
  effect
• The other day I shot an elephant in my pajamas.
  How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
• -- Groucho Marx

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How might you correct the following sentence?

• Nancy rushed to the store loaded with cash to
  buy the birthday gift.
• Better Nancy, loaded with cash, rushed to the
  store to buy the birthday gift.

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FOR SALE Antique dresser for woman with thick
legs and large drawers.
FOR SALE Woman's antique dresser with thick legs
and large drawers.
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Misplaced modifier
We have developed a sensitive and reliable ELISA
assay to detect permethrin, the most popular
pyrethroid in human urine for the first time.
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Dangling modifier

• a word or phrase that modifies another word or
  phrase that has not been stated clearly within
  the sentence
• often occur at the beginnings and ends of
  sentences
• often indicated by an -ing verb or a to verb
  phrase

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Dangling Modifier

• Being in a dilapidated condition, he was able to
  buy the house very cheap.

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How might you correct the following sentence?

• Driving down the street, the beagle
• chased my car.

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How might you correct the following sentence?

• Being a process that still needs to be refined,
  scientists are searching for a more effective
  plan for chemotherapy treatment.
• Better Scientists are searching for a more
  effective plan for chemotherapy treatment, a
  process that still needs to be refined.

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Dangling modifiers

• Having finished dinner, the
• football game was turned on.
• Having finished dinner, Joe
• turned on the football game.

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Dangling modifiers

• Joe turned on the football game after he finished
  dinner.
• After Joe finished dinner, he turned on the
  football game.

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Dangling modifiers
Perhaps not really a dangling modifier, but
confusing Of more than 700 contracts valued at
500,000 or greater, more than half were awarded
without full competition or with vague or
open-ended terms, including politically
connected companies such as Halliburton
subsidiary Kellogg, Brown Root, Bechtel Corp.
and AshBritt Inc.
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The Passive Voice and Jargon
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Passive voice

• indicates what is receiving the action rather
  than explaining who is doing the action
• two indicators
• "to be" verbsis, are, was, were
• "by ________
• Examples
• Mistakes were made.
• The cats were brushed by Laura.

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The Passive Voice

• The deadline was missed by the applicant.

• The applicant missed the deadline.

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Jargon
What we have here is an unquantified science
degradation. --NASA official, talking about
the crash of the Genesis capsule.
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The Passive Voice and Jargon
A detached fragment of the terrestrial
lithosphere, whether of igneous, sedimentary, or
metamorphic origin, and whether acquiring its
approximation to sphericity through hydraulic
action or other attrition, when continuously
maintained in motion by reason of the
instrumentality of gravitational forces
constantly acting to lower its center of gravity,
thus resulting in a rotational movement around
its temporary axis and with its velocity
accelerated by any increase in the angle of
declivity, is, because of abrasive action
produced by the incessant but irregular contact
between its periphery and the contiguous terrain,
effectively prevented from accumulating on its
external surface any appreciable modicum of the
cryptogamous vegetation normally propagated in
umbrageous situations under the optimum
conditions of undeviating atmospheric humidity,
solar radiation, quiescence, and comparative
sequestration from erosive agencies.
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The Passive Voice and Jargon
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Lesson Avoid jargon. Avoid wordiness. Write
clearly. Know your audience!
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A different type of jargon
Phrases to avoid due to the fact that Studies
show take into consideration In the event
that In order to It is well known that
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The Passive Voice

• Three bad things about the passive voice
• Adds unnecessary words.
• Fails to squarely say who has done what.
• Subverts the normal word order for an English
  sentence, making it harder for readers to process
  the information.

• Three good things about the active voice
• Saves words.
• Says directly whos done what.
• Meets the readers expectations of a normal
  actor-verb-object sentence order.

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The Passive Voice

• You can still use the passive voice when
• The actor is unimportant or unknown.
• When the focus of the passage is on the thing
  being acted upon.
• When the passive simply sounds better.
• Still, professional editors find that these
  situations account for only about 15 to 20 of
  the contexts in which the passive voice appears.

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The Rewriting Process
The technician made an examination of the
centrifuge.
The technician examined the centrifuge.
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The Rewriting Process
Nuts are hated by storks.
Storks hate nuts.
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The Rewriting Process
Had the new vaccine been intended to have been
injected into the patient, he would have been
warned to avoid drinking alcohol.

• If the new vaccine had been intended for
  injection into the patient, he would have been
  warned to avoid drinking alcohol.
• If it had been intended for the patient to be
  injected with the new vaccine, he would have been
  warned to avoid drinking alcohol.
• If the patient were to have been injected with
  the new vaccine, he would have been warned to
  avoid drinking alcohol.

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The Rewriting Process
Had the new vaccine been intended to have been
injected into the patient, he would have been
warned to avoid drinking alcohol.
Patients will be injected with the vaccine only
if they have abstained from alcohol (for X days?).
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The Rewriting Process
Recently I heard it suggested by a friend that
too many books appear with endnotes.
A friend recently suggested that too many books
have endnotes.
Recently I heard a friend suggest that too many
books appear with endnotes.
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The Rewriting Process
Research will be presented by Sam at the
conference.
Sam will present his research at the conference.
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Nature Medicine  10, 801 - 805 (2004) Regulatory
T cells and mechanisms of immune system control
The immune system evolved to protect the host
against the attack of foreign, potentially
pathogenic, microorganisms. It does so by
recognizing antigens expressed by those
microorganisms and mounting an immune response
against all cells expressing them, with the
ultimate aim of their elimination. Various
mechanisms have been reported to control and
regulate the immune system to prevent or minimize
reactivity to self-antigens or an overexuberant
response to a pathogen, both of which can result
in damage to the host. Deletion of autoreactive
cells during T- and B-cell development allows the
immune system to be tolerant of most
self-antigens. Peripheral tolerance to self was
suggested several years ago to result from the
induction of anergy in peripheral self-reactive
lymphocytes. More recently, however, it has
become clear that avoidance of damage to the host
is also achieved by active suppression mediated
by regulatory T (Treg) cell populations. We
discuss here the varied mechanisms used by Treg
cells to suppress the immune system.
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Nature Medicine  10, 801 - 805 (2004)Regulatory
T cells and mechanisms of immune system control
The immune system evolved to protect the host
against the attack of foreign, potentially
pathogenic, microorganisms. It recognizes the
antigens expressed by those microorganisms and
mounts an immune response to ultimately eliminate
all cells that express them. To prevent damage to
the host, various mechanisms control and regulate
the immune system to prevent or minimize
reactivity to self-antigens or an overexuberant
response to a pathogen. Deleting autoreactive
cells during T- and B-cell development allows the
immune system to tolerate most self-antigens.
Peripheral self-tolerance may result from the
induction of anergy in peripheral self-reactive
lymphocytes. Damage to the host is also avoided
by active suppression mediated by regulatory T
(Treg) cell populations. We discuss here the
varied mechanisms used by Treg cells to suppress
the immune system.
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Brevity counts!
ORIGINAL 160 words
EDITED VERSION 126 words
Thats a difference of 34 words!!! Its 20
shorter!!!
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The Rewriting Process
Practice rewriting abstracts CHEMISTRY OF VECTOR
PHEROMONES Abstract Available species of
Ixodoidea will be collected and surveyed for
2,6-dichlorophenol content by gas chromatography.
Abundance and rate of production of
2,6-dichlorophenol at various times in the life
cycle in Amblyomma americanum, Amblyomma
maculatum, Dermacentor variabilis, and
Rhipicephalus sanguineus will be measured. Effect
of feeding and mating especially will be noted.
Will search for evidence of other pheromones in
ticks and identify. Will evaluate
2,6-dichlorophenol as attractant and uses for
tick control.
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The Rewriting Process
We will evaluate the utility of
2,6-dichlorophenol as an attractant and its
applicability for tick control. We will use gas
chromatography to survey the abundance and rate
of production of 2,6-dichlorophenol at various
times in the life cycle in available species of
Ixodoidea, including Amblyomma americanum,
Amblyomma maculatum, Dermacentor variabilis, and
Rhipicephalus sanguineus we will take special
note of the effect of feeding and mating.
Further, we will search for and identify other
pheromones in ticks that could possibly be used
for tick control.
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The Rewriting Process

• Does the paragraph begin with a topic sentence
  that tells the reader what the paragraph is
  about?
• Do body sentences give more information about the
  topic sentence?
• Is the last sentence either a summary sentence or
  a conclusion sentence?
• Can I express my ideas more concisely?
• Are sentences in the active voice when
  appropriate?
• Do I avoid needlessly repetitious sentence
  structures (e.g., beginning each sentence I
  think that)?
• Have I avoided jargon?
• Have I defined important terms and explained
  important concepts?
• Have I spelled out acronyms the first time they
  are used?

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The Rewriting Process

• Does each sentence have a subject and a verb? No
  fragments, please!
• Does every sentence contain a complete thought?
• Can I break up long, complex sentences? No
  run-ons, please!
• Have I arranged words for appropriate emphasis?
• Have I used commas and semicolons to separate
  items properly in my lists?
• Have I put periods, commas, and question marks
  inside my quotation marks and colons and
  semicolons outside my quotation marks? 
• Does each proper noun begin with a capital
  letter? Is everything that Ive capitalized
  really a proper noun?
• Is everything spelled correctly? Do not rely upon
  your spellchecker to get it right!

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Know the difference! Watch out for
antonyms! E.g., Antidote vs. Anecdote Indiction
vs. Induction Ensure vs. Insure Concience vs.
conscious
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Words to write right its, it's who's,
whose their, there, they're
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Avoid other apostrophe catastrophes! REMEMBER An
apostrophe is used to make a word possessive,
not plural. Consider Pies vs. Pies
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Resources
ALL ABOUT GRANTS TUTORIAL http//www.niaid.nih.go
v/ncn/grants/
ANNOTATED APPLICATION http//www.niaid.nih.gov/nc
n/grants/app/default.htm
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More resources

• Things to keep by your side while you write
• A grammar book
• E.g., Strunk and White, The Elements of Style
• A dictionary
• E.g., Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary
• A style manual
• E.g., American Medical Association Manual of
  Style

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• HOMEWORK
• Rewrite YOUR OWN specific aims.
• Share and critique specific aims.
• Send me any questions you have
• evwhitney_at_ucdavis.edu