english language - (Feb/27/2008 )
does anyone else have a science writer at their institute?
we have one (and in my opinion, he's quite useless).
anyway, always get someone else to read through your manuscript before submitting.
never rely on the computer spell check or grammar. it's useful but not reliable.
V
I've taken on the job (after hours) of english proof-reading and checking for the department since I arrived here- as a native English speaker its scary frankly. As others have pointed out, most native speakers didn't really learn the grammatical rules of English and now I have to apply them to articles and talks. I'm re-learning and learning a-new English grammar rules.
As too "100mg of tissue was used or were used", Its hard to judge from the sentence fragment what the context should be- I would go for "were used": although, as V pointed out, the sentence (if thats the whole thing) doesn't sounds quite right. Depending on the protocol you can change the sentence to sound more scientific, but you'd need to see the context that its in.
I definitely agree with getting someone to proof-read a manuscript before submitted- you never see those obvious errors yourself.
Spell check will only help you so far, but it doesn't often recognise some sentences that are scientific. Always check whether its UK or US English that the journal requires as spelling will change for many words.
Lost
we have one (and in my opinion, he's quite useless).
So you are living in pulication-paradise? So you have a person who is payed to re-write your publications?
Sounds great...we have only our big boss who insists in reviewing all MS prior to submission and we were having the 100mg was/were discussion several times...so this discussion was quite useful!
g
There are many good Grammar books available.
please check this link.
http://www.cambridge.org/elt/catalogue/catalogue.asp?cid=43