Scientific writing 3.0: A reader and writer's guide - Jean-Luc Lebrun, Justin Lebrun 2021
Punctuation: an energy refueling station
Control reading energy consumption
The reading toolkit
The period, a full-stop to refuel
When the period arrives, the reader pauses and refills his or her energy tank before reading the next sentence. It gives the reader a chance to conclude, absorb, consolidate the knowledge just acquired and anticipate what comes next (from expectations or progression).
The semicolon, a fuel stop for topping a half-full tank
Surprisingly, searching for a semicolon in a scientific paper is often rewarded by the infamous beep that says: “None found, can I search for anything else?” Periods, colons, and commas seem to be the only punctuation used by scientists. Scientists, by nature logical, should be fond of semicolons, not only to strengthen their arguments, but also to make their text less ambiguous and to carry the context forward at little cost.
Semicolons are close cousins to the period. They stand at a place of semantic closure, like the period. They end and start a clause (part of a sentence with a subject and verb). Unlike the period, their role is to unite, join, or relate; while the role of the period is to separate. The clauses on each side of a semicolon are often compared, contrasted, or opposed. Often, the first clause in the sentence makes a point, and the clause (or clauses) after the semicolon refines, details, or completes the point. Semicolons are often found close to conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs, such as ’but,’ ’consequently,’ ’however,’ ’therefore,’ ’thus,’ or ’nonetheless’.
The calculated data and the observed data were closely related; however, the observed data lagged when concentration dropped.
The first clause in the above sentence provides context to the whole sentence. It shares its subject with the clause that follows the semicolon. These two clauses are also closely related semantically, much more so than two sentences separated by a period. Therefore, since the context does not vary within the sentence, reading is faster and easier.
A semicolon has more than one use. When a sentence needs to be long to keep together a list of sentences, the semicolon does the job magnificently.
Information with visual impact requires creativity, graphic skill, and time. Because most of these are in short supply, software producers provide creativity, skill, and time-saving tools: statistical packages that crank out tables, graphs and cheesy charts in a few mouse clicks; digital cameras that in one click capture poorly lit photos of test bench equipment replete with noodle wires (I suppose the more awful they look, the more authentic they are); and screen capture programs that effortlessly lasso your workstation screens to corral them for your paper.
The three “:” “!” “?” fuel stops and the comma
Other punctuation marks provide an opportunity to refuel: the colon, the question mark, and the unscientific exclamation mark (I wonder if Archimedes would have damaged his reputation as a scientist had he ended his “Eureka” statement with an exclamation mark). The question mark, the most underused punctuation mark, causes the reader to pause and think while also setting clear expectation for an answer. The colon introduces, explains, elaborates, recaps, and lists. Unlike the semicolon, it can be followed by a phrase that lacks a verb. Like the semicolon, it is preceded by a whole clause (not one truncated as in the next example).
And the results are:
In a correct sentence, the main clause is not truncated.
And the results are the following:
Colons are much liked by readers: they announce clarification or detail. Colons are also the allies of writers. They help introduce justification after a statement.
Commas help to disambiguate meaning, pause for effect, or mark the start and end of clauses. But, for all their qualities, there is one that commas cannot claim: semantic closure. Readers cannot stop at a comma and decide that the rest of the sentence can be understood without reading further.
In this chapter, you have been given many tools to reduce the reading energy bill. Imagine your writing as a piece of cloth, and the brain of the reader as an iron. If your writing has the smoothness of silk, the iron can be set to the lowest temperature setting. If it has the roughness of overly dry cotton, not only will the iron have to be set to the highest temperature setting, but you will also put the reader under pressure and demand steam to iron out the ugly creases in your prose. Either you spend the time and energy, or the reader does.
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Ask a reader to read your paper and to highlight in red the sentences not clearly understood (high semantic energy), and in yellow, the sentences that slowed down reading because of a difficult syntax (high syntactic energy). Then correct accordingly. Some punctuation helps reduce reading energy. Search for ’:’ and ’;’. Do you have enough of them? If not, look for opportunities to use them, particularly in long sentences. |
1 http://histsciences.univ-paris1.fr/i-corpus-evenement/FabriquedelaPensee/affiche-III-8.php
2 George D. Gopen. 2004. “Expectations: teaching writing from the reader’s perspective”. Pearson Longman, p. 10.
3 George D. Gopen. 2004. “Expectations: teaching writing from the reader’s perspective”. Pearson Longman, p. 11.