Scientific writing 3.0: A reader and writer's guide - Jean-Luc Lebrun, Justin Lebrun 2021

Tense of verbs and precision
Abstract: the heart of your paper
Paper structure and purpose

So far, you have managed to bring the reader past the title barrier and into your abstract. Congratulations! But if the reader stops there, what are your chances to increase your citation count? You need to use your abstract as a launch pad from which the reader will propel himself or herself inside your paper by clicking on the download pdf file button. For some, it even means entering their visa card details for the online payment if their library does not subscribe to the journal which publishes your paper.

How does one turn an abstract into a launch pad? In two ways: by writing it in the tense used in ads — the present tense; and by convincing the reader to read more of your paper through a brief but precise account of your main accomplishments.

Accomplishments are better communicated with the dynamic present tense than with the dull past tense. There are advantages to choosing the present tense for the abstract. The present tense is vibrant, lively, engaging, leading, contemporary, and fresh. The present tense is the tense of facts: the results you demonstrate in your paper are just as true in the future your reader inhabits as the present at which you write! Some authors struggle to write in the present tense because they argue that the past tense is a more accurate representation of the research conducted. And indeed, it is true that the experiment was done, but the results of that experiment cannot be said to have been true, they ARE true, and will remain so. Substituting the past tense for the present tense can be as simple as replacing in this study, we found the binding force between x and y to be 3.8ev with in this study, we FIND the binding force between x and y to be 3.8ev. Even if the reader discovers your paper ten years after it has been published, it will feel as fresh and current as if it had just been written. The past tense is passé, déjà vu, a thing of the past, gone, stale, unexciting, and lagging. It feels like reading old news. It could even introduce ambiguity. For example, the phrase was studied creates a doubt: did the writer publish this before?

If ever you needed one more reason to be convinced that the present tense is preferable, first check whether the journal targeted by your paper is agreeable to such modern practices or not. Following which, if there is no journal-imposed past tense directive, think how often you jump straight from the abstract to the conclusions when you read a new paper. Since the conclusions are also written in the past tense, to the reader, reading the conclusions feels like reading the abstract all over again (i.e. boring).

Let’s now move to the second element of our launch pad: precision. The title has very few words, so it needs to attract the reader with eye-catching adjectives like robust, effective, rapid; but such adjectives have a limit to their efficacy. If they are not backed up with precision and details, the interested reader will quickly look away. For example, which one of the two following sentences would convince you to buy the car I’m selling? This car goes very fast. How fast? Very, very fast. Incredibly fast, even. OR This car goes very fast. How fast? From 0 to 60 km/h in less than six seconds, with a max speed of 370 km/h. Precision is convincing.

The following title contains a couple of attractive words: ’clinically distinct’. How distinct, though? The reader wants to know with precision before deciding whether your paper is worth reading further.

“A gene expression-based method to diagnose clinically distinct subgroups of diffuse large B Cell Lymphoma”

The abstract does answer the question by justifying the claim made in the title.

“The GCB and ABC DLBCL subgroups identified in this data set have significantly different 5-yr survival rates after the multiagent chemotherapy (62% vs. 26%; P = 0.0051), in accord with analyses of other DLBCL cohorts. These results demonstrate the ability of this gene expression-based predictor to classify DLBCLs into biologically and clinically distinct subgroups irrespective of the method used to measure gene expression.”³

The sample abstract provided in this chapter is entirely written in the present tense. Its results are not numerical, but the main results are described with precision.

“The slit opens to a width even larger than the original diameter of the donor artery, allowing sufficient blood supply. It also identifies two factors that explain the opening of the slit: blood pressure which is predominant in most cases, and the forces applied to the slit by the donor artery. [...] the contribution of blood pressure to the slit opening decreases while that of the forces applied by the donor artery increases.”

US$ 35

Vladimir had located what looked like a really interesting paper. He had asked the librarian to download it. Instead of receiving in the internal mail the paper he expected, he received an email from the librarian informing him that the research center did not subscribe to the journal that published his requested paper. However, she offered to download the paper and charge his department the download fee of US$ 35 as long as he secured his manager’s approval.

“Thirty-five bucks!” Vladimir exclaimed.

His friend in the next cubicle heard him across the partition. He shouted: “Not enough, but I’ll settle for fifty!”

“Oh, shut up John. The librarian is charging us thirty-five bucks for a reprint of someone’s paper. I could buy a book for that price!”

John had stood up and was now looking at Vladimir across the cubicle divider.

“You must be joking! That much?” He said.

“How much?” That was Cheng Jia, another colleague who was sitting back to back with John in the same cubicle. She appeared next to John.

The commotion attracted the attention of Professor Popov who, at that instant, happened to look away from his desk, past his opened office door, towards the group. He joined in the conversation, listened to the complaint, and advised:

“Vlad, read that abstract again. If it contains enough detail to convince you that you could really benefit from reading this paper, then I will authorize the purchase.”