Why we need stories in science
 
Reading about other research on story-telling in science is one of the pleasures of my job, and I recently came across an article on what neuroscience can tell us about how we respond to narrative (doi.org/10.22323/2.18050401). The text was in a science communication journal, and it wasn't really about going into detail (although it does provide the references for those who need them), but I did find the following list of reasons for needing stories in science:
 
Good narratives - or "framing information in stories" - can
 
–  Increase people’s likelihood of remembering information
–  Reduce counter-arguing
–  Make people feel the experience being described was their own
–  Be much more convincing than just data
–  Increase engagement, when communicating science to non-expert audiences.
 
To me, the items in that list are all things I would want for any paper I write. In the interest of getting the full story, though, perhaps it is now time I went in search of papers that show why we don't need story-telling in science. If you know of any papers on that topic, do let me know.
 

 In this series of blog posts, Anne reflects on the common mistakes she reads in academic texts.

​What I've just learnt from the latest research - Transition markers       
Jan 2021

Recently, I was browsing through The Journal of English for Academic Purposes - I can't recommend it as bedtime reading, but for language geeks like me, it sometimes contains pertinent information. One article (DOI.org/101010/j.jeap.wowo.100874) was on the use of transitions markers. They are the words used to guide your readers through your text and help them understand it, e.g., Therefore, Finally, … Interestingly, the paper concluded that teachers should discourage the use of too many transition markers (something I have also picked up from peer-reviewers comments) and that those writing in  English as a second language would be well advised to take their clues from papers in their area of work (or from concordancers - I'll be writing about those at a later date - rather than from the text books on the matter.

The trials of translating - französischsprachig
Nov 2020

As you can see from the title here, this post isn't about proofreading; its about  translating. To be more precise, it's about translating a literary analysis. Don't get me wrong, I don't often translate and am thus not good at it, but a friend asked me, so I did. My friend had written in the German text französischsprachige Literaturen. I started  by pondering  whether one could write literatures in English, i.e., in the plural (and, yes, you can if you are a literary analyst). I then jumped back a step and wondered whether I could translate  französischsprachig  by using French-speaking ,  the obvious translation. My problem wasn't the adjective itself, it was whether literature, in English, could speak. Luckily my friend had the answer. Nowadays, referring to French-speaking isn't considered correct  because so many people in so many countries speak (and write) in their own national language, which  in this instance just happens to derive from the French language. The correct phrase here would be Francophone literatures. For English-speaking, it would be Anglophone, and, to my surprise, for Portuguese, it would be Lusophone. Now I've solved that problem, I can move on to pondering on where   Lusophone  originates and what words you use to translate the  x-speaking  of all the other languages in the world.


The verb "to allow"

My proofreader job often finds me sitting in front of texts that contain a mistake I've seen before, multiple times. One of the mistakes that continues to confuse me, because I don't know where it is coming from, is having a verb directly after the verb allow, e.g., "The longitudinal nature of the GIP allows  tracing  changes in political preferences over time". This should be written as "The longitudinal nature of the GIP allows changes in political preferences to be traced over time", i.e., it is not possible to put a verb directly after the verb   allow  (and many other similar verbs, e.g.,  permit).

However, the phrasal verb  to allow for   can be followed by a verb as it means something slightly different. The phrase  to allow for means to think about or plan for something that will happen in the future, e.g.,  "When thinking about how much money you need when you retire, you should allow for increasing living costs". And, of course, if you are writing  to be allowed to, then you can use an infinitive verb directly afterwards, e.g.,  "You are not allowed to make the same mistake again".


Commas and "such as"

I'll keep my punctuation blogs, such as this one, as short as possible. The question is, should there be a comma before the phrase  "such as" ?

The answer is, it depends. If the phrase is restricting what you are referring to, then don't write a comma before it, e.g., " Authors such as Smith (2018) were not writing about narrative".   I'm not writing here about all authors, only about Smith and those like Smith. If the phrase isn't restricting what you are referring to but   is simply adding a bit of information, then  insert a comma, e.g., "Authors on the topic, such as Smith (2018), were not writing about narrative." I am referring here to all authors on that particular topic and am using Smith as an example.


Using "beside/besides"
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Beside  means physically next to, e.g., "Anne was sitting beside Jill".
Besides   means in addition to, e.g., "Besides Anne and Jill, Roger was also present".

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Something I’ve noticed during my writing sessions with students is the expectation of producing good writing in the first draft. If only things were that simple.  Even literary geniuses admit penning perfect prose the first time around is not going to happen. 
 
Best-selling author Anne Handly talks about the TUFD, or The Ugly First Draft. A wonderful, accurate description of roughly sketching out on paper what you want to say: It’s messy, it’s not beautiful, and its definitely not something you want someone else to see.  This first draft is when you transform your ideas into words, sentences, and paragraphs. There will be spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and probably way too many words. But that’s ok.  It’s all part of the writing process. Even professional writers go through this stage. 
 
Research suggests that different parts of the brain are active during the distinct parts of the writing process. First draft writing is more of a creative process while editing and proofreading tasks, which typically come later, use a different part of the brain. And as anyone who has attended my writing workshops will know, my mantra is  "writing is rewriting".  This maim is not intended to make the writing process appear more onerous. Quite the opposite. I think there is freedom in understanding that writing is a process and that no matter how ugly your text is, you can always improve it. 
 
So be proud of your Ugly First Draft.  It‘s better than no draft at all. ​
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