WebLog 26
Writing, trees, music, books, etc.
Stephen King commented that “the road to hell is paved with adverbs”. Unfortunately, his pithiness was so effective that people often fail to notice the many exceptions he noted in later paragraphs of “On Writing”. Perhaps, therefore, it’s unfair to mention that the short prologue to King’s novel “The Stand” ...
Active voice: Orophin measured the trees Passive voice: The trees were measured by Orophin Writing guides rarely say anything positive about the passive voice (positive things are rarely said about the passive voice by writing guides). But scientists carry on using it, as in: “Seed source is considered to ...
I was puzzled recently by someone’s comment that a paper I was reading didn’t have any conclusions—until I realised that the speaker meant that it didn’t have a section titled ‘Conclusions’. I explained, too dogmatically, that in the classic IMRD structure (Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion), an important role of the Discussion section is ...