New Year’s resolutions to make for 2010

If you want to make two resolutions for 2010, here’s what I recommend.

One for scientific presentations:
I will not start my talks with an “Outline” slide. Instead, I will motivate my talk with something to grab the attention of the audience and get them interested in what I am about to say.

Read more in Eloquent Science on pp. 276-277, section 25.2.1, “First few slides”.

One for scientific writing:
I will severely reduce the number of sentences that begin with an unnecessary phrase starting with “it” or “there” (e.g., it is known that, it can be found that, it is possible that, there exist, there are). Instead, I will write more concisely and with a more active tone.

Read more in Eloquent Science on pp. 88-89, section 10.1, “Concision”.