Review of Explaining Research by Dennis Meredith

I love to read books, journal articles, and magazines. During the academic semester, I have almost no time to read. I try to catch up during the summers and the Christmas break. This break was no exception, and I got to wrap my fingers around Dennis Meredith’s Explaining Research: How to Reach Key Audiences to […]

Review: “Writing Science” by Joshua Schimel

I just finished reading a new book Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded by Prof. Joshua Schimel, in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology at UC Santa Barbara. Schimel’s book is the perfect companion to Eloquent Science. Whereas Eloquent Science provides guidance about how to […]

More on British and American English

In a previous post, I had given a set of the more common rules for American and British English differences. Since then, I have received comments and emails asking me about how to submit to a journal that uses a form of English different from the one that you use. I can speak for myself […]

Ten Rules of Academic Writing

An essential list of tips about writing by the many of the experts. Abstract: Creative writers are well served with ‘how to’ guides, but just how much do they help? And how might they be relevant to academic authors? A recent survey of writing tips by twenty-eight creative authors has been condensed to the ten […]

How to add line numbers to your manuscript

The journals of the American Meteorological Society now require line numbers in submitted manuscripts. How do you add such line numbers to your manuscript? From p. 374 of Eloquent Science: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Writer, Speaker and Scientist: “Final Checks of Your Manuscript,” “Lines numbered in margin”: You may wish to add […]

Scientific Manuscript Editing Services

In my experience as editor, rarely do I reject a manuscript solely because of improper use of the English language (usually from authors who are non-native English speakers, although not entirely). Many rejected manuscripts have this problem, however, so poorly written manuscripts contribute to the author being unable to convince reviewers that their research is […]

Thermodynamic diagrams for free

Upon packing up my house in Oklahoma, I discovered a small stash of Skew T–logp thermodynamic diagrams that I had saved when Charlie Crisp cleaned out his office at NSSL. (I also have a huge stash of blank U.S. surface maps, in case anyone is interested in them.) Geraint Vaughan at Manchester had been lamenting […]