51. Who Vs That
* THAT denotes nonhuman entities; who is correct word to use to denote humanoids of various ilks.
BAD: The scientists that designed this study method must have been a sadist.
GOOD: The programmer who designed this software deserves to reach Nirvana.
GOOD: The robot who delivered the hospital radiology films got lost and fell down the stairs.
* Use should use that for all objects and creatures that you do not consider to be remotely human.
BAD: Suresh was trying to identify the computer on the network who was causing all the trouble.
GOOD: Boris was trying to identify the function that would create the most gorgeous graphs for the demo.
52. Though
Either although or even though is preferable to the unnecessarily truncated though.
UGLY: Though the software is fast, the results that it produces are inaccurate.
GOOD: Although the machine is clumsy to use, its graphics capabilities are stupendous.
BAD: I am leaving you, though I love you.
GOOD: I am leaving you, even though I love you.
53. References to Parts
UGLY: Complete Step 3 before you enter Phase II.
GOOD: Sit on step 3, and ponder phase 2.
UGLY: In phase (II), we will measure the CPU burst times, ~~~ ~~~
UGLY: Test the algorithm that you developed in part (b) on three different data sets.
GOOD: Part c shows the history of various versions of the Unix operating system.
UGLY?: Figure 4a shows why virtual memory can be much larger than physical memory.
UGLY?: Figure 5.7a shows the page table ~~
GOOD: Figure 2(b) shows the transfer of paged memory to contiguous disk space.
GOOD: Figure 6.2(c) shows the steps in handling a page fault.
54. Dates and Times of the Day
* Use a comma after the day of the month when you give a date with the year.
UGLY: What happened on March 15 1022?
GOOD: August 9, 1991, is a special day for Lyn.
* Don't put a comma after a month.
UGLY: By the end of March, 1994, Lyn had not written a single word of her manuscript.
GOOD: By the end of October 1994, Lyn's book ~
* Should spell out first, fifteenth, and so on in a date, as else where
BAD: Lyn suffered a serious car accident on August 9th.
GOOD: For years, Lyn has found August ninth to be either wondrously good or appallingly bad.
* Hyphenate after mid- but not early or late.
BAD: This dress was stylish in the mid 1940s.
GOOD: Flappers where abundant in the mid-1920s.
* How to set a time
BAD: At two A.M. in the morning ~
BAD: At 23:00 at night, ~~
GOOD: At 9:30 P.M., on the night
GOOD: By 21:00,
GOOD: At 6 in the morning, ~~
* Use small capital letters and periods for A.M, P.M. ~~
BAD: Max did not get home from work until 3 AM.
GOOD: By 3:00 A.M., all was well again ~~
BAD: In 4 BC, ~~
GOOD: By 2000 B.C.,
55. Reason Is Because
* Do not use reason is because
BAD: The reason Max's spanking-new machine jammed is because Red object ~~
GOOD: The reason the mail carrier has not come is that she was attacked yesterday.
GOOD: Boris sighed heavily and wiped his brow, because debugging was not always easy.
GOOD: The reason why Lyn eventually became slightly less hysterical is that the four musketeers.
56. With Terms
* Meet people rather than meeting with people
UGLY: I would like to meet with you to discuss pointer types.
GOOD: I would like to meet you to discuss types pointedly.
* Visit People rather than visiting with them
UGLY: Holly visited with Misha while he lay ill in bed.
GOOD: Sachiko visited peter.
* Consult people rather than consulting with them
UGLY: I would like to consult with a decision analyst.
GOOD: Lyn would like to consult her personal decision analyst.
* place objects or people with each other, rather than together with each other.
UGLY: This table contains the addresses, together with the telephone numbers.
GOOD: This table contains the marketing targets, with the telephone numbers.
* Avoid using along with to mean as well as or simply with.
UGLY: Lyn packed in Max's briefcase the relevant disks, along with a banana and a handful of dried apricots.
GOOD: Max brought Lyn chocolate, as well as nectarines and mints, when they were working late together.
UGLY: Lyn took Red along with her when she went to visit Max at Lumina.
GOOD: Max took Lyn with him on his trip to Chile.
57. Equals
* You should use the term is equal to, and should avoid equals.
BAD: If x equals to y, then we have no more work to do.
GOOD: When x is equal to y, we exit the loop.
* You should be careful when you use the phrase greater than or equal to. (also to, less than or equal to)
BAD: We set a greater or equal to b.
GOOD: We set z greater than or equal to p.
BAD: Let x be less or equal to y.
GOOD: Use a p value of less than or equal to 0.05.
58. Placement of Adverbs.
In general, you should place adverbs after the verbs that they modify, and usually should place them at the end of the phrase or clause to which they belong.
GOOD: Once you get to the podium, slowly walk through the door, even if your desire to rush in headlong is powerful.
SPLENDID: Once you get to the top, climb into heaven slowly.
THERE ARE NO SIMPLE, ABSOLUTE RULES HERE! NUANCES~!
59. US VS British spelling
US VS GB
afterward not afterwards
..
..
60. Placement of Prepositions
Is is cruel to leave prepositions (with, for, to, from, under, on, in, and so on) dangling at the end of the clauses that contain them;
BAD: Lyn wondered whom she would be living with in Ladakh, and what she was waiting for.
GOOD: Max wondered for whom he would be cooking in Woodside, and for what he was worrying about such questions when he had several companies to run.
BAD: what did you pick that up from?
GOOD: From whom did you learn that trick?
61. Different From
BAD: Information is different than knowledge.
GOOD: A database is different from a knowledge base.
62. Callouts
* You should call out all figures, tables, programs, and boxes, or other numbered blocks in text.
GOOD: Figure 3.4 shows a camel after the final straw.
SPLENDID: To see an optical illusion, you should turn to Figure 5.6, on page 486.
* You should not include information about the provenance of a figure or table with the callout;
BAD: The network layer interact as shown in Figure 3.7; this figure is adaped from Russell [7].
BAD: The data for Table 7 were collected by graduate-student slaves; their accuracy is thus guaranteed.
63. Exclamation Point
UGLY: "Dammit!" screamed Max, "Why doesn't anyone understand that I just don't have a time?!"
GOOD: The earth moved! And then the waterbed collapsed.
64. Deduce VS Infer
Deduction: The general to specific
Inference: The specific to general
GOOD: Lyn knows that all men are marshmallows, and that Max is a man. Therefore, Lyn deduces that Max is a marshmallow.
GOOD: Lyn knows that living with Max is a riot, and that Max is a man. Therefore, Lyn infers that living with men is a riot.
65. Citations
It is important that you use a consistent style to cite you source.
UGLY: Some times ago, Peter found Helen (Gorden, 1983); she has been organizing him ever since.
- A reader might think that, in 1983, Peter met someone ~~
GOOD: A previous study [Goldstein & Gorden, 1973] demonstrated that placing trust in authors is a necessary but risky policy.
GOOD: Arnold and Sterling [1994] report that bringing a port to market involves fast automatic conversion and tedious manual debugging.
66. The Fact That
The phrase the fact that is verbose, clumsy, dry, and overly formal.
UGLY: The fact that Red is immense is immediately evident when you meet him.
GOOD: The Red is breathtakingly handsome is immediately evident when he gazed into your eyes and purrs.
67. Cross-Reference
* You shall use the smallest-granularity place indicator available when you give a cross-reference.
UGLY: We shall discuss wombat mating practices later.
GOOD: We shall discuss the chemical analysis of crocodile tears in Chapter 7.
SPLENDID: We shall discuss how to remove a live mouse from a cat's mouse, without indicating a heart attack in any one of you, in Section 7.4.9.
* You should not give redundant information in a cross-reference.
+ Never use above or below
UGLY: The technique is described in the Methods section, Section 3.
GOOD: The statistical analysis that we used is described in Section 3.
SPLENDID: We described the study population in Section 3.
68. Proposals
* You should make it easy for your reader to cooperate with you.
- Write an Abstract
- Say why your work is important, and why your reader should fund it.
- Should be explicit about what you are proposing to do.
- not make commitments that you cannot keep.
- give the background to your work in terms of work done by other researchers or organizations, and of work done by you or your organization or laboratory.
- talk intelligently about why you are particularly well qualified to carry out the proposed work.
- talk intelligently about why your proposed work is the best approach by a relevant measure.
- specify precisely what you will deliver
- indicate what measures you will use to determine your success.
- Write authoritatively
- provide a carefully thought-out budget that allows your reader to see at a glance how funds will be allotted.
- follow precisely the structure mandated by the funding agency or other oraganization.
- invite your reader to ask questions or otherwise to seek further information.
- before you begin to write a proposal that involves multiple actors - co-investigators, or subcontractors - you should clarify what roles everyone will play
- Plan the outline which everyone agree
- Multi-authored proposal, you should make up and agree to a page budget.
- set explicit deadlines for each person
- before the deadline, more than 2 minutes, you should make sure that your stuffs, printer, copier, stapler, car, so on, are working
- after you submit the proposal, you should do your best to forget about it until you get a response.
69. Better; Best, Worst
UGLY: This algorithm is better.
GOOD: This algorithm is faster.
70. Missing Words
You should use the various --- that indicates missing words and l----ters.
* 3-em dash (---) to indicate missing word
* 2-em dash (--) to indicate missing letters.
71. Aggravate (which is derived from the Latin aggravare, to make heavier)
GOOD: Drinking wine will aggravate your headache. (=making heavier)
GOOD: Smoking a Cuban cigar is likely to aggravate a cough.
* Irritate means to annoy or provoke when the object irked is animate.
(짜증나게[초조하게] 하다, 화나게 하다, 안달하게 하다(⇒ irritated))
GOOD: Max was irritated to find that he had lost his keys again.
72. Upon
Upon (which means up on) is only rarely the correct term to use; in most cases, the more elegant and simple on suffices.
UGLY: I shall discourse upon Silicon Valley formalisms in Chapter 5.
GOOD: We shall comment on the spit-happens phenomenon in Chapter 2.
UGLY: Maria and Geoff decided upon a control technique that used agendas in a separate element class.
GOOD: Malcolm and Gelareh agreed on a new control WME.
* Occasionally, upon is the term of choice.
GOOD: Lyn leapt upon her white horse and rescued Max from his distress.
73. Whether VS If
* Whether: Whether or not이 가능할 때
UGLY: Ted did not know if the variable n was an integer or a real number.
GOOD: Darlene did not know whether Bachmann's O notation couild be used with S(x), where x is a real number.
* In most cases where whether or not is correct, you should use simply whether.
UGLY: You can use the ID3 approach, whether you know what discrimination trees and features values are or not.
* You should use if when you are simply placing a constraint.
GOOD: If a=b, then go to step 4.
74. Sections and Heads
* Detail
GOOD: Section I Introduction
GOOD: Section I Assessment of the Benefits of Qualitative and Quantitative Reasoning
* Parallel
BAD: Section 5 Whether to Have Sex
Section 6 Sex Can Be Fun
Section 7 Is Sex Dangerous?
GOOD: Section 5 Whether to Fall in Love?
Section 6 Why Falling in Love Can Be Fun?
Section 7 How to Avoid the Dangers of Falling in Love?
75. Comprise
* You should not use comprise to indicate that the parts constitute (or make up) the whole.
BAD: A person is comprised of one or many parts.
GOOD: A person comprises heart, soul, and mind.
* Never use the phrase is comprised of
BAD: The software package is comprised of numerous lines of buggy code.
GOOD: The software package comprises a number of useful tools.
76. In Order To
The phrase in order to is fusty and verbose.
UGLY: Judy brought Steve new shoes, in oder to protect the white linoleum.
GOOD: Lyn climbed a tree, to avoid fighting with Max.
SPLENDID: Red climbed the tree after Lyn, so that he could help Lyn to climb down.
77. Em Dashes: --- em dash
BAD: Max had many worries--his company, his house, his car, and his socks, so he tended to frown often.
GOOD: Max had many sources of joy---his joy, his research institute, his house, his gourmet dinners, and his three felines---so he managed to survive from one day to the next.
* Note that you should use em dashes, rather than commas, to insert a clause that begins with for example or that is.
BAD: Various birds, for example penguins and roast chickens, have had an illustrious history in the field.
GOOD: Various towers---for example, those of Hanoi---have featured largely as well.
GOOD: Max had all the necessities of life---that is, food, shelter, warmth, and on-demand snuggles.
* You should use one em dash if you wish to tack on an extra thought at the end of a sentence.
GOOD: Spencer also has many business concerns---his coffee company being the main one; nonetheless, he takes off every Sunday to be with Therese.
* Do not use more than two em-dashes
BAD: ~~~ -- ~~ -- ~~ -- ~~ -- ~~
GOOD: ~~~ (~~) ~~~ (~~) ~~
=> You can use an em dash to indicate interrupted quoted speech.
GOOD: Richard -- -- ~~~ -- -- ~~~
78. Eminent, Emanate, Imminent, Immanent
* Eminent: Outstanding
GOOD: Carver is an eminent scientist.
* Emanate: to issue forth from, or to spring from (발산하다)
GOOD: Carver emanates charm and brilliance
* Imminent: about to happen or impending
GOOD: Carver's imminent arrival sent Lyn dashing around the house.
* Immanent: inherent, or existing only in the mind (내재적인, 마음 속에서만의)
GOOD: Carver was not sure what it would mean for him to be an immanent guest in Lyn's house.
79. Expect but non-arriving Agents
* to be fair to your reader, you should name whom you intend to name, and should deliver on any promises that you make about the forthcoming identification of an agent.
BAD: To solve the problem of derangements, generating functions were used by Max.
GOOD: To introduce power series, Max defined the general binomial series B(z) and the generalized exponential series E(z).
80. Its VS It's
* its: belonging to it
GOOD: Lyn was puzzled, because, if a rule's specificity is the number of value tests performed on the LHS, then what is its sensitivity?
* it's: it is
It's been a great year for workaholism in the Dupre-Henrion household.
