Sainani SciWrite 3.4

Summary

The video script focuses on the art of writing effective paragraphs and compositions. It emphasizes the importance of one main idea per paragraph, brevity, and white space for reader comfort. The script suggests inverting the scientific writing order by presenting conclusions first, followed by supporting details. It also advises against overuse of transition words and encourages logical flow and clear beginnings and endings in paragraphs. The speaker provides examples from both professional and scientific writing to illustrate these points.

Takeaways

• 📝 Paragraphs are the basic unit of composition in a manuscript, each containing one main idea.
• 🔍 Scientific literature often contains complex, lengthy paragraphs that are difficult for readers, unlike professional writing which uses shorter paragraphs.
• 🤓 Keeping paragraphs relatively short with a few sentences can provide white space on the page, making the text less daunting for readers.
• 🎯 Inverting the typical scientific writing order by stating the conclusion or main point first can help guide the reader through the details more effectively.
• 📚 The 'inverted pyramid style' used in journalism starts with the most important point and filters down to supporting ideas, which is recommended for clarity.
• 💡 While topic sentences can be useful, they can also be confining and monotonous; it's more important to convey the main message early in the paragraph.
• 🔄 Relying on transition words as a crutch can indicate poor underlying logic; they should be used sparingly and effectively to enhance paragraph flow.
• 📉 The first and last sentences of a paragraph are most memorable to readers, so they should be crafted to make a strong impression.
• ⏱ Following a logical flow of ideas within a paragraph, such as a natural timeline or general to specific order, aids reader comprehension.
• 🔑 The logical organization of ideas is more important for paragraph flow than transition words or parallel sentence structures.
• 📋 Editing a paragraph involves understanding the main point, weeding out unnecessary details, and ensuring the remaining content clearly supports the main idea.

Q & A

What is the main concept of a paragraph according to the script?

The main concept of a paragraph is to serve as the unit of composition of a manuscript, containing one main idea and helping the reader understand where new ideas begin.

Why should paragraphs be kept relatively short?

Paragraphs should be kept relatively short to provide white space on the page, making the text less daunting and easier to read, as well as to maintain focus on a single main idea.

What is the recommended approach for scientists when writing paragraphs according to the script?

Scientists are encouraged to invert their typical way of thinking by starting with the conclusion or the main take-home message and then filling in with details and supporting data.

Why is it suggested to avoid using too many transition words in paragraphs?

Overusing transition words can be a crutch that masks poor logical flow. They should be used sparingly and not relied upon to fix underlying logical issues in the paragraph.

What is the 'inverted pyramid style' mentioned in the script?

The inverted pyramid style is a journalistic technique where the most important point or take-home message is presented first, followed by supporting ideas in descending order of importance.

What is the significance of the first and last sentences in a paragraph?

The first and last sentences of a paragraph are the most memorable to the reader, so it's important to give away the main message early and make the last sentence impactful.

How can the logical flow of ideas within a paragraph be improved?

The logical flow of ideas can be improved by organizing them in a predictable manner, such as using a natural timeline, starting with a general point before moving to specific examples, or structuring arguments in an if-then format.

What is the potential issue with using topic sentences according to the speaker?

The speaker suggests that topic sentences can be confining and monotonous, potentially stifling the natural flow of ideas and making the writing feel forced.

Why is it important to ensure variability in quality ratings in the context of the perfume study mentioned in the script?

Variability in quality ratings is important to correlate preferences with genetic makeup. If everyone rates the perfumes the same, there's no variation to analyze against genetic differences.

What was the editing challenge presented in the script related to a scientific paper?

The challenge was to make a lengthy, complex paragraph from a scientific paper more concise and clear, focusing on the main idea that the perfume concentrations used in an experiment were appropriate.

How did the speaker approach editing the complex paragraph from the scientific paper?

The speaker first identified the main idea of the paragraph, then weeded out unnecessary details that didn't contribute to that main idea, and finally focused on sentence-level editing for clarity and flow.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Paragraph Writing Essentials

This paragraph introduces the concept of moving from sentences to paragraphs, emphasizing the paragraph as a fundamental unit of composition. It advocates for one main idea per paragraph to avoid overwhelming the reader, a practice common in scientific literature. The paragraph also suggests keeping paragraphs relatively short, with a preference for a few sentences, and highlights the importance of white space for reader comfort. Additionally, it recommends inverting the typical scientific writing order by presenting conclusions first, followed by supporting details, a technique known as the inverted pyramid style. The paragraph also discusses the use and overuse of transition words and the importance of logical flow within paragraphs.

05:02

🔍 Enhancing Paragraph Clarity

The second paragraph focuses on improving paragraph clarity through logical flow and the strategic use of transition words. It advises against overusing transition words as a crutch for poor logic and suggests that a well-organized paragraph with a clear logical progression requires fewer transition words. The paragraph also discusses the importance of the first and last sentences in creating memorable points, and it uses an example from The New Yorker to illustrate effective paragraph organization, including the use of a natural timeline, general to specific flow, and logical argumentation.

10:06

📚 Editing for Cohesion and Impact

This paragraph discusses the editing process, particularly for a scientific paper examining the correlation between perfume preferences and genetic markers. It identifies potential issues with the original paragraph, such as excessive use of transition words, which may indicate underlying logical problems. The paragraph also points out the importance of sentence structure variety and the use of parentheses for clarity. The speaker provides guidance on how to approach editing, emphasizing the need to understand the main point of the paragraph, weed out unnecessary details, and ensure logical coherence.

15:08

🔬 Addressing Experimental Limitations

The fourth paragraph delves into a specific limitation of an experiment on perfume scent preferences, focusing on the selection of perfume concentrations. It discusses the importance of finding an appropriate concentration to avoid overwhelming or underwhelming participants, which could affect the results' validity. The paragraph also touches on the need for variability in quality ratings to correlate with genetic makeup and acknowledges that two scents, Bergamot and Vetiver, did not show the desired variability, suggesting a potential issue with concentration selection.

20:10

✏️ Refining the Argument for Clarity

The final paragraph presents an edited version of the previous discussion on experimental limitations, aiming to clarify the main points and improve readability. It concisely addresses the potential issue of perfume concentration affecting the experiment's outcome and explains the steps taken to standardize the intensity of the scents. The summary also notes the lack of variability in preferences for two scents, suggesting that different concentrations might have been more appropriate. The paragraph concludes by affirming the overall success of the concentration selection process, with the exception of the two scents mentioned.

Keywords

💡Paragraph

A paragraph is defined as a unit of composition in writing, consisting of one main idea and serving as a building block for larger texts. In the video's theme, paragraphs are emphasized as crucial for organizing a manuscript effectively. The script mentions that each paragraph should contain one main idea and be relatively short, which aligns with the video's focus on clear and digestible communication in scientific writing.

💡Manuscript

A manuscript refers to the text that an author writes before it is published. In the context of the video, the manuscript is the primary object of organization and structuring through the use of well-defined paragraphs. The script suggests thinking in paragraphs when organizing a manuscript, highlighting the importance of this approach in scientific literature.

💡Scientific Literature

Scientific literature encompasses all the published materials in a scientific field, including journal articles, conference papers, and books. The video discusses the specific challenges and conventions of writing for scientific literature, such as avoiding overly complex paragraphs and using paragraphs to clearly delineate new ideas.

💡White Space

White space in writing refers to the unmarked areas of a page, which can include margins, line spacing, and the absence of text. The script emphasizes the importance of white space for readability, suggesting that too much text without breaks into paragraphs can be daunting and uninviting to readers.

💡Inverted Pyramid Style

The inverted pyramid style is a writing approach where the most important information is presented first, followed by supporting details. This style is recommended in the script for scientific writing to make the main message clear to readers from the outset, which contrasts with the typical scientific tendency to present details before conclusions.

💡Punchline

In the context of writing, the punchline refers to the main conclusion or the key takeaway message of a paragraph or piece of writing. The video encourages giving away the punchline early to help readers quickly understand the purpose of the paragraph, which is exemplified in the script by advocating for stating the conclusion before presenting supporting details.

💡Topic Sentences

A topic sentence is the opening sentence of a paragraph that states the main idea or purpose of that paragraph. While the script mentions topic sentences, it also expresses a preference against their use, suggesting that they can be confining and monotonous, and that it's more important to focus on the early presentation of the main message.

💡Logical Flow

Logical flow pertains to the coherent and sequential arrangement of ideas within a paragraph or piece of writing. The script discusses the importance of logical flow for paragraph cohesion, advising writers to rely on the natural progression of ideas rather than overusing transition words to guide the reader.

💡Transition Words

Transition words are connectors used to link sentences and ideas within a text, helping to guide the reader through the author's argument. The video script warns against overusing transition words, indicating that they can be a crutch for weak logical structure and should be used sparingly and effectively.

💡Editing

Editing refers to the process of revising and refining a written work to improve its clarity, coherence, and impact. The script provides an example of editing a complex scientific paragraph, aiming to enhance its logical flow and readability by focusing on the main ideas and simplifying the language.

💡Genetic Markers

Genetic markers are variations in DNA sequences that can be used to identify individuals or characteristics. In the context of the script, genetic markers are mentioned as part of a study to determine if there is a correlation between scent preferences and genetic makeup, illustrating the application of genetic concepts in research.

Highlights

Moving up from sentences to paragraphs, emphasizing the importance of paragraphs as the unit of composition in a manuscript.

Each paragraph should contain one main idea to make the manuscript easier to read and understand.

In scientific literature, paragraphs are often too complex and long, making them hard on the reader.

Using paragraphs to delineate where you're switching to new ideas and keeping them relatively short improves readability.

Professional writing often has 3-5 sentences per paragraph as a good length for readability.

Small paragraphs with white space on the page are important for reader engagement.

Encouraging students to break up long paragraphs into more focused ones.

Scientists tend to write in a pattern of details, data, conclusion, but it's recommended to invert this for clarity.

Starting with the conclusion or 'punchline' makes it easier for the reader to follow the argument.

The inverted pyramid style in journalism starts with the most important point and filters down with supporting ideas.

Avoiding the use of topic sentences as they can be confining and monotonous.

Focusing on the logical flow of ideas within a paragraph rather than relying on transition words.

Using parallel sentence structure and compare-contrast techniques to improve paragraph flow.

Transition words should be used sparingly and not be overly exotic to maintain clarity.

Readers tend to remember the first and last sentences of a paragraph, so make them impactful.

Logical flow of ideas can be achieved by using a natural timeline, general to specific order, or logical arguments.

Editing a paragraph involves understanding the main point, weeding out unnecessary details, and organizing ideas logically.

Using parentheses to clarify complex points or provide additional information.

The importance of sentence variety and structure in building up to a memorable conclusion.

Transcripts

So, in this next module, we're going to move up from sentences to paragraphs.

Talking about paragraphs. And we'll continue the discussion of

paragraphs and even get into whole compositions, into next week.

So, when you think of the paragraph, I want you to think of the paragraph as the

unit of composition of your manuscript. So, each paragraph should contain one main

idea, and you should think in paragraphs when you're organizing your man, your

manuscript. So, one idea per paragraph is often a lot

less than scientists try to stuff into a single paragraph.

You'll see, in the scientific literature, these just massive paragraphs that are too

complex, there's too much going on in them.

That's really hard on the reader. So, use the paragraph to delineate to your

reader where you're switching to new ideas.

One idea per paragraph. Keep your paragraphs relatively short.

If you pick up professional writing, like a magazine, you'll notice that they might

have three, four, five sentences in a paragraph.

We don't need to be quite that short in, in the scientific literature, but we

probably shouldn't be much longer than that.

And, the advantages of having small paragraphs that aren't too long, one of

the major advantages is that it provides a lot of white space on the page and that's

really, really important to readers. So, if you're faced, as a reader, with a

page that's just kind of full of a huge block of text with no breaks, no breaks

into paragraphs, it's really daunting cuz you kinda know it's going to be tedious

and hard to get through. And, it's just this, you know, it's very

intimidating. So, try to break things up.

This is one of those things that I often encourage students to do is just to break

up, they often have too many things in one paragraph.

Start to break it up into more paragraphs. Try to keep one idea to, per paragraph.

Another tip on paragraphs is that the way that scientists writes tends to be the

following. So, scientists like to put details,

details, data, supporting data, conclusion.

That's the way scientists think, of course, right?

We start with the details and the data, we, we go through and end at the

conclusion. However, when you go to write things up,

I'm going to encourage you to invert that. I would encourage you to give away the

punch line early because its really hard on the reader to weed through all of these

details if they don't know where you're going, if they don't know what the take

home message is. So, you're going to want to give away the

punchline, give the conclusion to take home the message first, and then, fill it

in with all the details. That way your reader knows where you're

going, the reader knows what to expect. Otherwise, it's just a massive amount of

details that the reader has to weed through.

So, in journalism, we call this the inverted pyramid style.

You kind of start with the most important point the kind of take home message, and

kind of filter down from there with the supporting ideas.

Give away the punchline early. Now, I should note, that you may have

learned somewhere along the way, to use topic sentences.

Or you may have been encouraged to use topic sentences.

And, I don't want to, I don't want to say that you have to use topic sentences.

This idea of giving away the punch line early is kind of similar to topic

sentences. But, I, on the other hand, am not a huge

fan of topic sentences. I think it's a little bit confining if you

feel like you have to start every paragraph with an exact statement of the

aim of the paragraph. You know, and it becomes a little bit

monotonous, too. So, I'm not a big fan of topic sentences.

But the general idea of trying to get your main take home message, you know, given

away early in, in the paragraph, that's a good idea.

It doesn't mean you have to go all the way, quite as extreme as topic sentences.

Another tip on paragraphs is that, in terms of paragraph flow, making your

paragraphs flow nicely, within a paragraph I'm talking about for the moment, you

rally wanna rely first primarily on the logical flow of ideas.

So, that's the main thing that's going to make a paragraph flow well.

It's not transition words, it's not the language, it's the logical organization of

the ideas and I'll give you some more examples of that.

So, if you have good logic, you're building up your ideas in a logical way,

your reader actually can fill in a lot of the gaps.

You gotta trust your reader a little bit that they don't need a lot of pointers if

you organize it in, in a way that's very predicable.

Paragraph flow can also be help by using a parallel sentence structure, which we've

talked about in the last module. And sometimes, I'm going to show you a

couple examples where you have a compare contrast.

And, if you make multiple sentences, across multiple sentences, you make those

different sentences parallel in someway, that can help the flow of the paragraph

within the paragraph as well. And then, finally, at the very end, I've

put a big, you know, if necessary, then, you can also use transition words.

So, transition words definitely have their place, they can be very helpful in cluing

your reader in on where you're going. However, transition words are highly,

highly overused. And so, I have students where I've edited

almost every sentence starts with a transition word.

So, I really want you to catch yourself if you find yourself reaching for too many

transition words, that's probably indicating that you're overusing

transition words. And, the reason students tend to overuse

them, is that they use them kind of as a crutch to make up for the fact that their

logic isn't actually that sound. And so, they're throwing in those

transition words to try to kinda, you know, help fix the fact that their logic

underneath is poor. But, that's not gonna fix it.

You need to go back and fix the logic don't rely on those transition words.

They're not, they're not strong enough to fix underlying logic that's not sound.

So, use those sparingly. And, don't, don't be too exotic with your

transition words either. You'll notice in a lot of professional

writing, the favorite transition word is the word but, B, U, T.

It's a great way to indicate to the reader, hey, but, I'm going to be changing

gears here a little bit. So, you don't need fancy nevertheless, on

the other hand, you can just use the word but, B, U, T.

And then finally, the final tip on paragraphs is keep in mind that your

reader will tend to remember the first sentence and the last sentence the best.

So, again, you're kinda giving away your take home message in that first sentence,

and you want to make that last sentence kinda memorable.

Have a little build-up to the last sentence, a little emphasis at the end.

That can make a really good paragraph. So, in terms of the logical flow of ideas,

what do I mean by that? So, when you're writing in your paragraph

you, again, you just want your ideas to kind of flow from one another, and that

means a couple of possible things. So, so for example, if you go sequential

in time, if you have some kind of history you're talking about, going sequentially

in time starting from the first and going to the later, that's just a natural way

that peoples, you know, peoples' brains work.

So, sticking to kind of a natural easy timeline can be very helpful.

So, I'd like to say, you should avoid the approach of that movie Memento that was

out in 2000 which had this very bizarre timeline.

You know, movie maker, movie directors may like to do it that way, and it might be

interesting for a movie, but very hard on a reader of a scientific literature if you

mess around with a timeline. So, just go with a natural timeline, in

general. Another way to make your ideas kinda flow

logically is to start with something that's a general and then move the

specific. So, like how to get the take home message,

the, the general point, and then give the specific examples.

So, that's how, has a nice logical flow to it as well.

And then, you can always think about when you're organizing your paragraphs, I was a

philosophy major undergraduate, so I took a lot of logic where we did, you know, if

A, then B, A therefore B. So , I sometimes, will think of my

arguments in terms of kind of logical arguments, almost mathematically.

And that can be really helpful in organizing your ideas, is actually to

think about the logical arguments that you're making.

And make sure that your logic underneath those arguments is sound.

So, I'm going to start here with an example paragraph.

It was from something that I was reading in The New Yorker a few years back.

It was about a, a bound, bounty hunter, as in bondsman, and bonds women as well.

And, it has some good principles about organization of a paragraph.

So, it says, usually, when a defendant absconds, a bondsman highers a bounty

hunter to find and arrest him within the grace period.

Which, in California, is six months. Notice these parenthesis.

If that fails, the bondman tries to seize any collateral that the defendant put down

to secure the bond, or sues the defendant's indemnitors who signed the

bail application as guarantors. But, notice the use of but as the

transition word there, but Zabala hadn't put down any collateral, and so far Green,

one of the few bonds men who always do their own bounty hunting, had found

neither him nor his indemnitors. The grace period was nearly up.

Soon, Green would have to pay the court $31,000.

So, there's a lot of things in here I could point out about the logic of this

paragraph. An interesting topic, obviously.

So, notice that they go kind of in logical time sequence order.

First, this happens, then this happens, and they also do a general to specific.

So, they have first, a bondsman hires a bounty hunter to find and arrest the

defendant, that happens first. And then, if they are unable to find and

arrest the defendant, the bondsman will seize the collateral or sue the

indemnitor. So, there's an order to these things.

There's also a general to specific here because that's the general case.

It's just telling you, I didn't know very much about bounty hunters and bondsmen

before reading this article. So, it's just telling you how this whole

process works in case you don't know. This is the general way it works.

It gives that first and then it moves to the specifics of this particular case.

So, now, in this specific case, the defendant, Zabala is AWOL.

And, for some reason, had no collaterals or indemnitors available.

So, well, what does that mean? Here's the conclusion.

In this case, since there none that happened, there's nothing available, the

bonds man, in fact, in this story, it was a bonds woman, Green is out of options.

So, that means that she's going to have to pay the $31,000.

And notice how when I'm kind of laying out the logic of this, I used first, and then,

now, conclusion, in this specific case. I'm giving a lot of pointers just to kind

of show you the logic. But the author, when they're writing this

paragraph, didn't need all those pointers, because, because it was organized in a

logical way. The reader can just follow it pretty much

without those, you know, without spelling out first, and then, and now, and so on.

So, there's also a logical, set of logical arguments here, like a mathematical set of

logical arguments. So, a bondsman has these, and only these

options, exactly three options. Here they are.

You gotta hire a bounty period to find and arrest the guy within the grace period,

that's one option. Or, if that fails, you can seize the

collateral or sue the indemnitor. So, you, you take whatever the, the

defendant left behind. And then, if that fails, you gotta pay the

money yourself, the, the bonds man or woman, has to pay the money him or her

self. So, those are the three options.

Some, that, the money is owed to the court, one of those things has to happen.

So, in this case, out of those three options, which one, what happened?

Well, the grace period is done and there is no arrest yet.

There was no collateral, there was no idemnitors.

So, what's the conclusion? What's going to, has to happen?

Well, there's only one option left, that Green, the bonds woman has to, is, has to

pay that $31,000 herself. So, you can see what actually kind of a

nice logical argument under that. And, sometimes they can even map those out

in kind of A, B, C terms. I want to point out to you, the transition

words used in this paragraph. There were couple but not too many, Right?

So, there is an if, there's that but, B, U, T, and that tells you where is

switching modes, and there was assumed. But notice, we didn't have to start with

every sentence here with a transition word, we just need a couple of key small

transition words. Nothing fancy and not too many of them.

And then, one more thing I want to pick, point out about this paragraph, it has a

really nice ending, okay? So, it ends, but Zabala hadn't put down

any collateral, and so far Green, one of the few bondsmen who always do their own

bounty hunting, had found neither him nor his indemnitors.

So, notice the use of dashes in that sentence.

That's kinda long, complex sentence, with dashes and everything.

And then, we get a short sentence. The grace period was nearly up.

Soon, Green would have to pay the court $31,000.

So, we get this kind of long sentence, complex sentence, short sentence, and then

a little bit longer sentence. Notice the variety in the sentence

structure. That provides a really nice build up for

the conclusion there. And, it ends with this memorable

conclusion, well, this person Green is going to owe the court a lot of money.

So, those are some pointing, pointers for how to organize your paragraph in a

logical fashion and really make your paragraph work.

So now, I'm going to give you a paragraph that needs a little bit of editing.

So, this paragraph was from a scientific paper.

And the goal of this paper was the scientists took a bunch of perfume scents,

you know, put them in test tubes, have a bunch of participants come in.

And, and smell the various scents and rate them for their preferences.

So, some people will like a certain scent and won't like other scents.

So, they have them rate these various scents.

Then, they took their blood and measured their DNA and measured the genetic

markers. And they're trying to see whether or not

your preference for various scents might correlate to your genetic makeup.

And there's some reason to believe, a scientific reason to believe that, that

might be true. So, that was the experiment.

And, in this paragraph I pulled out of the conclusion sections specifically from the

limitation section of this paper. So, where they were trying to give the

potential limitations, and tell you kind of how they guard you against those

limitations. So, this paragraph was about potential

limitation of their experimental set. So, because they have to give this

different perfumes for everybody to smell, they got to have some choice in terms of

exactly the concentration that they were going to use for the different scents.

And there's some issues with choosing the concentrations.

Actually, really important for this experiment because if you put too high of

a concentration, it turns out that when it's a really high concentration, it's so

intense and overpowering that most people will just be turned off to that scent.

So, you don't want to put everything at too high of a concentration.

And, similarly, if you put things at too low of a concentration, maybe the smell

turns out to be not that pleasant just cuz you're not getting enough of it.

So, you have to be very careful about the concentrations, and so they're telling you

exactly how they chose those. So, they chose the concentration by

standardizing against a reference substance.

So, let me give you some additional details here.

So, if you have time and you want to pause the video now and take a stab at editing

this paragraph on your own, it's tricky because you don't have the background

here. But, hopefully, I've given you enough

background. You might be able to figure this one out.

If not, I'm just going to kinda lead you through how I would approach this and I'm

going to point out some interesting things about this paragraph to note.

By the way, the original paragraph had 212 words.

I actually ran out of room in that last sentence, so I didn't quite put the whole

paragraph here. But, you get, you'll get most of it.

It was 212 words, which was quite long. Not so many sentences, but some very long

sentences in here. So, I want to point out a few things about

this paragraph. So, notice that there is quite a few

transition words here. We get a nevertheless, a hence, a however,

and interestingly. So, there's a lot of kind of back and

forth, telling the reader, I'm going here, I'm going there.

A lot of pointing out to the reader where you're going.

And, that usually belies, comes some problems with the underlying logic.

And if you, you know, have read this paragraph from start to finish, you will

notice that it's pretty difficult to follow.

Actually, I should read it through for you now just to kind of give you a sense of

how difficult it is to kind of make heads or tails of this paragraph.

So, it says, most scents remain constant in their quality over orders of magnitude

of concentration. Nevertheless, at high concentrations,

quality tends to be negatively correlated with intensity, as was the case, for

example, with the cinnamon oil used in the study.

Hence, reliability of absolute scorings was achieved by calibrating the amount of

perfume ingredients with initial ratings for intensity against a reference

substance of known concentration. The final concentrations were in principle

chosen in a way such that individual ratings showed variants among the

participants within the sliding scale between zero and ten.

Meaning, that people could decide whether or not they like scent.

This procedure seems successful for most scents, however, the concentrations for,

bearinga, Bergamot and Vetiver could probably have been reduced even more as

both scents did not show any discriminating power at the level of

common alleles. People largely agreed on the quality of

these two scents, see table two. Interestingly, the pooled rare alleles

showed discriminating power. So, there's a lot going on in this

paragraph. And, probably, the editors, as you think

that's quite a bit to make it a little bit more concise and bring out the logic of it

a little bit more. So, one thing the point also transition

words. Again, if you have a lot of transition

words, that sometimes is a good clue that you need some work on the logic of the

paragraph. Another quick thing I want to just point

out is, as I was reading this over to prepare these lines, I recognized that

there's actually a spelling error in here. This is the kind of spelling error that

you know, word or your word processing program isn't going to pick up because

it's the final concentration wherein principal, well, that's spelled correctly

but it's the wrong word choice here for principal, right?

Principal is your pal. Principle, and what you want here is the

final concentrations for in principle, which is the P, L, E.

So, your spellcheckers not going to catch that one.

And, in fact, the copy editors for this journal didn't catch that one, nobody

caught that one. It's not a big deal, but I'll just point

out there, you know, to be careful on usage.

And, one final thing I want to point out in this paragraph is that interestingly,

the authors of this paper actually did use parentheses.

We talked about using parenthesis in an earlier module to stick in extra

information, and the authors actually did that here.

Not all, scientific papers will you see this.

And, interestingly enough, I really liked the stuff that was in the parenthesis cuz

that was the most clear to me. In fact, that, they, they seem to want to

like every time they write the kind of long complicated thing, they want to tell

you to clarify it for you in the parenthesis.

Oh, this is what I mean. Meaning, that people can decide whether

they like the sentence or not. Oh, this is what I mean.

People agreed largely on the quality of these two sentences.

And, that's the easiest thing to understand in the, in the whole paragraph

are those two little things. So, it's almost like they didn't want to

put it in simple language but they, they kinda recognized that they needed a little

simple language so they stuck it in. Anyway, it's good to use the parenthesis,

although it kinda shows you that maybe what they should of taken what was in the

paragraph and made that, built that into the, into the a paragraph itself.

So, when I am approaching and editing a paragraph like this, what I need to do is,

first of all, I got to understand what it is that the authors were really trying to

say. And, sometimes that's a challenge.

Sometimes I have to go back to the authors and kinda ask them, what is it you were

trying to get at? What was the main point of this paragraph?

What were you trying to do in this paragraph?

And so, I actually didn't go back to these authors, but I was able to piece it out

from reading it over many times and from the context.

So, then, once I kinda figure out what the paragraph is about, the main point, then I

can try to kinda weed through all the sentences and figure out exactly what is

it that the authors were trying to get out.

What were they trying to tell the readers? Is some of that unimportant?

Can we delete, and a lot of times there's extra details that we don't even need and,

and, and, you know, they're not really contributing to the main idea of the

paragraph. A lot of times we can weed those out.

So, there's a way that in my head I don't usually build a formula outline, but in my

head as I'm editing things, I tend to kind of build a very simple outline.

I don't necessarily write this down, but I think it's helpful for, for the purposes

of teaching to write this kind of outline out very explicitly.

So, first I gotta ask myself, well, what was the main idea of that paragraph?

What were they trying to get at? So, I think what they were trying to get

at here was just asking the questions, cuz this is a possible limitation in the

study. Whether or not the perfume concentrations

that they picked in their experiment were appropriate?

If they didn't pick good concentration, that could have greatly affected the

results. So, they're trying to tell you that they

did an okay job at picking the concentrations is this paragraph.

So, that's the main idea of the paragraph, that's the goal of the paragraph.

So, we have to kinda keep everything focused on that main goal.

And again, that may mean stripping out some extra details that don't contribute

to that main goal. Then, there's some sub-points to that,

right? So, asking the question, were the perfume

concentrations in the experiment appropriate?

Well, here's some things to think about related directly to that question.

So, one thing that's a very important point to make is that if the concentration

is too high, you might get a smell that is so overpowering that everybody rates it as

of poor quality cuz it's too overpowering and intense for everyone.

So, that will now allow you to get enough variation in your ratings to be able to

correlate with any, genetic, makeup. And, they say, well, if that were the

case, that's going to be a problem. But, in fact, we standardized the

intensity here so we felt, feel pretty comfortable we didn't have any sense that

we're simply just too overpowering or too intense.

So, that answer that particular question. Another thing they need to think about in

terms of the perfume concentration, another potential problem, is that

remember, they were trying to correlate people's preferences for the perfumes with

their genetic makeup. Well, if everybody rated the perfumes

exactly the same as if there was no variation in the preferences, then you

wouldn't be able to correlate that with genetic variation.

So, they are saying in their paragraph that, you know, the one way to kind of.

Whether or not the concentrations are appropriate, is simply if they have enough

variability in their quality ratings, that's a good indication that, that was

the right concentration. It's, at least, good for the experiment

because they can get enough variation to potentially correlate with genetic makeup.

And they tell you that, that was true for most of the sense.

In the experiment, they had good variarability in the quality ratings,

except there were two sense from which that wasn't the case.

The one that got the very highest ratings and the one that got the very lowest

ratings. Both of those were a little bit, you know,

didn't have very much variability, maybe because everybody really liked them or

everybody really hated them. But, potentially, it could have something

of the concentrations that they chose. So, this is really everything that was

going on in that paragraph. And then, the goal of editing is going to

be to kind of bring out all those main ideas in simple language, get rid of

everything that doesn't contribute to those main ideas.

And then, of course, while I'm editing the paragraph, I'm also going to, to be doing

sentence level editing, not only fixing the organization of the paragraph, but

also making the sentences read nicely. So, here's the overall edit that I came up

with. I got it down to 91, 93 words, actually.

So, I cut it down by more than half. So, I started with, perfume quality and

intensity may be negatively correlated. And I kinda stuck with this little

stylistic thing that the authors have of, of giving the little common sense message

in the parentheses. So, If a scent is too strong, most people

will reject it, independent of their preference.

Hence, I kept one or I kept two transition words here, hence, we chose the final

concentration of each perfume ingredient so that at similar intesity to a reference

scent. So, they're saying, okay, we guarded

against the fact that you might get over powered by making sure that there was a,

there were none of them were over powering cuz they were all standardized against a

reference. The resulting concentrations appeared

appropriate for most sense. And, we can verify that because the

participants' preference is varied along the sliding scale between zero and ten.

However, people largely agreed on the quality of Bergamot and Vetiver, and so

lower or higher concentrations may have be needed for these scents.

So, with that, with that exception, we did a pretty good job.

So, you can see, I've captured all of the things that I set out in this paragraph

and got rid of everything that didn't contribute to getting those ideas across.

The preceding program is copyrighted by the Board of Trustees of the Leland

Standford Junior University. Please visit us at med.stanford.edu.