1 EDITING YOUR OWN MANUSCRIPT: What to look forMECHANICS OF WRITING EDITING YOUR OWN MANUSCRIPT: What to look for

2 PLAGIARISM Using the words or a close imitation of the words of another person as if they were your own. If you use the words of another person, you must put quotation marks around them and provide a reference to the source of the words including the page number on which they originally appeared.

3 Permission to Quote You must obtain permission to quote more than 150 words from a published source. Usually you do this by writing to the publisher of the journal or book, since publishers hold the copyright for the material. You must include such a release with any article you submit for publication.

4 Quotations in Text For short quotations (1-2 sentences), start with author’s name, thus: Shorter and Marks (1999) state that “Our research demonstrated . . .” For longer quotations, use indented single line space paragraph, including reference.

5 Bury Your “Howevers” Do not start a sentence with “however.”Move the however later in the sentence, usually after the first phrase to show a transition to the second part of the sentence. “We knew it would be a long night, however, since we still had to finish writing Chapter Two”

6 Avoid Using Filler WordsEliminate filler material which takes up space and wastes the reader’s time. Substitute the short for the long. For example: Use “much” instead of “a considerable amount of time.”

7 Avoid Redundancies They were both alike. A total of 68 participantsAbsolutely essential The reason is because Young juveniles A viable alternative

8 Words Wrongly Used and/or slipshod construction used by thousands of authors (and lawyers) but accepted by few experienced editors Case jargon. If you say “in this case,” you mean “here”; “in most cases” means “usually”; “in all cases” means “always”; “in no case” means “never.”

9 Words Wrongly Used Like often used as conjunction; should be used only as a preposition. When a conjunction is needed, substitute the word as. For example: Like I just said, this sentence should have started with “As.”

10 A Pronoun Should Agree with its AntecedentPronouns must agree in number (singular or plural) with the nouns they replace. Incorrect: Everyone in the room had their own way of doing it. Better: Everyone in the room had his or her own way of doing it.

11 A Pronoun Must Agree with its AntecedentA pronoun must agree in gender (i.e., masculine, feminine or neuter) with the noun it replaces. Use who for human beings; use that or which for animals and for things.

12 Nouns from other LanguagesDetermining whether a noun is singular or plural is difficult when we use words from other languages. For example: data, a Latin word, is plural; datum is the singular form. Thus you would write, “The data are. . .”

13 Nouns from other LanguagesThe word phenomena is plural (Latin words ending in “a” are plural); Phenomenon is the singular form of the word. Thus you would write, “The phenomena occur every 100 years.”

14 Stacked Modifiers Do not add several adjectives or adverbs to your sentences. For example, The results are very suggestive of a lengthy, sustained effort to visibly and coherently explain the effects of such an intervention.

15 Latin Abbreviations Do not use “etc.” (for et cetera). Either include all the items in your list or use the expression “e.g.” which means “for example.” If you wish to provide a definition, then use the Latin abbreviation “i.e.” which means “that is” followed by the definition.

16 Use Parentheses RarelyCommas will usually serve just as well to set off a parenthetical expression

17 Short Sentences Do not use long-winded sentences. Readers lose track of the thought by the end of the sentence. Avoid starting a sentence with a long lead-in phrase. . .or “wandering in.”

18 Check for Lack of Parallelism in a SentenceExample of a lack of parallelism in sentence construction: A patient-centered partnership fosters open-ended questions, encourages patient interaction, providers give reassuring responses, and active listening to the patient’s concerns.

19 Lack of Parallelism “The more acculturated the Asian students were, the higher their self-esteem and had a more positive outlook about life.”

20 Avoid Giving Directions to ReadersUnless you are preparing a protocol for publication, avoid the use of “you” when referring to your readers. The word “you” is the imperative; in other words, you are giving directions to your readers. Avoid colloquial expressions such as “we” and “you.”

21 Garbled Syntax (wrong word order)“When traveling the world, Malaria is one of the most formidable diseases one can encounter.” Or using the wrong word: “From personal experience, I knew that I had the perseverance and confidence to overcome every hurdle that came my way.”

22 IDENTIFYING YOUR OWN COMMON ERRORS IN WRITINGLearn to identify the common errors you make, and examine your manuscript closely for those errors as you rewrite. Remember the adage: There is no such thing as good writing, only good rewriting!