Writing Science in Plain English by Anne E. Greene

Author:Anne E. Greene [Greene, Anne E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Chicago Press

EXERCISE 11

In the following sentences and paragraphs, did the writers put the old and new information in the right places? Revise any incorrect sentences using the principles we’ve discussed. Then look at the Exercise Key in Appendix 2.

1. Unfortunately, as noted 40 years ago, few students experience the thrill of doing field science because they are rarely allowed to leave the confines of the classroom to become immersed in field-based science.

2. Bank erosion rates along the South River in Virginia increased by factors of 2–3 after 1957. Increased bank erosion rates cannot be explained by changes in the intensity of either freeze-thaw or storm intensity, and changes in the density of riparian trees should have decreased erosion rates.

3. Students majoring in science often believe they can escape the intensive writing and presentations that their peers in the humanities and social sciences must do. However, science is a collective human endeavor whose success hinges upon effective communication, both written and oral. Even if findings are ground breaking, they are potentially worthless if they can’t be shared with others in a clear and engaging way. Teaching undergraduate science students to effectively communicate is therefore an essential goal.

4. Climate plays an important part in determining the average numbers of a species, and periodical seasons of extreme cold or drought, I believe to be the most effective of all checks. I estimated that the winter of 1854–55 destroyed four-fifths of the birds in my own grounds; and this is a tremendous destruction, when we remember that ten per cent is an extraordinarily severe mortality from epidemics with man. The action of climate seems at first sight to be quite independent of the struggle for existence; but in so far as climate chiefly acts in reducing food, it brings on the most severe struggle between the individuals, whether of the same or of distinct species, which subsist on the same kind of food. Even when climate, for instance extreme cold, acts directly, it will be the least vigorous, or those which have got least food through the advancing winter, which will suffer most.

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