In this lecture we will learn:
•Capitalization
•Italics
•Abbreviations
•Acronyms
•Numbers
•Enumeration
•Symbols
•Equations
•Spelling
Capitalization:
•Although there are many specialized rules for capitalizing
letters, the following four are the
most common.
•Capitalize the first words of sentences, including
sentences cited in quotations:
–The QA engineer has been quoted as saying, "The main source
of connector failure found
in the analysis is seal deformation caused by pressures in
excess of 1000 psig."
•Capitalize proper names, including any particular person,
object, place, project, institution,
river, vessel, genus, culture, ethnic group, or formal job
title.
•Unless you are following a documentation style that
specifies otherwise, capitalize titles of
books, periodicals, published and unpublished reports,
articles, and document sections.
Rules for Capitalizing Multiple-Word Titles and Proper
Names
•Unless you are following a documentation style that
specifies otherwise, observe the
following rules for capitalizing multiple word titles and
proper nouns.
–Capitalize all nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
and subordinating conjunctions.
–Capitalize any word, regardless of the part of speech, if
it is the first or last word of the title
or subtitle or a proper name or if it follows a punctuation
mark indicating a break in the title.
General Guidelines for Capitalizing Scientific Terms:
•Each discipline has its own specific conventions for
determining which terms should be
capitalized.
•In general, scientific writing tends to minimize
capitalized nouns.
General Guidelines for Capitalizing Scientific Terms:
•Capitalize astronomical terms such as the names of
galaxies, constellations, stars, planets
and their satellites, and asteroids.
•However, the terms
earth,
sun,
and moon
are often not capitalized unless they appear
in a
sentence that refers to other astronomical bodies.
–The sun
is an ordinary star.
Venus
and
Earth
differ significantly in the composition of
their
atmospheres.
General Guidelines for Capitalizing Scientific Terms:
•Do not capitalize medical terms except for any part of a
term consisting of a proper noun:
–infectious mononucleosis
–brachial plexus
–Japans's
disease
Italics:
Example:
•Titles of
Journals, Books, Newsletters, and Manuals
–the
Journal of the American Chemical Society
– Aviation
Week and Space Technology –Handbook
of Physical Constants –Operator's
Manual: TD-100 B&S Spectroscope
–Pollution
Abstracts
•Letters,
Words, Terms, and Equation Symbols That Are Being Highlighted for
Discussion
–If either
1 or
2
is negative,
Equation8
describes a convex reflecting surface.
–How does one program the computer, for example, to
pronounce the letter combination
gh ? In the word
thorough,
gh
has no sound; in
enough,
it is pronounced f;
in ghost,
it is
pronounced
g.
–The term
dielectric is used here to refer
to all. . .
Foreign Words:
•Against the criminally stubborn conviction of the
professional officer corps that courage,
élan, and naked steel must carry the day, the machine gun
was the ultimate argument.
•Bohr returned to Göttingen as a
Privat dozent
working under Born. [In German all nouns
are capitalized.]
•--Richard Rhodes,
The Making of the Atomic Bomb
The SPOT (for
système
probatoire d'observation de la terre )
views the area in question every 2.5 days.
•Emphasis
–The Chernobyl reactor surged from its standby level to 50
percent of its capacity in
just 10
seconds .•Names
of Specific Vessels
–Do not italicize the model's class, manufacturer, or model
number
Abbreviations:
•Unless you are following a style guide that specifies
otherwise, observe the following
conventions.
•Abbreviations, shortened forms of words, are commonly
employed in scientific and
technical writing.
•However, avoid unnecessary abbreviations, which can confuse
a reader.
•Some abbreviations are always followed by a period.
•Always abbreviate certain words and phrases in your text.
Those always abbreviated
include Mr., Ms., B.A., Ph.D., B.C., B.C.E.
–cf. (from the Latin for "compare")
–et al. (from the Latin "and others")
Acronyms:
•Unless you are following a style guide that specifies
otherwise, observe the following
conventions.
•Use acronyms to shorten phrases in order to save space or
to avoid awkward repetition of
phrases.
•Acronyms are abbreviations of the things they represent and
are formed by combining the
first, and sometimes other, letters of the principal words.
Examples:
•AIDS -- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
•RAM -- random-access memory
•ROM -- read-only memory
•DOS -- Disk Operating System
•FTP -- file transfer protocol
•HTML -- Hypertext Markup Language
•HIV -- Human Immunodeficiency Virus
Numbers:
•Unless you are following a style guide that specifies
otherwise, observe the following
guidelines in using numbers.
•In general, use Arabic numerals instead of words in
scientific and technical writing for both
cardinal and ordinal numbers:
– 3
subroutines
– 6
braces
– 61
amino acids
–the 3rd
subroutine
–the 6th
brace
–the 61st
amino acid
British and American Formation of Numbers:
•Form integers of two to four digits without any punctuation
or spacing:
–21 412
–8024
•Use the period ( .)
to indicate the decimal point and use an initial zero (0)
for numbers less
than 1.0:
–31.3 1.41
–0.414
•Form numbers of five digits or more by using a comma ( ,)
to mark off groups of three digits,
starting at the decimal point:
–10,000 12,341
–12,341.34
–12,432,421
European and International Standards for Formation of
Numbers
••Form integers of two to four digits without any
punctuation or spacing:
–21 412
–8024
•Use the comma ( ,)
to indicate the decimal point and use an initial zero (0)
for numbers less
than 1,0:
–31,3 1,41
–0,414
General Guidelines for Using Numbers in Non-technical Prose
•When using numbers in nonscientific text, spell out numbers
less than one hundred or
numbers of any size that begin a sentence.
•In addition, spell out round numbers of any size and use
Arabic numerals followed by the
terms
million and
billion
to express numbers larger than one million.
–seventy-three hours
–173 hours
–nine hundred thousand
••Form numbers of five digits or more by using a period ( .)
to mark off groups of three digits,
starting at the decimal point:
–10.000 12.341
–12.341,34
–12.432.421
General Guidelines for Using Numbers in Non-technical Prose
•When using numbers in nonscientific text, spell out numbers
less than one hundred or
numbers of any size that begin a sentence.
•In addition, spell out round numbers of any size and use
Arabic numerals followed by the
terms
million and
billion
to express numbers larger than one million.
–seventy-three hours
–173 hours
–nine hundred thousand
Enumeration:
•Use enumeration in reports and other documents to identify
sequences of chapters,
sections, page numbers, figures and tables, equations,
footnotes, and appendixes.
•Lengthy reports may contain and enumerate all these items.
•Any technical or scientific document of more than one page,
however, will at least
enumerate its pages, as well as any other of these elements
that are present. • Chapter-
Section Enumeration
–Of the two general enumeration systems widely used, the
numerical system is clearer than
the alphanumerical system.
–In the numerical system, the reader can always locate his
or her place in the document
from the single decimal number.
Pagination:
•Number the front matter in italic lowercase roman numerals
( i, ii, iii, iv,
and so on).
•Normally, number the pages in the body of the document with
Arabic numerals, starting
with page 1.
•Numbers sequentially through page
n
at the end of the text, including all back
matter.
Tables and Figures:
•Number tables and figures sequentially as
Table 1,Table
2,
Table 3,
and so on.
•In long documents, however, table and figure numbers are
often prefixed with a chapter
number:
– Table 5-1
or
Table 5.1,
for example, refers to the first table of Chapter 5.
Symbols:
•Use symbols consistently and in keeping with the common
practice of your discipline.
•Biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, and physics,
among many other fields, have
extensive and precise systems tore present quantities,
objects, and actions.
•Check with a relevant style guide, , or handbook.
Equations:
•Unless you are following a style guide that specifies
otherwise, observe the following
conventions.
•Integrate equations into the body of your document by
including in the text one or more
explicit references to each one and, if appropriate, a short
explanation of each term.
•An ion in crossed electric and magnetic fields drifts at
right angles to both fields with a
velocity of
– Vd = E5/B
•where Vd is the drift velocity, E5 is the magnitude of the
static field, and B is the magnetic
field strength.
–If Vd were to approach unity, the behavior of the electric
. . .
Spelling:
•Always proofread your document for misspellings.
•If you are writing on a word processor, always use the
spell checker but do not rely on it
alone.
•It cannot catch one word substituted for another ( discreet
for
discrete)
or a typographical
error that is a word ( cod
instead of
code).
•Be consistent in the spelling of words in your document.
•Use the same dictionary when writing your first draft as
when revising or editing the
document.
•If you first learned British or Commonwealth English, be
careful to use American English
spellings of words rather than British forms.
•The following list summarizes some of the most common
differences between American
English and British English spelling.
Desk Dictionaries
Unabridged Dictionaries
ESL Dictionaries
Technical Dictionaries
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