Lecture 3

Style Guidelines Adjective Punctuation Chem 241A April 6, 2012

Efficient English Style Targets (page 41) Sentences/paragraph

>7

Average words/sentence

12 - 15

Mechanical errors/sentence

0

Prepositions/sentence

Prepositions/verb Verbs

Large standard deviation

1.5

Small standard deviation

< 0.5

Small standard deviation

85% active voice

Sentence structure/ paragraph

3-4

Sentence type/ paragraph

3-4

Readability Scores Flesh Reading Ease Flesh Readability Ease Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level Score Automatically calculated by MS Word Quick, useful tools.

Due Monday April 9 200-word* paragraph describing your ideal lab Use action verbs in the active voice Double space Print readability statistics * maximum length (fewer words acceptable)

Adjective Punctuation (page 37) Commas Commas separate coordinate adjectives of equal rank.

Coordinate adjectives can be separated with the word ‘and’ or reversed in order without changing meaning. Roberto is a warm, gentle, affectionate father

Adjective Punctuation Hyphens Hyphens join compound adjectives so that the adjective has a new meaning. dipole-dipole interactions home-grown tomatoes warm-winter coat foil-wrapped container thirty-first floor

Cumulative adjectives without a comma A rich chocolate layer cake Layer cake And it is chocolate And it is rich Can’t say A layer chocolate rich cake

Order of Cumulative Adjectives

Coordinate adjectives separated by a comma He is a second-generation, Spanish-speaking American. (The parents of the person described were born in the United States. He knows Spanish. No information is given about his parents' language skills or his nationality.) or

He is a Spanish-speaking, second-generation American.

Cumulative adjectives without a comma He is a second-generation Spanish-speaking American. (The person described is a second-generation American; both he and his parents speak Spanish.) not the same as

He is a Spanish-speaking second-generation American. (adding commas give clarity)

Importance of adjective punctuation We have a live virus infected mouse. What is living? The virus or the mouse? We have a live, virus-infected mouse. We have a live-virus infected mouse.

Industrial example The hot caustic corroded reactor failed. What temperature is the reactor and what caused the corrosion?

The hot, caustic-corroded reactor failed. The hot-caustic, corroded reactor failed. = The corroded, hot-caustic reactor failed

Compound Adjectives forty-five grams one-half ton English-American agreement second-generation process three-year-old pump 100-mL flask

Hyphen Use Do not use hyphens with adverbs that end in -ly or when the compound adjective follows the noun. This is first-rate science His science is first rate. Always use hyphens when the dictionary does; for example, the adjective "up-to-date" always has hyphens.

Hyphen Use He is a highly regarded scientist. We used a finely polished die. We sailed the 20-foot boat. The boat we used was 20 feet. We practice up-to-date research methods. Our research methods are up-to-date. Well-made reactor

Hyphen Misuse Menu Item Baby-stuffed flounder (I did not order it!!!!)

Assignments due 4/9 (1) Complete the adjective punctuation exercises on pages 44 and 45. Make a copy to hand in. Bring original and manual to class (2) Paragraph on your ideal lab