Page 363 - English for Writing Research Papers

354

• Consider using a professional editing agency to edit and proofread your work –

they will also act as a pre-review by highlighting aspects of the paper that may
need reworking. However, if you are not in a hurry to have your paper published,
it might be worth waiting to hear the referees' comments before submitting your
paper to a professional agency, who can then work on your fi nal version.

20.4 Cut, cut, cut and keep cutting

Joseph Addison (1672–1719), English essayist, poet and politician once remarked:
The English delight in silence more than any other European nation, if the remarks which
are made on us by foreigners are true. … To favour our natural taciturnity, when we are
obliged to utter our thoughts, we do it in the shortest way we are able.

Imagine that you have been asked by the referee to reduce your paper by 25%. As
you go through the paper, cut as much as you can (without necessarily eliminating
any content). This very rarely leads to a poorer manuscript, more often it improves
it massively.

On the basis of identical content, there is no referee in the world who would prefer

to review a paper of twenty pages rather than fifteen (see 5.20 ).
Make sure you haven’t included any sentences or paragraphs just because they sound
good to you or you are particularly pleased with the way you have expressed yourself.

Also consider cutting whole paragraphs and subsections.

A few months into the future you will not even remember what you cut. It may seem
desperately important for you to include something now, but really ask yourself: Do
my readers need to read this? Will they notice if I have cut it out?

20.5 Check your paper for readability

Website designers follow the principle of ‘don’t make me think’. This means that
everything should be so clear to visitors to their websites, that these visitors intui-
tively know where to find the information they need. The visitors are not required to

think.

Similarly, writers of technical manuals focus on presenting information in an orderly
straightforward fashion that requires minimal intellectual effort on the part of the