Ten Simple (Empirical) Rules for Writing Science
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Similarly, using too many "hedge words" (e.g., "somewhat," "speculative," "appear," "almost," "largely") can signal a lack of confidence in the work.
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Generic language may also result from writing guidelines and best practices that recommend concise, compact language and provide generics as examples of good writing.
“Generic language may also result from writing guidelines and best practices that recommend using concise, compact language, and that provide generics as examples of”
From Generic language in scientific communication (2019) · cites this paper as [56]
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- Authors
- Weinberger, C. J., Evans, J. A., & Allesina, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Chicago (US)
- ORCID
- Evans, James A.
- Venue
- PLOS Computational Biology
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-04-30
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e1004205
- ISSN
- 1553-734X (ISSN-L)
- 1553-7358
- PMC
- PMC4415812
- OpenAlex
- W1975724461
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 3 · 2015: 1
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS Computational Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Knowledge@UChicago (University of Chicago) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Chicago (cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1158803, 1042164)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Keywords
- scientific writing, writing rules, empirical rules, science communication
- MeSH terms
- Algorithms, Manuscripts, Medical as Topic, Periodicals as Topic, Science, Writing
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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