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Showing posts from December, 2019

Tales from a reviewer: How to improve your writing

By Samantha Grant One day I would like to write a book that someone other than my mom would read. Until that dream comes true, I review writing for a number of academic publications. Those who can’t write, review! The picture shown here is me struggling through reviewing a journal article. Note to authors: This is not the response you are trying to elicit. Also note that I did not accept this submission. I did, however, give the author some focused feedback because I always try to find the value. I know that for many of you, writing is a chore that you hate as much as I hate vacuuming. I'll never love cleaning my carpets, but if you give me a five-point list, I might scan through it. So in that spirit, here's a short list of writing problems I often see as a reviewer and how to fix them. Problem: Lack of organization Organization matters most and is the hardest to fix. I can forgive wonky verb tenses and less-than-eloquent transitions because editing those problems