Category Archives: grammar

style, tone and grammar – native speaker bias in peer reviews

Posted on October 12, 2020 by pat thomson

This is a guest post from Dr Randi Stebbins. Randi is Director of the University of Iceland Centre for Writing. Peer review is a central part of academic publication. The process of back and forth between authors and reviewers is … Continue reading →

Posted in English language, grammar, journal article, peer review, reviewing, style | Tagged "native speaker", grammar, peer reviewing, publication in English, Randi Stebbins, style | 2 Comments

this, they, it, those, these – a revision strategy

Posted on July 27, 2020 by pat thomson

One of my pet peeves is reading sentences which contain an ambiguous pronoun. The pronoun stands alone, isolated. The lonely goatherd on the hilltop. Sentences that start with, or contain, an unattached this, they, it, those, these seem to expect the reader … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, grammar, revision, revision strategy, syntax, thesis revision, vagueness | Tagged academic writing, Pat Thomson, pronouns, revision, revision strategy, syntax, vagueness | 11 Comments

getting tense about tense

Posted on March 7, 2013 by pat thomson

In a recent comment to this blog someone asked me if I had any tips on managing tense. They found themselves, they said, wandering around in time as they wrote, meandering from present to past and back again, undertaking an … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, grammar, literature review, methodology, methods chapter, tense, thesis | Tagged academic writing, methodology, Paltridge and Starfield, Pat Thomson, tense | 9 Comments

grammar, the apostrophe and me

Posted on February 4, 2012 by pat thomson

The title gives it away, right? I’m a grammar liberal, not a conservative. I prefer my sentences to sound more like talk. In my book(s), even academic writing can break syntactical rules sometimes. It’s all in the interests of readability … Continue reading →