Before beginning writing your thesis, you should refer to the Page Formatting Suggestions in the Documentation and Style Guide.
Formal Writing
The MSEM Thesis is a formal document and should follow the conventions of formal writing style. This includes the following:
- Avoid personal pronouns, such as I, me, you, us, we, etc. Write in the third-person.
- Avoid contractions, such as can't, won't, shouldn't, etc.
- Avoid abbreviations, such as &, thru, OK, auto, gov’t. Note: Some common abbreviations are acceptable, such as Mr., Mrs. Dr., a.m., p.m. Also, certain acronyms, such as TV, VCR, and NASA do not need to be defined.
- Avoid clichés and colloquialisms, such as:
red-hot
out of the woodwork
skyrocketing
goes bust
playing it safe
beat around the bush
crystal clear
growing by leaps and bounds
take it for granted
work hand-in-hand
Common Writing Concerns
Set off nonrestrictive modifiers from the sentence by commas. A nonrestrictive modifier is one that can be omitted from the sentence without changing its meaning. A restrictive modifier cannot be left out of the sentence without changing the sentence’s meaning.
Restrictive: All the suits that were damaged in the fire were sold at a discount. (Implies that some of the suits were not damaged)
Nonrestrictive: All the suits, which were damaged in the fire, were sold at a discount. (Implies that all the stock was damaged)
For a more detailed discussion, click here.
Punctuation
Commas
Following are some suggestions regarding the use of commas:
- Use a comma before coordinating conjunctions (and, but, nor, for, or, so, and yet) that join two main clauses.
He thought a major corporation would hire him, but he finally settled for any job he could get.
- Use a comma after sentence elements that appear before the main clause, such as subordinate clauses and phrases.
As a solution to the problem, the team recommended changing the inventory system.
For example, the chief executive officer (CEO) holds a membership in the country club.
- Use commas to set off parenthetical sentence elements.
Soil erosion, the loss of water-storing topsoil, turns land into desert.
The manager, who has experience with Fortune 500 companies, wants the department to use a computerized reporting system.
- Use commas between items in a series. A series consists of three or more elements, which may be single words, phrases, or clauses.
A survey conducted at the automobile show indicated that black and cream, blue and gray, dark maroon, and black cars were favored by the public.
- Use commas between coordinate adjectives that come before a noun. Coordinate adjectives are adjectives that stand in equal relation to the noun they modify.
The report was an informative, fact-filled study of student attitudes toward writing courses.
The test for coordinate adjectives is to insert the word and between them and omit the comma. If the adjectives are coordinate (equal in rank), the sentence should read smoothly.
Hyphens
The hyphen is mainly used to connect words that are to be regarded as a unit of meaning.
- Use a hyphen to connect modifying words before a noun when such words act as a single unit of meaning.
grim-faced CEO
the business-to-business marketplace
cross-functional teams
- Use a hyphen to prevent misunderstanding.
foreign-car dealer
re-covered the chair (Compare this to: recovered the chair)
re-sign the contract (Compare this to: resign the contract)
one more-expensive peripheral (Compare this to: one more expensive peripheral)
Apostrophe
The apostrophe marks the possessive case of nouns:
For nouns, both singular and plural, that do not end in s, form the possessive by adding ‘s.
Wrong: During most of the 1980’s, good products could literally sell themselves.
Right: During most of the 1980s, good products could literally sell themselves.
Right: The 1980’s experience was that good products could literally sell themselves.
For plural nouns that end in s, add the apostrophe only.
two months’ time
Sentence Construction
Subject-verb agreement
- Do not be misled by a phrase that comes between the subject and the verb. The verb agrees with the subject, not with a noun or pronoun in the phrase.
- one of the boxes is
- the people who listen to that music are
- the team captain, as well as his players, is
- the book, including all the chapters in the first section, is
- the woman with all the dogs walks
- When a compound subject contains both a singular and a plural noun or pronoun joined by or or nor, the verb should agree with the part of the subject that is nearer the verb.
- the boy or his friends run
- his friends or the boy runs
- The words each, each one, either, neither, everyone, everybody, anybody, anyone, nobody, somebody, someone, and no one are singular and require a singular verb.
- each one of these hot dogs is
- everybody knows
- Collective nouns are words that imply more than one person but that are considered singular and take a singular verb, such as: group, team, committee, class, family, etc. In a very few cases, the plural verb is used if the individuals in the group are thought of and specifically referred to.
- the team runs
- the committee decides
- Sentences beginning with there are are usually in inverted order. Be sure the verb agrees with the subject. There is never a subject of the sentence in the true sense of the word. This is considered weak sentence structure. So, avoid there is and there are sentences in your writing.
For more information on writing issues, see the various handouts at Purdue's Online Writing Lab
Spelling Errors
While a word processor's spell checker does provide spelling help, it should not be your only means of checking spelling. Using a dictionary can save you from embarrassment. To show how easily a spell checker can cause problems, take at look at this ode to a spell checker.