This is a checklist to use before
you turn in any reports. These actions
are easy to do and can immensely improve the professional character of your
report. Please check off the following
and turn this form in with any written material that you turn in to me. You should continue to use this form for all
written materials, even after the REU program.
I have run Spellcheck
on my document.
I have removed all occurrences of the
phrase “due to the fact that.”
All of the references that are given at
the end of my report are explicitly cited in my report
All of the figures and tables have
references to them in the text.
All text references to figures and tables
occur before the figure.
The words “this,” “these,” and “those”
never occur without referencing a noun. (E.g., “This device is used to …”
rather than “This is used to …”
All acronyms are spelled out completely
the first time they are used. For
example, “A Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI) is used for ….”
All quoted material relates to points that
are subjective or a matter of opinion on the part of the quoted author.
I have not used any of the following words/phrases: a lot, kids, kinds, big, kind of, due to the
fact that, (or just “the fact that”), utilize, actually, obviously, rather (as
in “It is rather surprising”), very, quite, essentially.
There are no sentence fragments in my text
(the grammar checker should find these).
There are no contractions in my text (do a
global search for the apostrophe and make sure it occurs only in possessives).
The phrase “et al.” is correctly written,
with no period after “et” and a period after “al.”
When the semicolon is used, it separates
complete sentences, not sentence fragments or clauses.
Wherever a present participle is used at
the beginning of a sentence, the noun performing the action is the first thing
after the comma. E.g. “Wielding the
knife, I sliced the carrot,” as opposed to, “Wielding the knife, the carrot was
sliced.” (The second form implies that the carrot was wielding the knife, which is not likely,
genetic engineering aside). Note: it is
best to avoid such use of the present participle anyway, so if you can, write
the sentence in another way.