Page 181 - How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 8th Edition 8th Edition

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If you use first-person pronouns, use both the singular and the plural forms as needed. Do not use the "editorial we" in
place of "I." The use of "we" by a single author is outrageously pedantic.
One of the most frequent errors committed in scientific papers is the use of plural forms of verbs when the singular
forms would be correct.

By permission of Johnny Hart and Creators Syndicate, Inc.

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For example, you should say "10 g was added," not "10 g were added." This is because a single quantity was added.
Only if the 10 g were added 1 g at a time would it be correct to say "10 g were added."

The singular-plural problem also applies to nouns. The problem is severe in scientific writing, especially in biology,
because so many of our words are, or are derived from, Latin. Most of these words retain their Latin plurals; at least
they do when used by careful writers.

Many of these words (e.g., data, media) have entered popular speech, where the Latin "a" plural ending is simply not
recognized as a plural. Most people habitually use "data is" constructions and probably have never used the real
singular, datum. Unfortunately, this lax usage has become so common outside science that even some dictionaries
tolerate it. Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary, for example, gives "the data is plentiful" as an example of
accepted usage. "The careful writer" (Bernstein, 1965), however, says that "The use of data as if it were a singular
noun is a common solecism.''

This "plural" problem was commented upon by Sir Ashley Miles, the eminent microbiologist and scholar of The
London Hospital Medical College in a letter to me as Editor of ASM News (44:600, 1978):

A Memoranda on Bacterial Motility. The motility of a bacteria is a phenomena receiving much attention, especially in relation to the
structure of a flagella and the effect on it of an antisera. No single explanatory data is available; no one criteria of proof is recognized;
even the best media to use is unknown; and no survey of the various levels of scientific approach indicates any one strata, or the several
stratae, from which answers may emerge. Flagellae are just as puzzling as the bacteriae which carry them.

Noun Problems

Another frequent problem in scientific writing is the verbosity that results from use of abstract nouns. This malady is
corrected by turning the nouns into verbs. "Examination of the patients was carried out" should be changed to the
more direct "I examined the patients"; "separation of the compounds was accomplished" can be changed to "the
compounds were separated"; "transformation of the equations was achieved" can be changed to "the equations were
transformed."

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