I'm an editor, so a lot of what I do is cut or change words. These are some of the mistakes and misuses I see all the time & how to fix them. This thread is not to shame or subtweet anybody -- I learned many of these mistakes by making them myself. Please add your own favorites!
"Enormity" means something really bad, not something really big.
"Japanese/Brazilian/Finnish/Australian researchers discovered..." Science is the most international endeavor in human history. Any team that makes a discovery worth covering almost certainly includes people who aren't citizens, so instead say: "Researchers in Japan/Brazil/etc."
"Men and women" in almost all circumstances should be "people." The world is over-gendered enough as it is.
"Famous" is a word you almost never need. If a person or event is known to your reader, you don't need to tell them it's famous. If your reader DOESN'T know something, calling it famous risks making your reader feel ignorant or unwelcome in your story.
It's spelled "impostor" rather than "imposter," which I learned only after being quoted in a story about impostor syndrome ... which of course proves I'm a big fraud (but you're not). theopennotebook.com/2016/11/15/fee…
Here's a nice list of cliches to avoid in science writing, by @carlzimmer irregardless.ly/style_guides/1…
It's fine to use "spawn" metaphorically in some cases, but keep in mind that it literally means fish or frogs ejaculating eggs or sperm. Think twice about "seminal," too.
Avoid "so and so believes" because you don't know what they believe, only what they say. For a science story, you could replace believes with speculates or hypothesizes or suggests ... or just say says.
And in general, the more complicated a subject is, the simpler your words and sentences should be. Let your reader spend their attention on understanding the science, not the elaborate language.
What are some of your favorite common mistakes or awkward bits of language? In science writing or any other type of writing. Thanks for sharing on a day when it helps to have a distraction.
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