I've been reading a lot of undergrad assignments, postgrad theses, research papers & a book recently. My overwhelming impression is that humans write poorly, so here are some unsolicited tips... 1/n

1) Proof read your work by reading it out loud. Many people write things they would never say. Read to yourself & a friend & correct stuff that sounds daft. Do this again & again & edit each time until it sounds ok. Don't let someone else be the first to read your words! 2/n

2) Do some research & find out what a sentence is. If you are >60 years old you will have been taught that a sentence has a (1) subject & the predicate. The important part is the ONE subject. A good sentence identifies the subject & tells us a little about it. 3/n

Bad sentences have two or more subjects & switch between them so the reader hasn't a clue what is going on. This is a good resource... https://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/the-parts-of-the-sentence#:~:text=Every%20complete%20sentence%20contains%20two,tells%20something%20about%20the%20subject. 4/n

3) Use fewer words (per sentence, paragraph etc). Word limits are tight in scientific writing, so get the message across, use a full stop & start another sentence (on the same or a new subject). If possible, don't use any one word more than once per sentence. 5/n

4) Use plain language whenever possible. There may be an academic 'style' but there is no reason to use words like 'Musculature'. 'Muscles' means exactly the same thing & doesn't make you sound like a tosser. It also uses up fewer characters & that's good for abstracts... 6/n

5) Minimise the use of abbreviations. Readers (reviewers!) hate these because they cost us time. We really hate the new rubbish abbreviations you've invented (WTFWYDT?). Abbreviations are needed only if you've not been concise 7/n

If your thesis has a full page of abbreviations you must be trying to shit the readers/reviewers up the wall. This is a bad idea. If it isn't MVC or MVO2 does it really need to be abbreviated? 8/n

6) Prepositions are really hard, particularly if English is not your first language. Does one get punched in, on, around or through the face? Fortunately, there are plenty of resources online; eg. https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/prepositions 9/n