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Modifiers add description, context, and pizzaz to nouns, verbs, and other parts of a sentence. As well as the adjectives and adverbs you’re probably familiar with, verbal phrases function as modifiers too. Verbal phrases take a verb and make it function as a noun, adjective, or adverb.

Examples of verbal phrases used as modifiers:

Using survey data, we measured the effects of the intervention. (How did we measure the effects? We used survey data.)

After preparing the gel, the postdoc denatured the proteins. (When did the postdoc denature the proteins? After preparing the gel.)

We hired a biostatistician to analyze the data. (Why did we hire a biostatistician? To analyze the data.)

Not a modifier’s happy place.

But all modifiers are afraid of heights, and don’t like to be dangled off cliffs. A “dangling modifier” is a modifier that has nothing in the sentence to modify, or appears to modify something the author doesn’t intend it to.

Examples of dangling modifiers:

Incorrect: After reading the article cited, the hypothesis remains unconvincing.
Wait, who finds it unconvincing? Is the hypothesis having an existential crisis?
Correct: After reading the article cited, I still find the hypothesis unconvincing.

Incorrect: Not having used the correct medium, the experiment failed.
Wow, experiments can pick their own growth medium?
Correct: The student didn’t use the correct medium, so the experiment failed.

Incorrect: To investigate the phenomenon, a study was designed.
Yes, but who is actually doing the study?
Correct: To investigate the phenomenon, we designed a study.

As you can see from the last example, passive voice can easily lead to dangling modifiers. (More on that next time.)

To avoid dangling modifiers, make sure every verbal phrase in a sentence connects to the person or thing doing the action. Keep special vigilance at the beginnings of sentences. Avoid passive voice where you can.

Related Resources:

Practical Writing Advice from a Writing Teacher

Making Writing More Memorable and Persuasive 

An Entertaining & Robust Writing Roundup

Read More

Biomedical Editor: Grammar Tip: Dangling Modifiers

Duke Graduate School Scientific Writing Resource: Dangling Modifiers in Scientific Editing

Purdue Online Writing Lab: Dangling Modifiers and How to Correct Them

“Comprised of” should never exist in formal writing.  Arguably, the construction is used so much now that sooner or later, style guides will accept it, but not yet.

First, some background. Per the Cambridge Dictionary, Comprise means “to consist of or to be made up of”; i.e., it is the whole.  Compose, sometimes the better alternative, means “to form or make up something [from multiple parts or components].” In a sentence, moving from the whole to the parts uses comprise, while moving from the parts to the whole uses compose.  Example: “The team comprises ten members,” but “Ten members compose the team.”

In the following sentence, try replacing comprised with its synonym contained:

*The experiment was comprised of steps A, B, and C. = *The experiment was contained of steps A, B, and C.

You’d never use the second one, so don’t use the first.

You can rewrite the sentence as “The experiment was composed of steps A, B, and C.”  This is okay, but gets into another problem—passive voice. (Watch for a blog on that soon.)  In this case, because the sentence leads with the whole and ends with the parts, comprised is in fact the best option; it just needs to stand alone. “The experiment comprised steps A, B, and C.”

Use the comprise/compose pair correctly for your writing to comprise clarity and readability.

Related Resources:

Tips for Writing Scientific Manuscripts

Paper-Writing Checklists to Prevent Headaches Down the Road

Top Ten Productivity Tips for More Productive Writing, Revising & Editing

A rule to instantly improve your writing: “Compared to” (or “compared with”) never replaces “than” without a sentence rewrite.

This construct is common in academic work, and misuse is understandable. Often the sentence does make a comparison. However, using “compared to” in place of “than” inevitably leads you to compare the wrong things.

Take this example:

*Patients who took Drug A experienced greater improvement in symptoms compared to those who took Drug B.

The placement of “compared to” in this sentence suggests the reader should compare improvement to patients, when the comparison intended is patients who took Drug A and patients who took Drug B. We naturally want a participle like “compared” to modify the closest noun, in this case, “improvement.” Placing the items compared at the opposite ends of the sentence breaks this grammatical link and makes your reader work harder—never a good thing.

Two fixes are available:

1. Patients who took Drug A experienced greater improvement in symptoms than those who took Drug B.
2. Compared to patients who took Drug B, patients who took Drug A experienced greater improvement in symptoms.

Notice “compared to” now modifies “patients” in the second example.

Both “than” and “compared to” work to compare things, but must be treated differently. Improve your writing by not using them interchangeably.

Related Resources:

The Write Rules

Writing in Academia: An Interview with Helen Sword

11 Tips to Increase your Writing Productivity

So you are sailing high with your K career development award ready to pounce on your next grant submission!  But what do you need to reach that next milestone, i.e. “independent” funding such as a R01—the currency of academic medical research?  Well, you better start thinking about it.  You want to get that grant in as early as possible so that you don’t have a funding gap after your K award.  And remember to take into account the resubmission time for additional data generation to strengthen your application.  And you can’t forget about how long it can take from that point sometimes—beyond one year for fundable and/or borderline fundable scores depending on the federal powers that be.

So what do you need to be successful?  Well of course, you need an awesome hypothesis and research plan.  That’s your science, people, and hopefully you are all over that.  Write it, live it, get others to read it.  However, there is much more—are you independent, does your department support you, do you have space and equipment of your own?  Funding is so tight these days that you need to convince reviewers that you have EVERYTHING to succeed on top of great science, even as a new investigator.  Believe me, I have been there and done it.  I fought the battle, and it was cumbersome.  The smallest things can flip you from “sorry, so close” to “congrats on your funding.”

But as we recently discussed at COMPASS, a peer mentoring group at Vanderbilt, getting to that point can be very challenging.  Priorities can change in departments, particularly with changes in leadership.  Promises can be broken.  Your requests can be lost in the shuffle.  You can’t find the right people to work in your lab and are unsure how to even look for them.  What we learned from all of this and others’ past experiences is that you need to take some chances, spend some funds, and most importantly advocate for yourself or have others do it for you.  But how do you let your boss know that you need some help which will make you successful?  There is a fine line between being the broken record and having that record being thrown out—you need to sing a slow and steady song about your needs.

But sometimes your song may not be heard.  If you find your requests and concerns are falling on deaf ears, get some help.  Recruit other faculty in your department and your research head to support your cause.  If that doesn’t work or you need further evidence to make a case, turn to your mentoring committee.  And make sure that committee is awesome—tough, tenured faculty that know the system inside and out and believe in you.  I say this because they can be your best advocate.  If they are sympathetic to your cause and support your needs to be successful, have them write a letter.  Signed by all of them.  Sent to whomever it needs to go to—Lab Director, Director of Research, Chair, Division Head, etc.  And remind your bosses why you are an asset to your department and what you can provide to make it successful.  And do your part as much as you can with early publications, positive grant reviews, talks at national conferences, and other measures of productivity.

You are on a long trek that can’t be done in isolation.  Utilize those around you to help you be successful and advocate for yourself when you can.  No one told you this job was much more than science . . .

Reviewing regularly, even early in your career, lets you stay ahead of the curve of the literature.  Close analysis of a paper benefits your writing as you see examples that do or don’t lead the reader down a logical path to a conclusion, clearly explain the significance of the work, or present data well.  If a paper proves not to be a good example, the experience of making positive suggestions can help you think about how you would avoid their mistakes.

Kathy Gould, PhD, Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and reviewer of many papers, gave a detailed overview of how to review a paper to a group of Vanderbilt postdocs.  Here are highlights, and some questions to ask yourself:

Can you do it well (and on time)?

When you get the request to review, consider these questions:

• Am I sufficiently knowledgeable to review?
• Am I interested in the paper?
• Do I have a conflict? (Are the authors and I friends or competitors, am I financially conflicted?)
• Do I have the time? Journals may ask you to return a review within 10 days.

You can say no; opportunities will come around again (and again…).  Whatever you decide, quickly inform the journal so that if you decline, they can move on to the next potential reviewer.

The first pass

Skim the paper to form an initial impression.  Consider:

• What is the main question addressed?
• Is it relevant, interesting, and original? (What does it add to the field?)
• Are the conclusions consistent with the evidence and arguments presented? Do they address the main question posed?
• Do the figures and tables add to the paper or are they superfluous?
• Are there any major flaws?

What’s a major flaw?

• Conclusion is contradicted by the evidence
• Use of a discredited method
• Ignoring a process known to have a strong influence on the area under study
• Insufficient, unclear, or contradictory data
• Statistically uncompelling
• Confirmatory data that adds little, if anything, to current understanding
• Many typos, unclear or ambiguous writing

Next, consider each section separately.  Write down your thoughts as you go; this will become the outline for your review.  Click below to view questions you should ask for:

• Introduction
• Materials and methods
• Results including figures and figure legends
• Discussion
• References
• Acknowledgements and author contributions

Now, write your review. Make a coherent argument to the editor about the paper’s suitability for publication in that journal.  In Paragraph 1, summarize the authors’ research, which helps the editor contextualize the paper and adds weight to your judgment (you’ve shown you understand the paper).  You can also use this paragraph to affirm what the authors did well.

Paragraph 2 and further paragraphs explain the contribution of the work and provide a recommendation—but not in so many words.  Remember that you are one of three reviewers, typically, and you could be overruled.  If the authors see that you recommend publication and their paper isn’t published, this puts the journal editor in a bind.  So give your recommendation more subtly by stating whether the premise is interesting/important, the methods appropriate and innovative, and if the data support the conclusions.  Is it of high quality and complete, or are there significant things lacking?  Is the work novel or mainly confirmatory?  Here is also where you will want to summarize any major flaws.

But yes, you will get to recommend whether to publish it.  The recommendation section is generally invisible to authors and typically offers three options: Accept, Revision (major or minor), or Rejection.  Sometimes it asks you to rank the paper instead.  Make sure to support your recommendation with clearly articulated reasons.  Occasionally you’re allowed to be more granular, such as suggesting to publish but wait for space rather than rushing to get it out, or that it would be good for a lower-tier journal, or you can state this in your confidential comments to the editor.  That space is also where you can note suspicions of fraud, plagiarism or unattributed work, or bias.

Other tips

• Be professional. Reviewing is a core part of working in academic research, so do it well.  (Besides, your own papers need reviewing—maybe by the authors upon whom you’re passing judgement.)  Part of being professional is taking the time to draft and revise your review before you send it in.
• Understand your role. You are a consultant to the editor. Your job is to evaluate the rigor and originality of the science and the clarity of the writing, not to assess potential impact.  (Impact comes with time.)
• Be helpful. Suggest changes that will improve the paper.  But also be realistic about suggesting additional experiments or other work.  Not every nit needs to be picked. Don’t be Reviewer 2.  And try not to wind up here.
• Be organized and clear. The authors need to understand what needs improvement.  It’s helpful to number your points and refer to line and page numbers.
• Don’t include value-laden adjectives (“terrible,” “crazy”) and try to avoid referring to “the authors”; instead say “the work,” “the data,” etc. Remember how everyone tells you not to take reviews personally?  This helps the authors whose paper you’re reviewing do that.

Further Resources

Cell advice to reviewers

Nature advice to reviewers

From Science Careers: How to review a paper (many senior faculty share how they do it)

The journal you’re reviewing for almost certainly has advice to reviewers online somewhere; if you didn’t receive a copy or a link from the editor, google it up.

This article was written by Rebecca Helton of Edge for Scholars based on a talk hosted by the ASPIRE program.

Like eating regular meals, there’s another thing you know you need to do, want to do, have to do, but can hardly find the time for: Writing.  The answer? A delicious serving of a regular writing group with protected writing time on the side. Shut Up and Write is just that: a group that meets weekly and fills up on 25 minutes writing with 5 minute chat breaks in between. Like any meal, make this meetup as fancy or casual as you like by organizing a large group or just grabbing a few select colleagues for a low-key write-in.

Hungry to write? Follow this recipe to cook up your own Shut Up and Write (SUAW) group. Don’t worry too much about the formalities if it’s just a small group, but for larger groups these tips can help keep things on course.

Nutritional Benefits of SUAW

• A place to meet.
• A recurring day of the week.
• A recurring time slot.
  • Aim for 2 hours minimum and up to 4 hours if possible.
• To decide how often to meet.
  • Weekly is best, but every other week can work.
  • Consider duration, some groups run sessions leading up to important deadlines like grant submissions while others are year round.
• A list of interested individuals to invite.
  • Number will vary depending on space constraints.
• Incentive.
  • Peer accountability becomes an extra spur to productivity, but free coffee is also good if possible.
• Go-bag with:
  • 4 power strip extension cords
  • Tape
  • Sign-in sheet with pen
    • If attendance needed
  • Timer
  • Optional:
    • Chimes
    • Coffee
    • Healthy snacks

For larger groups consider…

• An email invitation.
  • Send out at least one week in advance and reminder email 24-48 hours before meetup.
• Table tents with instructions.
  • Just the facts with key SUAW info for newbies.
• Room signage.
  • Directional signs can help locate meeting room.

Serving Suggestions for SUAW

Arrive a bit early to set the table. Bring your Go-Bag.

• Place room signage and table signage if desired.
• Set your timer for 25 minutes and get to work.
• Gently ring the chimes when the time is up and time a 5 minutes break.
• Using the chimes call everyone back to writing for another 25 minute session.
• Repeat until entire meeting time is up.

This process works well for sponsored groups, less formal peer groups just get up and stretch when the phone alarm goes off.

More Writing Food for Thought

Even if the first meeting has a low attendance, keep spreading the word and keep showing up and writing. Look for others who are also working on dissertation chapters, abstracts, manuscripts or grant submissions to join.

Cooking up your own Shut Up and Write group means you are creating a time and place for yourself and others for professional writing and career development. So find a place, send those emails, and start scavenging for spare power strips. And you know what to do when you get there. Just shut up and write.