## 9.3. Further suggestions

- What was my research question again?

A general rule in writing is ‘Do what you promise’. If you raise a question in the introduction, make sure you answer it – or tell the reader why you will not answer it.

- Should I really be concise?

Yes. Kill your darlings if they obscure things, lead to dead ends or otherwise divert the attention of the reader. You can do this in several phases to ease the pain. First put your beautiful sentences that you cannot say goodbye to in footnotes, and then delete the footnotes. You can save your darlings in a separate document for later use.

- Which terms should I avoid?

Avoid the word ‘process’. This word indicates you are not really sure what is going on.

Avoid double negations like this one: “It is not uncommon for people to be confused by double negations.” Instead, write: “Double negations confuse your audience, so avoid them.”

Avoid clichés. The irritation among readers who read clichés like the one I’m using in this sentence can hardly be overestimated.

Avoid “research has proven that…”. Empirical research cannot provide definitive ‘proof’ of anything. Also the goal of research is not to support certain claims. Instead, the goal is to explore and test.

Avoid abbreviations – just write out the words in full. If you find yourself using a certain combination of words a lot, create an auto-complete shortcut for this combination.

Also keep your use of the words ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’ and ‘those’ to a minimum because it is often unclear what these words refer to.

Avoid “in order to”. Simply use “to”, that will do. Also avoid “More often than not”. Instead, simply write “In a majority of cases”, or better still: give the exact percentage if you have it.

Avoid “despite the fact that…” because it leads to long sentences that readers will find difficult to understand.

Don’t say “a number of options”. You will find yourself writing ‘a number of’ when you foresee multiple options, but you don’t know how many you will talk about. Once you’ve written them up, you know how many options you discuss, and replace ‘a number of’ by the actual number.

Finally, avoid the word ‘etc.’ There is literally an endless list of other things you could include in your thesis. After two examples there is always a number of examples you leave out. The same holds for counterarguments, quotes, references, etc.

- When can I use quotes?

Use as few quotes as you can. You may put one above your paper or dissertation, but avoid writing in the words of others. Perhaps you are thinking that a quote by one of your intellectual heroes says more than a thousand words of your own. However, if your own writing is a concatenation of quotes from previous research, your reader will start to doubt whether you master your thoughts. Demonstrate your understanding of the matter by writing in your own words.

- How can I avoid plagiarism?

Whenever you use words that someone has written previously, put them between quotation marks. This rule not only applies to the words of others, but also to your own writing. You can quote your own work, as long as it is a quote. As Bekkers (2018, p.6) wrote: “the first task for scientists is to get the facts straight”.

When you use thoughts that someone has expressed previously, give them credit by referring to them. This rule not only applies to your own thoughts, but also to the thoughts of others: “When making use of other people’s ideas, procedures, results and text, do justice to the research involved and cite the source accurately” (KNAW et al., 2018, p.17).

- How can I get spelling advice when the dictionary does not help?

Sometimes the dictionary does not give you much guidance when you are writing. Suppose you are writing about the life course, and you are not sure whether you should write ‘over the life course’, ‘across the life course’, or ‘throughout the life course’. In such cases, do a search for the exact combinations of words. The one that gives you the highest number of hits is probably right. In this case, ‘over’ and ‘across’ give you about the same number of hits, but ‘throughout’ gives you a considerably lower number. So I would say: either use ‘over’ or ‘across’, but not ‘throughout’.

- More or less than what?

If you make a comparison, say what you compare with what. Complete a sentence about differences between groups, such as “Protestants give more”, by adding the reference category: “than the non-religious”. Complete a sentence about trends by specifying the time period that you compare a score with. For instance: “Protestants give more in the 2010s than they used to do in the 1990s.”

- Which should I use?

Prize or price? The word ‘price’ with a ‘c’ refers to the amount you pay for a product, e.g. €0.99. ‘Prize’ with a ‘z’ is the money or award you win in a lottery or contest.

Economy or economics? The economy is the thing studied by economists in the academic discipline of economics.

Transparency is correct. Clearly, transparancy is not.

What do you regress on what? ‘To regress’ means ‘to bring back to…’. If you do a regression analysis, mention that you regress a certain outcome Y on an antecedent X or M. You start from the an outcome, and trace back its origins. This means that a regression goes from Y to X.