Verbs/ Adjectives / Adverbs

Verbs

• In the Introduction (Introducing the topic, current trends/previous studies, and project focus and aim)

• Defining a technical term: is/are + known as, is/are caused by

[1] This disease is known as …

[2] Head and neck cancers are caused by …

• Supporting with previous studies: show

[3] Previous studies have shown …

• Stating the project focus and aim: discuss, focus on, aim at/to

[4] We will discuss in this paper …

[5] The project focuses on …

• Beware of the following common errors:

[6] Lacking of* physical findings and symptoms …

ü Lacking in physical findings and symptoms …

[7] We believe we could get further results related* latter in our follow up work.

ü We believe we could obtain further results related to our follow up work later.

 

• In Methodology (Describing the methodology)

• Describing and explaining the methodology: adopt, analyse, apply, attempt, calculate, conduct, construct, define, derive, indicate, investigate, perform, select, show, use

[8] To analyse the gene-expression of cancer patients …

[9] … we constructed the cluster using the data selected through variance analysis.

[10] … we defined the distance between two clusters …

[11] The study of Yeung and Ruzzo (2001) showed …

[12] … the variance of each gene among all patients was calculated and the genes with a high variance were selected and used for further analysis.

[13] … we have adopted hierarchical cluster, and k means methods …

[14] PCA method was applied to the data …

• Be consistent in the use of verbs:

[15] Step 1: Investigating* meaningful genes to analyse

ü Investigate meaning genes to analyse

      Step 2: Construct a matrix for Cluster Analysis

      Step 3: Analyse Heatmap for deeper understanding

      Step 4: Conclusion*

ü Conclude the study and findings

ü Or, use the gerund (VERB + ‒ing) throughout the steps.

• Beware of the following error on subject-verb agreement:

[16] This project focus* …

ü This project focuses ...

• In Data analysis/Findings and Results (Reporting the data analyses, key findings and results with graphs/charts/tables)

• Describing and reporting textual and graphic information: indicate, plot, represent, show

[17] Figure 1 plots the variance of 5495 genes …

​[18] … figure 2 shows the density of these variances.

[19] Table/Figure N indicates …

• Describing the analytical processes: carry out, calculate, capture, definite, eliminate, investigate, retain

[20] We carried out a principal component analysis to investigate whether we could capture most of the variation …

[21] … the first 5 components could capture 50% of the variance.

[22] We eliminated the first two columns of the data …

[23] To calculate …

[24] … we defined our own function …

[25] Another way of deciding how many components to retain …

• Describing trends: drop, decrease, decline, increase, level off, reach, reduce, remain,

[26] … the dimension can be reduced to …

Corresponding nouns for describing trends: increase, decrease, peak, trough/bottom, fluctuation, stabilization

• Describing the cause and effect of the experiments: account for, cause, result from

[27] Because these two components could only account for 34% of the variance which does not provide a satisfactory result, …

[28] The difference between groups may have resulted from different cancer stages …

• Reporting the findings and results: consider, find

[29] We found/consider …

• Beware of the following error on phrasal verb:

[30] To sum* the result …

ü To sum up the result …

• In Discussion (Discussing the results and findings)

• Discussing the obstacles in the study: limit

[31] … we were limited by the small sample size of patients …

• Discussing the findings and results: analyse, affect, establish, find, identify, make, see

[32] By analysing gene-expression … we can identify which gene can affect the occurrence ratio of Head and neck cancer.

[33] … hypothesis testing could be established to …

• In Conclusion (Concluding the discussion and study)

• Concluding the study by evaluating the limitations and stating the expectations: consider, expect, hope, ignore, neglect

[34] We ignored/did not consider …

[35] We expected …

 

Adjectives and adverbs

• Adjectives suitable to be used in Data analysis/Findings and Results, and Discussion: accurate, complex, descending, even, indicative, optimal, random, satisfactory, significant, similar, suitable, stagnant, volatile
• Adverbs suitable to be used in all sections: clearly, fundamentally, highly, rapidly, similarly, quite, significantly
• Describing the degree of movement: slow(ly), gradual(ly), steady(-ily), dramatic(ally), sudden(ly), sharp(ly)
• Comparatives and superlatives

• comparatives

[36] The box plot shows that number of births on weekdays were higher than on weekends.

• superlatives

[37] The most significant trend seen in the box plot is that most births took place during weekdays, with the highest mean on Tuesdays.