Reviewing your work

After thoroughly reviewing your own Discussion section, ask a colleague to review your work. A "new set of eyes" will pick up mistakes that you can no longer see because you are too familiar with your own writing. To facilitate this process, use the Peer Review Memo on the Write Like a Chemist Web site. After your paper has been reviewed (and you have... 

Decide on a strategy that you will use to review your work holistically. The goal is to read your work slowly and deliberately. Many authors read their work aloud, so as not to skip any parts of their written work. If you decide to read your work silently, avoid skimming or you will miss areas that reguire attention. 

Consider your own experience with task teams, both within your company and in other contexts such as industry associations, professional committees, or even non-professionai groups such as volunteer or community organizations. Review what worked and didn t work, what you liked and didn t like, and what you found rewarding or frustrating about each experience. This simple exercise helps identify potential pHMIs as well as successful techniques for managing a task team. 

Try the following practice problems to review your understanding of net ionic equations, and to work with the new concepts of oxidation and reduction. 

Use the Peer Review Memo on the Write Like a ChemistWeb site to exchange feedback. Use the feedback received to make finai changes in your work. 

Do not submit your abstract until it has been peer reviewed and you have had the chance to improve it. Some online abstract submission programs allow you to edit your work up until the abstract deadline. After that date, no revisions are allowed. Before the deadline arrives, double-check your word count, capitalization, spelling, punctuation, units, and other writing conventions. See chapter 18 for additional hints on finalizing your work. 

By following this two-tiered approach, a less expert reviewer will be able to follow the main ideas of your work, whereas an expert reviewer will be able to judge the intellectual merit of your proposal fully. 

Your work acquires credibility when you review the literature and show that your contribution extends from a solid foundation of respected research. 

Review your written work (see chapter 18) before you submit it for peer reviewer to your instructor... 

A convenient way to summarize the more tangible accomplishments of your work is to present them in a timeline. Recall the specific-achievable-measurable (SAM) test for research objectives introduced in chapter 12 a timeline helps reviewers (and you) evaluate whether your project goals are achievable within the funding period. The start of this move is usually demarked with a level 1 heading. Common headings for move 1 are shown in table 14.1. 

In this chapter, we ask you to look again at your written work, but this time as an entire document. Rather than write and rewrite section by section, we ask you to take a step back and reflect on your work as a whole. The goal is to achieve a coherent and fluent piece of writing that reads well from start to hnish. To facilitate this process, we have created a checklist of nine items (listed below). We present each item and ask you to review your entire work from the perspective of this item, making changes and improvements as needed. As you become familiar with these items, you will become a better and more efficient editor of your own written work, a necessary prerequisite for becoming an effective writer. 

Because the goal of this chapter is to help you finish your work, we forgo the usual read-analyze-write tasks, exercises, and chapter review. Likewise, we include only a few excerpts, and we have replaced the Writing on Your Own tasks with Revising and Editing on Your Own tasks. The latter are designed to guide you in the final revision process. 

It s convenient to begin with the big picture—the content—then to work your way down to other types of problems. In this lesson, you will learn how to evaluate your paper s content. Ask yourself these questions as you first begin to review your paper. 

You should definitely read and review your own work. After all, you are the only one who really knows what you want your paper to say. However, sometimes it s also helpful to have others read your paper. They can tell you if you are getting your points across, as well as give you their general impression of the paper. Here are some people you might want to ask to read your paper ... 

The key to your review is to allow your feelings to tell you how well or otherwise you are handling your work. 

Everyone has his or her own writing style, some better than others. It is imperative that you continually try to improve your writing skills. When your instructor reviews your write-up, he or she should include helpful writing tips in the grading. Read the works listed in the references at the end of this chapter for further instructions in scientific writing. 

A fulfilling retirement will include most, if not all, of the elements covered in this book and take into account your specific health and financial circumstances. To make sure you cover all of the bases, look over the categories on this planning form. Then review the work you did at the end of Chapter 1 plus your Things to Do lists at the end of the other chapters. 

I hope you find the chapters in this volume of interest to your work. Of course, this volume does not cover all topics in the field of microprocess technology and micro fluidics. For example, recent developments in the field of catalytic coating development or the use of alternative energies such as microwaves or spinning action have not been covered. These new developments will definitely be the subject of upcoming reviews and exemplify the ongoing research in a very challenging area. 

Once you have determined that you have a leak (as opposed to outgassing), you must then decide if the leak is virtual or real. If you know your system (and its history), you should be able to review your own operations, procedures, and activities to make this determination. On the other hand, if this system is new (to you) or there are a variety of people who work on the same system, then you may have to assume that there is a real leak and prove that it does or does not exist. Once you have proved that there is no real leak, and all other indications lead you to believe that a leak exists, you can assume that you have a virtual leak. 

How is your work different from that described in other reports on the same su bject (Unless you are writing a review, be sure that your manuscript will make an original contribution. Most STM publishers, including ACS, do not publish previously published material.)... 

Professional feedback comes in many forms a performance evaluation, comments after work performed, or peer reviews. This type of feedback is positive in that it can highlight your strengths and identify areas that need improvement. You learn and grow from professional feedback, assuming you can assimilate the information without being defensive. The information given is nonemotional it is a simple statement of what the reviewer sees in your abilities. Professional feedback is given in private to prevent embarrassment of the subject. One last aspect of professional feedback is that it relates only to your work-related activities. 

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