Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
needs to be taken with complex sentence constructions. A particular problem is with
collectives.
The set of positive matches are then discarded.
The set of positive matches is then discarded.
The range of numbers that must be considered are easy to identify.
The range of numbers that must be considered is easy to identify.
Consider proofreading your paper just to check for plural agreement.
When describing classes of things, excessive use of plurals can be confusing. The
following is from a paper on minimum redundancy codes.
Packets that contain an error are automatically corrected.
Packets that contain errors are automatically corrected.
The first version implies that packets with a particular error are corrected, the second
that packets with multiple errors are corrected. Both of these interpretations are
wrong. Whenever it is reasonable to do so, convert plurals to singular.
A packet that contains an error is automatically corrected.
Classes may not need a plural.
These kinds of algorithms are irrelevant.
These kinds of algorithm are irrelevant.
Algorithms of this kind are irrelevant.
The use of variant plurals is becoming less common. Where once it was thought
correct to base the plural form on that of the language of the root of the word, now it
is almost always acceptable to use “-s” or “-es”. Thus “schemata” can be “schemas”,
“formulae” can be “formulas”, and “indices” can be “indexes”; but, while “indices”
is used in the context of arrays, it is almost never used in the context of databases.
However, “radii” is not yet “radiuses”, and “matrices” is not yet “matrixes”. Special
cases remain, in particular where the plural form has replaced the singular as in
“data”, and in old-English forms such as “children”.
Abbreviations
It is often tempting to use abbreviations such as “no.”, “i.e.”, “e.g.”, “c.f.”, and
“w.r.t.” These save a little space on the page, but slow readers down. It is almost
always desirable to expand these abbreviations, to “number”, “that is”, “for example”,
“compared with” (or more accurately “in contrast to”, since that is the sense in which
“c.f.” should be used), and “with respect to”, or synonyms of these expressions.
Where such abbreviations are used, the punctuation should be as if the expanded
