47 PRS Proofreading and Editing Service PhD Experts • All Academic Areas • Fast Turnaround • High Quality A more flexible approach is to use enough words (and the right ones) to make your meaning absolutely clear, but you can still vary your language somewhat while doing so: ‘but blue ones to the same number of women.’ Be extremely careful when varying (or eliminating) terms that define aspects and elements of your research, methodology and argument or report precise results. In the case of comparison, for instance, be sure to explain with precision the exact details of each side of a comparison or contrast: do not assume that your readers know what you’re comparing or contrasting, and do not leave out essential details of the comparison. ‘We compared the scores the girls earned in the third trial with the boys’ is simply wrong: the scores earned by the girls were no doubt compared with the scores earned by the boys (not the boys themselves), and the boys’ scores were probably obtained in a numbered trial as well, so the reader needs more here than the author has provided. Be sure to use the same terms and definitions for the same concepts or categories throughout your paper, especially when those concepts and categories are central to your argument: for example, if you’ve introduced your study groups as ‘surgical group,’ ‘nonsurgical group’ and ‘control group,’ do not suddenly change that terminology part way through your paper; if your questionnaires are numbered 1, 2 and 3, avoid referring to them without the numbers because this can increase the possibility of unnecessary confusion; and if your study involves participants who are young women and young men, do not call them ‘girls’ and ‘boys’ unless they actually are girls and boys (some journals have strict rules about age in relation to these terms, so remember to check the guidelines as well as using common sense with regard to such terms: i.e., people over 20 and usually over 18 are never girls and boys). PARt II: PRePARIng, PResentIng And PolIsHIng YoUR woRk