The en dash

This is for the real experts! Most native English speakers don't know this.

The en dash (–) is a symbol you can't find on most keyboards. It is longer than the hyphen (-) and shorter than the em dash (—). It is called en dash because it is as wide as a capital en (N).

The en dash is used to indicate a range of numbers, e.g. 70–80 g/L.

The en dash is also used to contrast two words, like solid–liquid separation, the gas–liquid interface and the London–Paris flight.

Note that compound adjectives like liquid-soap dispenser or small-scale fermentation, where the first adjective modifies the second adjective (i.e. the soap is liquid and the scale is small), are written with a normal hyphen (see previous article).
 

More information on this sexy punctuation can be found here.

Verbs

This post is about the over-use of verb nouns.

By verb nouns I mean things like: 
- reduction, optimisation, calibration, etc.

where the verbs are: 
- reduce, optimise, calibrate, etc.

Try to use verbs instead of verb nouns where possible.

Don't say:

An optimisation of the fermentation was performed.

Instead say:

The fermentation was optimised.


Although it is not grammatically incorrect to use verb nouns, the text becomes difficult to read when it contains a lot of these words. This is even worse when the sentence is very long and the verb is at the end (see previous post). If you are trying to explain something complex, you your text should be easy to read! 

Take the following example: 

A reduction of H₂S content in the produced biogas of up to 78% in the methanogenic stage of the two-stage process was achieved.... This indicates a release of the formed H₂S mainly during the first step... As shown in Figure 2, complete H₂S removal was achieved with the acidic biofiltration unit established at inlet concentrations below 6363 ppm H₂S. 

Better:

The H₂S content of the biogas was reduced by up to 78% in the methanogenic stage of the two-stage process.... This indicates that the H₂S was mainly released during the first step... As shown in Figure 2, the acidic biofiltration unit completely removed H₂S from the inlet gas when the concentration was below 6363 ppm H₂S.


Here, I replaced "a reduction" with "was reduced" and "a release" with "was released" and "removal" with "removed".