Use of respectively

‘Respectively’ is an adverb that is often misused by non-native English speakers. Use 'respectively' only if your sentence would be unclear without it.

For example:

If we wanted to describe this data in the text of a manuscript, it would be written as:
Oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen detector flows were set at 85, 7, and 4 mL/min, respectively.
This makes it clear that the first gas mentioned goes with the first number, the second gas goes with the second number, etc.

More examples:

BAD: The two values were 143.2 and 21.6, respectively.
GOOD: The two values were 143.2 and 21.6.
BAD: The two tubes were labeled B and S, respectively.
GOOD: The tubes containing blood and saline were labeled B and S,
respectively.

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Original URL: http://www.springer.com/authors/journal+authors/journal+authors+academy?SGWID=0-1726414-12-837820-0

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