A 0.1 ml of both? can we use "a"?

[mektok]

Hi again,
Kindly correct me on this sentence:
A 0.1 ml of broth of the test organisms was introduced into 1 ml of 1.0% of the soap solution.
I thought we could omit the word "A". or can I re-phrase like "0.1 ml of tested organisms in broth was introduced into 1 ml of 1.0% of the soap solution"

Kind regards,:-|

 

[Rover_KE]

Who wrote the original sentence? He/she had probably read that it's bad form to begin a sentence with a numeral.

You can omit 'A', but I can't comment on the technical content of the sentence.

Rover

 

[emsr2d2]

If you want to use "A", you'd have to say "A tenth of centilitre of ..." or "A hundredth of a litre of ...". As it stands, the article is incorrect. In general, the rule about not starting a sentence with a numeral stands, but in this case it would be fine. It would be read as "Zero point one millilitres of broth ...". I wouldn't necessarily expect the rules of written English to be too important in what appears to be some kind of scientific equation or calculation.

 

[Raymott]

Hi again,
Kindly correct me on this sentence:
A 0.1 ml of broth of the test organisms was introduced into 1 ml of 1.0% of the soap solution.
I thought we could omit the word "A". or can I re-phrase like "0.1 ml of tested organisms in broth was introduced into 1 ml of 1.0% of the soap solution"

Kind regards,:-|

"The test organisms in 0.1 ml of broth were introduced into 1 ml of 1.0% of the soap solution."
"We introduced 0.1 ml of broth containing the test organisms into 1 ml ..." (Science papers in some fields are reducing the use of the passive voice as the only choice.)
"Test organisms" are the organisms that you're testing. It doesn't mean "tested organisms" which, by definition, have been tested already.
I imagine you'd also need to say what the concentration of test organisms was in the 0.1 ml of broth.

 

[mektok]

I totally agree with you Raymott, the author should mention the concentration of the those bugs..