Use of "just" in technical writing as an adverb for location

Question

I am editing a friend's scientific manuscript, which will ultimately be submitted to a biological journal. He uses "just" as an adverb to describe a location (emphasis added by me), e.g.,

The river's confluence is located just downriver from the site.

However, the use of "just" seems too colloquial to me for scientific writing, although I cannot pinpoint exactly why I dislike the use of "just". Am I correct in my assessment that "just" should be wordsmithed out? e.g.,

The river's confluence is located immediately downriver from the town.

The exact distance (e.g., 100 m vs 1 km) is not important because this is a caption to map. Also, I have looked at other "just" questions on this site. This post is similar but non-technical. An answer to this post suggests that "just" can be ambiguous, which might be another reason I might dislike the use of "just". Also, my question is not relevant to this post or this post on "just".

I think your reluctance to use *just* in this way simply reflects the fact that the usage was relatively uncommon until a century or two ago. Admittedly, there's potential ambiguity in, say, Some specimens were just too big to be preserved for future analysis, but I see no ambiguity in your context. It just depends on how "starchy" you want your text to appear. — FumbleFingers, Jun 24 '15 at 14:10
'just' (as used here) sounds a little informal, and probably doesn't work well in technical writing because it is not very specific. — Mitch, Jun 24 '15 at 14:24

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 24 '15 at 15:23

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The use of "just" in this situation is unnecessary. The phrase works just as well without it, i.e.: "The river's confluence is located downriver from the site."

If the attempt is to indicate a small distance, then "The river's confluence is nearby, located downriver from the site."

answered Jun 24 '15 at 15:23

Bob Stout

752

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Thank you for suggestion. You're solution addresses my concern AND creates a shorter sentence! – Richard Erickson Jun 24 '15 at 15:33

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 24 '15 at 14:23

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JUST is commonly used but that doesn't necessarily rob it of its beauty & worth. In literal writing we write -The comment is just as it is adequate.No harm,you may go with JUST as well.

answered Jun 24 '15 at 14:23

Barid Baran Acharya

2,343

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Thank you for your answer, but I'm not doing literal writing. – Richard Erickson Jun 24 '15 at 15:32
This answer uses a completely different definition of 'just' from the one used in the question. – Dan Henderson Sep 25 '15 at 15:19

Use of "just" in technical writing as an adverb for location

2 Answers2