《英文科技论文课程》
记录一下英语论文写作的要点
“…in the world of scholarship, we are what we write. Publication is the fundamental currency…research quality is judged by the printed word” ——–Donald Kennedy(former editor-in-chief of Science)
Principles of scientific and technical papers:
- clear purpose
- To whom is the paper written
- Reader engagement
- Single focus
- Clear point of view
- Logical organization
- Sufficient and relevant support
Characteristics of a good research topic: interest
- not with a simple answer
- not based on an arguable assumption or opinion-based
- research-worthy
- feasible or researchable
- proper and clear scope
characteristics of a good title:
- predicting the content
- arousing interests
- reflecting tone
- containing keywords
using various ways to define:
- special punctuations, “-”,“()”,“–”;etc
- typical words or expressions to define: “be”,“be defined as”,“refer to”, “be viewed as”, “identify”, “in terms of”, “be described as”;etc
different situations of using figures: pie chart, bar chart, line graph
describe figures and tables effectively: general introduction -> most important pointon -> less important points -> conclusion
whenever we borrow words or ideas from others, we need to use in-text citations to give credit to the original authors.
summary methods defining the process input tool operation output describe the procedures sequencers describe processes depicted in figures hedging language is known as cautious language or vague language.
the importance of scientific hedging:
- express a perdpective on our statements with caution
- present unproven claims with caution
- enter into a dialogue with our audiences
the discourse characteristics of hedging:
- expressing opinions rather than facts
- expressing uncertainty
various ways of hedging
- accuracy-oriented hedges
- writer-oriented hedges
- reader-oriented hedges
structual compoments of a proposal
- title
- authors
- summary(abstract)
- introduction
- statement of problem
- objectives
- method
- expected result
- management plan; budget, schedule, team
- reference
structual compoments of a report:
- title
- author
- summary(abstract)
- introduction
- methods
- result
- dicussion
- conclusion and recommendations
- reference
what is review? refering to other’s work + critical thinking.
feature of abstract: short, clear, concise
an abstract is a brief summary of these different parts of your paper: background + why + how + what
| abstract | introduction |
|---|---|
| summary | intruduction |
| short | more detailed |
| independent | dependent |
| no tables, diagrams |
contents of an introduction:
your experiment should be repeatable!
introduce methods:provide enough detailed information for other researchers to repeat the research
- passive voice
- proper punctuation
- enough details
- accurate spelling
purpose of result section:
language support for results section:
purpose of your dicussion section:
- interpret and explain your results
- respond to your research question
- justify your approach
- critically evaluate your study
dissucition:
move 1:revisiting your previous section
move 2:mapping(relationship to exiting research)
move 3:achievement/contribution
- specify the nature of your achievements
- use positive language
- present the benefits clearly
- state your contribution explicitly
move 3:refining the implications
- expanation of themechanisms
- implemention
- applications
- clarification of a theory
move 4:limitataions -> future work
conclusion:summary, elaboration and climax
mistake to avoid in discussion & conclusion
- repeating the results
- poor citation quality
- the limitations are not discussed
- the conclusions do not state the study significance and inplications or overstate the significance of the findings