English for Academic Research: Writing Exercises Adrian Wallwork English for Academic Research: Writing Exercises Adrian Wallwork Via Carducci 9 56127 Pisa, Italy [email protected] ISBN 978-1-4614-4297-4 ISBN 978-1-4614-4298-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-4298-1 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012948774 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifi cally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center. Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Preface Aim of the book and coverage The book is aimed at postgraduate students, Ph.D. students, and research- ers whose fi rst language is not English. It is assumed that you have al- ready reached a suf fi cient level of English to write a research paper, thesis, or dissertation. The book covers all the writing skills that will help you to get a posi- tive reaction from the reviewers of your manuscript and thus improve your chances of publication. When reviewers say that the level of the English in a manuscript is ‘poor’, they are often referring not to grammar or vocabu- lary issues but to readability problems (see the second section on page vii), such as poor structure, sentences being too long, redundancy, and ambi- guity. All these problems, and many more, are dealt with in this book. Structure of the book, self–study, and classroom use Sections 1 – 9 of the book practice particular writing skills. Section 1 0 brings all these skills together in exercises on writing specifi c sections of a manuscript – from the Abstract to the Acknowledgements. Around half of the exercises in Sections 1 – 9 can be done rapidly, without the aid of a teacher. They are thus suitable for self-study. Other exercises require you to write extended pieces of text, which you will need to have corrected by your teacher or a native speaker of English. Each chapter begins with cross references to other books in the series (see the fi rst section on page vii). v vi Preface Instructions and keys to the exercises Instructions to exercises are in i talics . Examples of how to do the exercises are shaded in grey. If there is no example given and you are not sure how to do the exercise, look at the fi rst question in the exercise and then the answer to that question in the key. The keys (solutions) to the exercise appear immediately below the exer- cise, but in a smaller font. The idea is that you don’t have to fl ip to the back of the book to fi nd the answers. This should speed up the process of doing the exercises. In a few cases, there is no key because there are unlimited ways of answering the exercise. In any case, you should consider the keys as being suggested answers. There may be several possible answers. If in doubt, consult with your Eng- lish teacher. Word and phrases in square parentheses indicate that these are alter- native solutions to the ones outside parentheses, but they are probably less commonly used. Word and phrases separated by a slash (e.g. w hich/that) indicate that both solutions are equally valid. Language and ‘facts’ used in this book A few of the texts may contain technical language that you may not be familiar with. However, it is not necessary to understand every word in each sentence in order to be able to do the exercise. But if you fi nd that the tech- nical language of one particular exercise is an obstacle to you being able to complete the exercise, then simply ignore that exercise and do the next. In fact, the book has been designed to give practice of the same writing skill in more than one exercise. Most of the facts, statistics, and authors’ names contained in the exer- cises have been invented. Some are designed to be humorous. Academic writing can be quite heavy and you may fi nd you are more motivated to do some exercises if there is an element of fun involved. You are thus encour- aged to invent data and information. All the exercises refl ect the typical style of academic works and many are based on real texts. So whether you are using true facts or inventing your own, the kind of language and constructions you use will be in the same academic style. Preface vii Cross-referencing with other books in the series This book is divided into ten chapters. At the beginning of each chapter is a list of the writing skills practiced in the exercises. These skills are cross referenced to two other books in the series: English for Research: Usage, Style, and Grammar – designed to resolve your doubts about the grammar, usage, and style of academic English English for Writing Research Papers – everything you need to know about how to write a paper that referees will recommend for publication This means that you can check how to use a particular writing skill be- fore you start doing the related exercise. Grammar (e.g., the use of articles and tenses) and vocabulary are covered in: English for Academic Research: Grammar Exercises English for Academic Research: Vocabulary Exercises To fi nd out how the books are cross-referenced, go to: w ww.springer. com/978-1-4614-4297-4 Other books in the series that you might fi nd useful are: English for Academic Correspondence and Socializing – tips for responding to editors and referees, networking at conferences, under- standing fast-talking native English speakers, using Google Translate, and much more. No other book like this exists on the market. English for Presentations at International Conferences – all the tricks for overcoming your fear of presenting in English at a conference. Focus on readability Your main aim is to get your paper published. The people who determine whether your paper will be published are the editors of the journal and the referees who review your paper. Readability. This is the key concern of referees. If a paper is not read- able, it cannot be published. If a paper contains a limited number of gram- matical and lexical errors, it can still be published, because such errors rarely prevent the reader from understanding the paper. Readability relates to the amount of effort the reader has to make in order to understand what you have written. Readability is affected by the following factors: • sentence length (sentences longer than 30 words are generally hard to assimilate without having to be read twice) • lack of structure (within a sentence, paragraph, or section) viii Preface • redundancy (i.e., words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and sections that add no value for the reader) • ambiguity and lack of clarity (i.e., the reader is not sure how to interpret a phrase) A low level of readability is associated with authors who are more in- terested in expressing themselves in an ‘elegant’ or ‘academic’ way, rather than on focusing on what the reader really wants/needs to read, and the best way to make this information immediately clear to the reader. English has increasingly become a reader-oriented language, in which authors feel a responsibility to help their readers rather than impress them. This does not mean that English has become a simple language and that it has lim- ited expressive power. It means that, when it is written well, it cuts out any unnecessary information and presents all the useful information in a way that clearly shows the connections between ideas. Ideally, it does not leave gaps for the reader to fi ll in, nor does it adopt vague language and thus force the reader to make interpretations. Bear in mind, however, that there are still many native English writers whose aim seems to be to obscure rather than enlighten! Think about what you like reading on the web. You probably appreciate: • ease in fi nding the information you want • short sentences and paragraphs containing only relevant information • white space, no dense blocks of text • no distractors (e.g., pop ups, animations, links in every other sentence) When you write your paper, bear the above in mind. Think about what you like reading, then try to write in a style that will make reading your paper a pleasurable experience for your audience. Make it easy for read- ers to fi nd what they want and to absorb it. Don’t create distractors: so no redundant words and phrases, misspellings, pointless or diffi cult tables and fi gures. And don’t make your readers wait for key information or force them to read something twice before they can understand it. A note for teachers This book of exercises is designed to be used in conjunction with E nglish for Writing Research Papers , which is part of the same series of books. I have tried to cover what I consider to be the most important aspects of writing, particularly the ones that are likely to cause a paper to be rejected. Exercises on grammar and vocabulary can be found in the other volumes of this series. Preface ix Many of the exercises, particularly those in Chaps. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , and 5 , can be set as homework as they are quick to do and contain a key. The key is on the same page as the exercise. Simply tell the students to cover the key while they are doing the exercise. Also the extended exercises (e.g., those in Chap. 1 0 ) can be done at home. I suggest that you use classtime to: • explain the theory (you can prepare by yourself using the relevant sections from English for Writing Research Papers ) • go over the exercises Mentorship program for editing scientifi c research papers If you teach English for Academic Purposes and enjoy this kind of work, then you might be interested in editing research papers written by non- native researchers. Such papers are intended for publication in peer- reviewed international journals, where the level of English is expected to be of a very high standard. Consequently, many non-native academics enlist the services of a freelance editor to revise and proofread their work. I offer a mentorship programme to help people like you learn how to enter and work in this interesting and very remunerative fi eld. Please email me for details: [email protected].