Academic Writing in English for Students of Physics WORKSHOP 2 – 4 MARCH 2016

Questions

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The Most Common Errors

•  Layout and formatting •  Subject-Verb Agreement Errors •  Comma use •  Run-on sentences / comma splice •  Articles •  Sentence Fragments •  Collocations and Word Choice •  Informal language •  Prepositions •  Verb Tense

Layout and formatting

•  Remember paragraph indentation and full justification

•  Use ‘double style inverted commas’

”quantum mechanics” “quantum mechanics”

•  I run •  You run •  He/She/It runs •  We run •  You run

•  They run

She run

Grammar Subject-verb agreement

They runs

Subject-Verb Agreement Errors

•  Since then people have become more and more interested in biological processes that happens at the microscopic scale.

•  Another postulate Bohr came up with said that electrons in a stable orbit does not radiate electromagnetic energy.

•  This means that searching for exotic physics such as Majorana neutrinos are useful for the research and technology communities.

•  The invention of the laser and the technical developments which followed it has contributed to society.

Subject-Verb Agreement Errors

•  One of the things that have attracted a lot of research recently, and that really characterize the research of the 21st century...

•  Every day you hear about people succumbing to cancer and almost everyone have had someone in their lives dying to some variant of cancer.

•  Greenhouse gases are selective absorbers, meaning they do not stop visible incoming radiation but they absorb the outward going infrared radiation and reemits it back down...

•  As there is already many known and well-studied semiconductors with different properties...

Commas Use commas after introductory a) clauses, b) phrases, or c) words that come before the main clause. •  Naturally there is a constant need for improving diagnosis

and treatment methods of cancer. •  From a scientific point of view there are several

motivations to work in this field. •  As suggested above the copper oxide, Cu2O, play an

important role in the catalytic reaction of…

•  As for the quarks there are six leptons that also are divided into three generations…

•  On the one hand this can be used to study the surface topography of the sample by…

Commas Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence.

•  One of the anomalies mentioned in the previous section was in fact resolved a few years ago.

•  This means in turn, that the latter has a higher •  Another advantage of a laser pulse is that since the pulse

is so short in time it is quite broad in frequency.

•  …in Geneva or the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in New York for example…

•  It is of little surprise therefore that catalysts have been a topic of keen investigation for decades…

Commas

Always put a comma after sentence-initial subordinate clause •  When Charles Darwin in 1859 published his On the Origin

of Species he set the tone for a new perspective on how species arise

•  While the term is sometimes applied to aggregates with as high as 10 million atoms it is often accepted that…

•  To do so silicon beads with approximately 0.1 µm radius are trapped…

•  As our instruments of observation got better and better we found that the universe is…”

Commas Examples of comma abuse •  SEM is a type of electron microscope, which uses

focused electron beam to acquire images from samples.

•  In 2009 Vishwanath et al.\cite{vish}, studied the oxygenation in a group of 34 mice which were inoculated with cancerous cells.

•  Jesper Wallentin et al. [3] demonstrated in 2013, that an array of Indium Phosphide (InP) NWs can yield an efficiency of 13.8 %.

•  One of the examples is, so called, Hot Jupiter. •  This is something, which was not possible until the end

of the last century...

Sentence Structure

•  Typically, a main clause consists of a subject, a verb and an object

–  “A topic sentence identifies the main idea of the paragraph.”

•  Two main clauses can be connected by “and”, “or”, “but” or a semicolon

–  “This compendium consists of commented examples; all of them are taken from your essays.”

SUBJ VERB OBJECT

Sentence Structure

•  A dependent clause can begin with a conjunction (except for “and”, “or” and “but”):

“Although not all the results are verified,...” “If that is the case,...” “..., which is a big problem.”

•  Or a non-finite verb form: “..., considering the impact of the results.” “..., considered as a whole.” “..., to be considered at a later stage.”

Comma splices •  But UCNPS has a relatively low luminescent ratio between the

amount of excited photons and the amount of the emission photons, the ratio is also named quantum yield, thus enhancement of upconversion luminescence is imperative.

•  The theory appeared to be able to encompass much more than local interactions of objects, as it was designed to do, it could also describe the Universe as a whole.

•  Imagine two balls colliding with each other, they act like billiard balls, changing their speed and direction of motion relative to how they interacted.

•  Modern society is very dependent of electronic devices, quantum mechanics have played a central role in that development.

•  The name “Quantum Mechanics” is a daunting term, almost everyone has heard it before, along with other physical terms such as solid state physics.

Run-on sentences •  Since the difference in energy is small the velocity does

not change instead the mass changes so the trajectories will differ due to the Lorentz force.

•  The cost of the high resolution it that this imaging technique is slow thereof [=therefore] it is not possible to follow fast biological processes.

•  During radionuclide therapy, a certain radiation dose will effectively kill normoxic cells however, hypoxic cells could survive.

Sentence Fragments •  Making them more desirable by increasing reusability and

reducing the amount of bi-products created, resulting in both reduced energy consumption and reducing environmental impacts.

•  This when considering the dependence of the rotational velocities on the distance between the stars and the center of the galaxies.

•  [Quantum mechanics provide great understanding about solids.] Especially knowledge about the lattice vibrations.

•  The fact that energy can only exist in defined quanta. •  [The founding principles presented above are all derived form

the core mathematics.] Especially the uncertainty principle. •  Although the idea of the brain as a neural network can still

make for a very useful implementation.

Articles

•  Indefinite singular: a / an •  Definite singular : the •  Indefinite plural: -

•  Definite plural: the

Articles Basic rules

•  Indefinite singular: a / an –  used to talk about something new, something that we have

not already mentioned or could expect the reader/listener to be familiar with

•  Definite singular and plural: the –  used to talk about something that we have mentioned, or

that we could expect the reader/listener to know about anyway

–  also used before a noun which refers to a specific, unique object (e.g. the moon, the earth, the arctic)

•  ‘Zero article’: - –  no article is used when a noun phrase with an uncountable

or plural noun has general meaning

(Estling Vannenstål, Essential English Grammar: 50-55)

Articles Basic rules

•  Countable singular nouns always need an article –  The guest of honor arrived late. –  *You are welcome as guest in our home.

•  Uncountable nouns do not take the indefinite article –  *I have an information that you may find very

helpful. –  I have some information that you may find very

helpful.

Articles •  This question is very important, as the understanding of

the possible differences between induced pluripotent stem cells and regular stem cells is crucial to issue of whether...

•  With emergence of optical fields in the past few decades...

•  The climate change is a more immediate problem that the humanity face.

•  Optical molecular imaging is a growing research discipline, that has been widely applied in medical practice and research, and is aimed at developing the novel tool at cellular level.

Articles •  As a part of the retrieved equations so called “lambda

constant” was introduced. •  So for full term baby, only among 1% of them will get

RDS... •  The basic idea of quantum mechanics is: we describe the

system by ‘states’ at a given time by using complex wave function.

•  Incomplete combustion produces the toxic gases and pollutants whereas complete combustion has water and carbon dioxide as their byproducts.

•  The ice extent on Arctic has decreased, and the surface temperature has been warmer.

Collocations and word choice

•  ...no prediction of the future of the system can be done. •  It is likely that none of these applications were guessed at

when Bohr formulated his famous postulates...

•  Another great question to be answered in the field of renewable energy is energy storage.

•  A problem arises because this event is often buried by the background radiation from QCD.

Collocations and word choice

•  Spray illumination aims to imagine the motion of the fuel inside an injection engine.

•  This kind of research does not claim to do technical improvements...

•  This will in turn advocate for the existence of supersymmetry...

•  ...my thesis work could help researchers in the field of medicine to evade this problem...

Informal Language

•  Anyway, the devices performance is still able to be improved...

•  ...it turns out that the effect of migration allow hot Jupiters to start forming well beyond the snow line...

•  The former one is a bit of a challenge.

•  ...another great thing is that the material is very light in weight with respect to the strength of the material.

Informal Language

•  As the blood cell subpopulations differ in softness they can be sorted out...

•  In the rst step of the procedure one needs to find out how...

•  You may be thinking, this is all very well and good, but why should I care?

•  So by analyzing the values of both the (b-y) index and the c1 index...

Formal Language: Tips Linking Words

•  Accordingly •  Thus •  Consequently •  As a result •  As such •  In addition •  Moreover •  Furthermore •  Nonetheless •  In contrast •  First •  Second •  Next

Other Features •  Words to avoid:

–  got –  thing –  nice –  interesting –  lots/a lot –  well, you see

•  Phrasal verbs are less formal –  blow upàexplode –  find outàdetermine –  get inàenter, join –  get overàrecover

•  It [constructions]… –  is evident –  stands to reason

Prepositions

•  Usually, carbon-hydrogen bond as organic with metal consist into the MOVPE precursors

•  But the rest part of the wave function could spread out with time

•  A study in accelerated expansion can be applied on two related issues...

•  The availability for carriers within each band is called density of states (DOS).

Prepositions

•  According to statistics, in Europe and the United States around 6 to 15% of deliveries are preterm, and are frequently accompanied with a series of diseases

•  DMI supplies data, models and a supervisor with good knowledge about the subject.

•  Not much is known of how life came to be... •  Naturally there is a constant need for improving diagnosis

and treatment methods of cancer.

The Progressive Form vs. the Simple Form

•  “I’m writing right now.” •  “I write for a living.”

•  “I was writing to you when you called.” •  “I wrote to you yesterday”.

The Progressive Form vs. the Simple Form

The progressive form is used to denote: •  Actions going on for a limited period of time.

“I’m writing to you right now”.

•  Actions that are unfinished. “I was writing to you when you called”.

The Progressive Form vs. the Simple Form

The simple form is used to denote: •  Actions that are finished:

“I wrote to you yesterday.”

•  Habits, states and things that are always true: “I always write letters in the evening”.

“I write for a living”.

Avoid the progressive in research articles

Tense

•  During the late 19th century it was discovered that electrons were ejected from metallic surfaces if high frequency electromagnetic radiation was falling upon them.

•  As electronics is becoming smaller, and as the manufacturing of nano scale objects become more exact...

•  The event that received its famous name as November Revolution has culminated in the discovery of Higgs Boson back in 2012.

•  Nowadays the glaciers and ice sheets are covering a tenth of the Earth’s surface.

Questions

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