acadwrit pres

8/2/2019 Acadwrit Pres

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Academic Writing in English

Michael Allen

Physics Department, Mahidol University


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Outline

General points

Structure of a paper/thesis

Formal English

Grammar

Theses

Correcting your work


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General points

Copying from one paper is plagiarism, copying from several is research. :)

The best way to learn how to write well is to look at well written papers and see

how it is done.

Observe carefully how information is conveyed to the reader.

Make a note of some little phrases that you think you might use for your own

work.

Look at papers which have at least one native English speaking author and

which are published in an English speaking country. Their English is likely to be

the most correct.


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Style

Try to make one idea flow to the next.

Group sentences about similar things together in a paragraph. (A paragraph

must have more than one sentence.)

Be concise, but clear. In other words, dont write too much, but dont write too

little.

Think carefully about whether it is really necessary to include large tables of

experimental data. Wouldnt a graph show the information more clearly?


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General appearance

Dont itemize things. Only equations should appear in between lines of text.

Figures and tables should have captions and float that is, they should not be

attached to a particular place in the text.

In a thesis, dont put the figures at the end of a chapter it is very inconvenient

for the reader.

Never put any words in bold font or italics. If you want to stress a point then

write something like It is important to....


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Giving references

Place references in sensible places in a sentence. Normally they go at the end

of a clause. In the case of lists, they immediately follow each item in the list.

Give a reference to anything you say which is controversial everything you say

must be justified by either a reference or your results.

In the method and results sections, be clear what is your own work.


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Maths

Remember to italicize symbols where appropriate. E.g. p not p.

vectors: useB not B.

Choose sensible symbols for variables and parameters. Make it easy for the

reader to remember their meaning.

Use the same symbols as other people (if they use sensible ones!).

Dont put too many steps in when showing mathematical derivations.

Dont have a long string of = ... = ... =. Explain in words what you are doing.

Only give an equation a number if you refer to it later.

When referring to equations, follow the convention of the journal.

Dont start a sentence with an equation number.

Put complicated algebra or long proofs in an appendix.


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Acronyms

Only use an acronym if it is commonly used by others or if you are going to use

it a lot (i.e. more than three times).

Always say what the acronym means, even if it is a well-known one.

E.g. Problems in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) are notoriously difficult.

It is not worth using acronyms for short groups of words e.g. Dont use BH for

black hole.


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Punctuation

Punctuation symbols: , . ! ? : ;

There is a space aftera punctuation symbol (except , and .). There is never a

space beforea punctuation symbol.

There is always a space before (. There is a space after ) except when followed

by a punctuation symbol. There is no space after ( or before ).

Dont use ; in the text unless you know what you are doing.

The only time you might use : is for something like ...following equation: which

is then followed by the equation.

Both : and ; can be used in captions for figures.


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Spelling and Capitalization

If you are submitting to a journal published in the US, you should use US

spelling e.g. write color instead of colour, traveling instead of travelling.

Use small letters for disciplines or theorems, e.g. mean-value theorem, Unlike

quantum mechanics and relativity, nonlinear science covers systems of every

scale and not Unlike Quantum Mechanics....


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Formal English

The English that you should use when writing a paper or thesis should be formal

(like a legal document) but also clear (unlike a legal document). There are certain

things that can be done in spoken English or in written English in newspapers,

magazines, or lecture notes (or presentations like this) which are not appropriate for

formal writing.

Dont use adjectives with similar meanings to describe one noun. E.g. compare

it is a large and difficult problem with it is a difficult problem.

Dont start a sentence with And, Also, But, So, Or, Even so. Instead use

In addition, However, Hence, Consequently, Alternatively, Nevertheless.

Dont start a sentence with Therefore. Instead write, for example, We

therefore....

Dont start a sentence with Then or Now unless it is a command.

Dont use dont, or any other shortened negative such as isnt, hasnt,


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wasnt, etc. Use does not, is not, etc. instead.

Generally try to avoid s. E.g. Instead of the wavefronts curvature use either

the curvature of the wavefront or the wavefront curvature. There are

exceptions to this. There are some cases where they are always used such as

Laws e.g. Bedfords Law, or where the alternative seems clumsy e.g. todays

stock market prices is better than the stock market prices of today.

Dont use ! or & or /. It is also very unusual to see ? in a paper. Dont put

questions in a paper unless you really know what you are doing.

Dont use etc. and be careful about using e.g. or i.e.

When referring to the number of countable objects, use words rather than

figures when the amount is less than twenty. E.g. Dont write we used 3

methods instead write we used three methods.

Dont use OK. Use acceptably, permissible, satisfactory, etc instead.

Dont use got. Instead use obtained.


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Grammar

English is a difficult language. There are very few rules in it that apply all the time

most can occasionally be broken.

The best way to learn English is by looking at lots of examples and seeing when the

rules apply and when they dont.

If you are not very experienced at writing English, use the KISS principle. KISS =

Keep It Simple, Silly! It is much better to write things in a simple way, than to try

(unsuccessfully) to use complicated English which no one can then understand.

Often the problem is not with the English even if the sentence were written in Thai,

a Thai person would not understand it. Make sure you explain things carefully. This

is particularly important when describing how you obtained your results.


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Grammar: verbs

Check that the endings of verbs agree with their subjects and with the tense.

Verbs without a subject must be in the present continuous (-ing form) except for

commands. E.g. Referringto Fig. 4, ...; A method has been developed for

solving...; Integrating (3.2) gives ....


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Grammar: tenses

Be suspicious of sentences that contain verbs in different tenses. Should they

be in the same tense?

Be careful about when to use the past and present tense. If the thing is still true,

you should be using the present. Hence, analytical derivations should be

described using the present tense. Experimental procedures that you carried

out should be described using the past tense.

Do not use the future tense to refer to something that will be described later in

the article. E.g. do not write In Section 3 we will derive... instead write In

Section 3 we derive....


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Grammar: articles and nouns

Most, but not all, nouns need to be preceded by an article. Make sure you

understand the difference between a and the.

Peoples names followed by s are never preceded by an article. The Zipfs Law

states that... is wrong. It should be Zipfs Law states that....

Some nouns (like water and rice) dont have a plural. E.g. information, research,

work there is no such word as informations. These can also never be

preceded by a or an.

Sometimes nouns behave like adjectives parametric values and progressive

report are wrong. It should be parameter values and progress report.


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Grammar: articles and nouns

Be careful not to use adjectives instead of nouns.

Make sure you know the difference between adjectives and adverbs. Is the

adjective/adverb you are using modifying a noun or a verb?

Adjectives must (nearly always) be associated with a noun. E.g. Similar to ... is

wrong. You must write something like In a similar way to .... [Adjectives cansometimes be used as nouns, but this is not commonly seen in scientific writing.]

Make sure you know when to use many and much. They are for discrete and

continuous things, respectively. A lot of can be used for either.

as follow is wrong. It should be as follows.

in term of is wrong. It should be in terms of.


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Grammar: sentences All sentences must have a verb, but remember that a phrase containing a verb

might not be a sentence. E.g. Although the test results were positive. is not a

sentence. It is a subordinate clause that must be preceded or followed by a

main clause.

Dont use the phrase there exists except inside a mathematical theorem.

Instead write A ... exists ....

List things properly using and between the last two items. E.g. Dont do we

used three methods A, B, C. Instead you should write either we used three

methods: A, B, and C. or we used three methods, namely, A, B, and C.


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Theses: general points

Remember that a thesis is not a textbook. Only review what is relevant.

Never call a section or chapter Literature Survey.

Try to give chapters appropriate names that describe the content. Try to avoid

calling a chapter Results or Methods. On the other hand, dont make the

name of the chapter too long.

Only things you have done, such as calculations or program listings can be putin an appendix. If there is someone elses work which you feel is unsuitable to

include in the main part of the text, give a reference to it instead.

Be sure to be clear which is your work and which is someone elses. Give

references if it is not your work. In a theoretical background section of a thesis,

where you have already made it clear that you are talking about results that arenot your own, it is OK to use we. In other cases, only use we when talking

about your own results.


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Theses: size

Never think that a thesis needs to be larger than a certain number of pages.

Think of a thesis in the same way as a paper. Make it no larger than it needs to

be. There have been maths PhD theses of less than 40 pages.

Do not include large numbers of figures that all look similar. Use a single graph

and:

average the results and show the standard deviation with error bars

code different curves using line styles

Never think that just because you spent long hours collecting data, all the raw

data should appear in the thesis. Leave the raw data in your lab book or hard

drive, where it belongs.

A thin thesis indicates that it is likely to be well written, and people interested in

that subject will want to read it.


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Checking your work

Learn to use a spell checking program that allows you to add to its dictionary.

On Linux/Unix use the program ispell.

Read it through carefully find the obvious small mistakes.

Be suspicious of any phrase you use that you have never seen anyone else use

in a publication.

Be careful when using a dictionary. Check both Thai to English and English toThai. Try to find an example of the word in a sentence so that you know how it is

used.

If you are in doubt about whether a phrase is correct, you could search for the

whole phrase on the web using an advanced search engine such as

http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en . If mostof the sites found are in non-English speaking countries, your phrase is likely to

be wrong.


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Getting your work corrected

Learn from your mistakes! If someone corrects your work, try to see where you

went wrong.

Dont get your work corrected in parallel. Give it to the person whose English is

the best last of all that way they dont have to waste time correcting easy

things and will spend more time improving the more difficult things.


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Thank you for your attention

Good luck with the writing!

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