Transcript Tips for academic writing

Simulation
Writing a research article
Content
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Your own research
Your scientific poster
January oral presentation of a conference
Articles from your English oral presentations
Pure imagination
How to get started
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Choose a journal and read the guidelines for authors
Choose a frequently cited article as a model
Write your abstract
Choose the order to write your paper (AMRDIA)
Use topic sentences to write your article (one
sentence for each paragraph)
• Don’t write in French
• Don’t use google translator
The research article
• IMRAD
• The shape
(Swales 2007: 134)
• Introduction: going from general to specific
• Discussion: going from specific to general
The title: What do you have to do?
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Be clear
Be concise
Attract attention
(survival of the fittest & natural selection)
The title: How do you do it?
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Check titles in the journal you want to publish in
No full stop
Capitals depend on the journal
Avoid multi-word nouns
Biodiversity modelling specification definition trends
becomes
Trends in defining the specifications for biodiversity modelling
• If you use a colon separate:
Problem: solution
Topic: method (design)
Compound nouns
• Noun + noun
health system
• More than 2 nouns
data collection form
• Noun + gerund
tissue-typing, brainwashing
Compound adjectives
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Noun + past participle
age-related
Noun + adjective
cost-effective
Noun + like
finger-like projections
Noun + ing form of verb
time-consuming
Adverb + noun
fast-acting
Adjective + noun
long-term
Adjective + noun + adjective
five-month-old
Adjective + noun + -ed
red-faced macaque
The title: Task
Task: write two or more working titles for your article.
Websites:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/ug/research/paper.html
http://www.drostdesigns.com/research-article-titles-how-to-write-a-highly-effectivearticle-title/
The Abstract: What do you have to do?
Attract attention
Natural selection & survival of the fittest
Be concise
The abstract: How do you do it?
Keep rewriting at regular intervals
Present the information in the same order as your research
paper
Tenses
Use the simple present for the background/context
Use the simple past to describe what you did
Go straight to the point.
Avoid using phrases such as:
This paper deals with…
The aim of this paper is to…
The abstract: task
Write an abstract of your research (200 words).
Include the expressions:
currently; will explore; seem to indicate; I hope to shed light on
Include one sentence using the present perfect to introduce research up
until now.
Websites:
http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/abstract.html
http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21abst.htm
The introduction: What do you have to do?
Model CARS (Create A Research Space, Swales 1990: 141)
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Move 1: Establishing a research territory
step 1: Claiming centrality, and/or
step 2: Placing your research within the field, and/or
step 3: Reviewing items of previous research
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Move 2: Establishing a niche
step 1a: Counter-claiming, or
step 1b: Indicating a gap in current research, or
step 1c: Question raising, or
step 1d: Continuing a tradition
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Move 3: Occupying the niche
step 1: Outlining purposes, or
step 2: Announcing principal findings or
step 3: Indicating research article structure
Some steps maybe missing or in a completely different order.
The introduction
What do you have to do?
• Move 1: What is the research context?
• Move 2: Justify your research?
• Move 3: Introduce your research
The introduction
Move 1: What is the research context?
Establishing a research territory
Claiming centrality, and/or
Placing your research within the field, and/or
Reviewing items of previous research
Move 2: Justify your research
Establishing a niche
Counter-claiming, or
Indicating a gap in current research, or
Question raising, or
Continuing a tradition
The introduction
Move 3: Introduce your research
Occupying the niche
Outlining purposes, or
Announcing principal findings or
Indicating research article structure
The introduction
Some steps maybe missing or in a completely
different order.
How do you talk about previous
research?
Recently there has been growing interest in…
…has generated wider interest…
…is a classic problem…
…has become a favourite topic for analysis…
A central issue in … is…
…has been extensively studied in recent years…
Many recent studies have focussed on…
Note the use of the present perfect: no time constraints and recent actions
How do you justify your research?
However, the previously mentioned … suffer from some limitations...
…and is limited to...
To our knowledge … has not been reported previously.
To date, little attention has been paid to…
However their findings failed to account for…
In spite of…
Little is, however, known…
The research has tended to focus on … rather than …
These studies have emphasized … as opposed to…
…rather less attention has been paid to…
Previous research has not addressed…
Task: read the introduction in your research article and find the niche.
How do you introduce your
research?
With the present when talking about the paper.
In this paper we present the results of three experiments.
With the past or present when talking about the study.
We investigated…
We investigate… (fresh & new)
Introduction: Additions
The author goes on to say
Further states
Also maintains/argues
Further argues
Connectors: additionally, in addition to, also, furthermore, moreover
Introduction: Reporting verbs
Analyse
Argue
Assert
Claim
Conclude
Contend
Demonstrate
Describe
Develop
Examine
Explain
Expand
Find
Focus
Hypothesise
Maintain
Mention (minor information)
Note
Observe
Point out
Propos
Provide
Publish
Recommend
Report
Show
State
Suggest
Theorize
Use
Introduction: Similarities & Differences
Similarly
Likewise
In the same fashion
The same
To be similar to
To resemble
To be comparable to
To correspond to
Introduction: Contrasting
In contrast
Unlike X, Y
In contrast to
On the other hand
However
Whereas
While
To differ from
To contrast with
To be different from
The same as
Citations
According to Smith (2002), the causes of suicide among English teachers are…
Smith’s research shows that… (Smith 2002).
Smith’s (2002) research shows that…
Task: underline citations in the introduction section of your article.
Tenses and citations
1. Banks (2009) investigated the causes of suicides among English teachers.
2. The causes of suicides among English teachers have been widely
investigated (Smith 2002, Jones 2003, Banks 2009).
3. The cause of suicides is related to the number of daylight hours (Smith
2002, Jones 2003, Banks 2009).
Task: identify the tenses in each sentence.
Suggest why each tense has been chosen.
Answers:
1. Past simple: reference to a single study
2. Present perfect: open statement, area of inquiry, from the past until now
3. Present simple: current knowledge
Introduction: The problematic
An issues to be addressed
A question to be answered
But NOT a problematic
A problematic situation
Websites:
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http://www.tailoredessays.com/how-write/research-paper/introduction-conclusion.htm
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http://umech.mit.edu/freeman/6.021J/2000/writing.pdf
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http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html
Methods: What do you have to do?
Process description
Describe the subject
Experimental design
Difficulties encountered
Methods: How do you do it?
A series of procedural steps: where, when, what, how
By + process : by synthesising , by transferring
Time adverbials: once, finally, first or firstly, but be consistent
Changing verbs to adjectival forms to link sentences
The virus was harvested using the 45X method. The harvested virus was…
Methods: Introduce choices
In order to validate…
In an attempt to identify….
For the purpose of the investigation…
Our aim was to get…
To validate the results…
To identify the components…
This allowed us to determine….
Methods: Consequences
thus, thereby, consequently, hence
Methods: Tenses & voice
The present perfect is never used
The passive voice:
were used, were taken, were transferred, was measured, was evaluated, were
correlated, were included
The active voice:
The sample comprised, received, underwent, consisted of
Task: write a short method’s section for the “Clever Crow” experiment.
Websites:
http://www.idrc.ca/IMAGES/books/WFC_English/WFC_English/scidra16.html
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/reportW/bodymaterials.
html
The Results:
What do you have to do?
Construct location and summary statements
Highlight the results
Compare & evaluate data sets
Assess reliability
Discuss implications
Offer commentary not description
The results: How do you construct
location and summary statements?
Table 666/Figure 389 shows, presents, illustrates, summarizes, demonstrates, contains,
provides, depicts, lists, reports, reveals, gives…
As-clauses
As shown in Figure 1…
As can be seen in Table 5…
As has been demonstrated previously…
As explained…
As revealed…
As described…
Or be more concise:
Levels of intolerance to English teaching were higher during adolescence (Figure 1).
The results: How do you introduce
highlighting statements?
It is certain that…
It is very probable…
It is possible…
It is unlikely…
…seems to have…
…appears to have…
…tends to…
It has been said…
Based on the limited data available..
In the view of…
According to…
Based on…
These data:
indicate/establish/suggest/question/challenge/validate/support/assume
The results: Moving on from the
highlighting statement
• From general to more specific claims
• To comparisons
The results: How do you compare and
contrast?
On average…
More common…
The most frequent…
The fewest…
Increased by exactly the same degree…
Compared with…
There were no significant differences…
A greater increase…
Three times higher…
Significantly higher…
Three times as high as…
A threefold increase…
Increased by a factor of three…
How do you conclude a data commentary?
Explanations/implications/unexpected results
X may be due to…
X was attributed to…
X can probably be accounted for…
X was probably a consequence of…
X would seem to stem from…
X was due to…
How do you describe a graph?
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Prepositions of time
• From the 10th
• During
• Throughout the period
• Until
• In the last ten minutes
• After 50 minutes…
• At time 0
General vocabulary
• Hatched area
• Cross-hatched area
• Shaded area
• On the y axis
• A curve
Unit 5 Specialised vocabulary: Describing graphs 1 and describing graphs 2
The Results: Websites
http://publications.cpa-apc.org/media.php?mid=413
http://www.sfedit.net/results.pdf
http://openwetware.org/images/b/b5/WritingResultsMethods.pdf
The discussion: What do you have to do?
Go from the specific to the general
Put forward the hypothesis
Show how the data support or not the hypothesis
Compare results with previous studies
Discuss limitations
Open up new avenues of research
The discussion: Opening moves
Overall
In general
On the whole
In the main
The overall results indicate
The Discussion: Hedging
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Adverbs
A little, Generally, Moderately, Possibly, Probably, Rather, Quite, Reasonably, Relatively, Slightly,
Somewhat, To some extent
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Modals
Can, could, may, might, ought to, should
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Modifiers
A number of, A significant portion, Few, Little, Many, Most, Much, Several, Some, the Majority/the
minority
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Qualifying. Phrases
It seems that…
Many people believe that…
There is a tendency…
It is understood that…
It is possible that…
It might be the case that…
The data suggest that…
Thought to be…
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Task: underline hedging in the discussion section of your article.
Add a little passion, but be very careful
…provides compelling evidence…
…convincing argument…
…indisputable reasons…
…undeniable evidence…
…exciting proposition…
How do you discuss limitations?
• This analysis has concentrated on…
• The findings are restricted to…
• This study has only addressed…
• The limitations of this study…
• However, the findings do not imply…
• Unfortunately, we are unable to determine…
• Notwithstanding its limitations…
The discussion: Website
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http://www.ijri.org/article.asp?issn=09713026;year=2007;volume=17;issue=3;spage=148;epage=149;aulast=Ramakantan