虞博士的博文： http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-1147508.html 引文 对于初学者，不妨多用句号。每一句话，可以先用句号结束。以后慢慢改。（你改是revising。我改你的文章是editing。） 如果是两句相关的句子，第一个句号可以改为分号（；）或逗号（，）。 两个句号：Team A measured ocean temperature at Site A. Team B measured ocean temperature at Site B. 改为一个句号： Team A measured ocean temperature at Site A; Team B measured ocean temperature at Site B.（；后面应该是小写字母，但是这里的Team B是“名字”） Team A measured ocean temperature at Site A, while Team B measured ocean temperature at Site B.（这句和上面用；的句子，“含义”有一点点不同。你可以“想象”一下。） 评论 双手赞成初学者多用句号。对我们的来说，英语是外语。初学者先学会写完整的句子最重要，因为一个完整句表述的是一个完整的观点。先以后难：（1）简单句、并列句、主从复合句；（2）松散句（loose sentence)、圆周句（periodic sentence）。 如果两个句子相关，第一个句号可以改为分号（；）或逗号（，）。双手赞成。 Team A measured ocean temperature at Site A, while Team B measured ocean temperature at Site B. 浙江话里的“, while我建议改为“, and”。 这个例子用分号是最合适的。用“, and”次些，用“, while”最次。 总结 《简洁的原理》（英文版）第一章有八条基本语法法则，其中法则3、4、5、6主要讲逗号用法（法则5讲到分号）。另外，法则2讲的是牛津逗号（Oxford comma）（详见上篇博文： http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=3422258do=blogid=1207695 ）。八条法则里，有5条跟逗号有关，逗号之重要不必多言。 举法则5的3个例子：Do not join independent clauses by a comma. It is nearly half past five; we cannot reach town before dark. （分号） It is nearly half past five. We cannot reach town before dark. （句号） It is nearly half past five, and we cannot reach town before dark. （逗号+and） 文中解释如下： A comparison of the three forms given above will show clearly the advantage of the first. It is, at least in the examples given, better than the second form because it suggests the close relationship between the two statements in a way that the second does not attempt, and better than the third because it is briefer and therefore more forcible. 讲下“, and”和“, while”。and连接分句，告诉我们这两个分句有关系，但不告诉我们具体是什么关系，可以表示并列，可以表示承接，可以表示结果。 while在英文里用的很乱，经常用来表示although或whereas。因为一词多义容易产生理解上的歧义，所以有些学术刊物，比如牛津大学出版社下属的一些期刊，就建议论文写作者用单词的第一义（primary meaning）来写作。while的第一义是and at the same time。对我们而言，避开有歧义的词或是自己没有掌握好的词是最好的做法。 and用法，参阅《简洁的原理》（英文版）第一章法则4（脚注）。 while用法，参阅《简洁的原理》（英文版）第四章词条while。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）只在【清北复交】微信小店和淘宝店销售。 淘宝店链接： https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=578721768255
虞博士的博文： http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-1147403.html 引文1： 语态对科学家来说， 非常简单。没有谁的文章是因为语态没有用对，被拒稿的。（如果有，请举手。）对英语语言大师来说，被动语态是非常有争议的话题。两派可以一直吵到下个世纪。但是，我们“外行人”不必去瞎掺乎。 没有谁的文章会因为语态没有用对被拒稿。其实，也没有谁的文章因为写的不好而被拒稿——这话是美国历史学家Jacques Barzun说的，出自他的大作： From Dawn to Decadence 。 被动语态有争议,但绝对不是非常有争议的话题,至少我看过的几十本各类写作指南或手册都建议少用被动态：能用主动态就不用被动态。博士推荐的 Style toward Clarity and Grace 已经展开讲得很具体。 注意，不是不能用被动态！！！ 引文（例子）2： Tool #1, tool #2, tool #3, tool $4, tool #5, tool #6, and tool #7 were used in this experiment. 改为： In this experiment, we used the following tools: tool #1, tool #2, tool #3, tool $4, tool #5, tool #6, and tool #7. 虞博士这个举例非常恰当。体现在三个方面：（1）主动态用得自然；（2）冒号用得到位；（3）“ and tool #7”前面的逗号用得好。 总结如下： 上面谈到的几点，《简洁的原理》（英文版）里都有。具体如下： 一、被动语态 第二章十条写作法则里第11条就是：Use the active voice。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）第60页。 This rule does not, of course, mean that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice, which is frequently convenient and sometimes necessary. Breakfast is served until 9 a.m. 二、冒号 冒号在第三章里。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）第94页。 A colon introduces a list of items, normally after expressions such as the following or as follows . The qualifications are as follows: a doctorate in physics, five years' experience in a national laboratory, and an ability to communicate technical matter to a lay audience. 三、逗号 逗号在第一章里。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）第21页。 In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last. An argument is a reasoned, logical way of demonstrating that the writer's position, belief, or conclusion is valid. 这个逗号有很多叫法：Oxford Comma，Harvard Comma，Serial Comma。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）里没有用这些术语。这本书的一大好处就是术语少，比很多英文写作书少。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）只在【清北复交】微信小店和淘宝店销售。 淘宝店链接： https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=578721768255
虞左俊博士的博文： https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/LMYaAAmg3aHflddx3wxWog 文中提到如下文字： If you google 英语摘要的时态， you will see use the past tense. (网上搜索，你会看到“摘要应该用过去时”。） If you never wrote a paper on your own, you may take this as the truth and follow it faithfully. But, I have to say this rule needs to be relaxed. Here is why. （但是，摘要不一定非用过去时哦。） 用过去时还是现在时？虞博士讲了很多，很有道理。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）法则17 “ In summaries, keep to one tense” 第85页开头就说得明明白白： In summarizing the action of a drama, the writer should use the presenttense . In summarizing a poem, story, or novel, he should also use the present, though he may use the pastif it seems more natural to do so. If the summary is in the present tense, antecedentaction should be expressed by the present perfect; if in the past, by the past perfect. 也就是，可以用现在时，也可以用过去时。你想用过去时当然也可以，但最好用现在时。 abstract是a summary of points。所以，这儿讲的对摘要写作也适用。 这儿举Nature官网提供的Summary写作例子。大家一看便知道时态是现在时。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）只在【清北复交】微信小店和淘宝店销售。 淘宝店链接： https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=578721768255
Summary of ‘The Persistence and Transience of Memory’ The predominant focus in the neurobiological study of memory has been on remembering (persistence). However, recent studies have considered the neurobiology of forgetting (transience). Here we draw parallels between neurobiological and computational mechanisms underlying transience. We propose that it is the interaction between persistence and transience that allows for intelligent decision-making in dynamic, noisy environments. Specifically, w e argue that transience (1) enhances flexibility , by reducing the influence of outdated information on memory-guided decision-making, and (2) prevents overfitting to specific past events, thereby promoting generalization . According to this view, the goal of memory is not the transmission of information through time, per se . Rather, the goal of memory is to optimize decision-making. As such , transience is as important as persistence in mnemonic systems. 点评 修改完全运用《简洁的原理》（英文版）里提倡的18条基本法则： https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=578721768255 这篇summary初看还可以，细看还是有些问题值得我们去修改提升。 （1）predominant： 换成real、main或primary。 （2）consider： 用explore更合适。 （3）flexibility： 这个词的限定语不明确。是memory的还是decision-making的？后面的generalization也是同样的问题。 （4）overfitting： 牛津词典定义： Statistics. To produce or represent an analysis which corresponds too closely or exactly to (a particular set of data); to make (a model) fit a particular set of data too precisely. Also without object: to provide too close a fit. 统计学方面的词（有些词典里查不到这个词）。 （5）transmission of information： 名词短语结构是很多文章里的大问题，不是错但冗长抽象惹人烦。 （6）per se： per se的意思： By or in itself or themselves; intrinsically. （7）as such： as such的意思： In the exact sense of the word. 这个词在实际使用中的意思很多时候相当于therefore。 改后（部分地方有调整） 通俗版 The real focus in the study of memory has been on remembering, but recent studies have explored forgetting. We propose that it is the interaction between remembering and forgetting that allows for decision-making. We argue that by reducing the influence of outdated information on decision-making, forgetting (1) enhances memory’s flexibility, and (2) prevents remembering from being too close to specific past events, thereby making it possible to generalize about these events. According to this view, the goal of memory is not to transmit information but to optimize decision-making. Therefore, forgetting is as important as remembering. 专业版 The realfocus in the neurobiological study of memory has been on remembering (persistence), butrecent studies have exploredthe neurobiology of forgetting (transience). Here we draw parallels between neurobiological and computational mechanisms underlying transience. We propose that it is the interaction between persistence and transience that allows for decision-making. We argue that transience, by reducing the influence of outdated information, (1) enhances flexibility, and (2) prevents memory from being too closeto specific past events, thereby making it possible to generalize about these events. According to this view, the goal of memory is not to transmitinformation, but to optimize decision-making. Therefore, transience is as important as persistence in mnemonic systems.
科学网博主、留美学者虞左俊博士2018年11月17日发文评论我修订的《简洁的原理》（英文版），并说“大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材”。随后一个多月里写了几十篇跟 The Elements of Style 相关的文章。 二十几篇文章，阅读量也不小。首篇直指我修订的《简洁的原理》（英文版）。后面的几十篇更像是因我这本书引发虞博士“现学现卖” The Elements of Style 。 谬误甚多，有必要答复。 错误的英语写作观念一旦形成，要改正就很难。 期盼科学网的老师同学转发。 谢谢！ 回答11月17日这篇文章。博客原文： http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-306792-1146716.html 第一部分 我对余子龙老师的书《简洁的原理》（英文版）的看法： 这本书的对象不是中国科学家（包括研究生），因为是英文版。 （我问了一些“学生”，有的说： 看不懂 The Elements of Style （4th edition）第一部分的大纲。 ）我当然不敢说“伟人”写得不好，但是，大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材。 我不得不现实一点。 虞博士百分之百没有读过我的修订版。 所以，第一句话就说错了。 第一句错了，后面通盘都错，没有再看之必要。我还是认真看完并认真答复。 因为我修订这本书就考虑到广大的科学工作者、技术工作者，在读理工科的本科生、硕士生、博士生 。公众号菜单栏“不可不读”里的参考书目和注释出处可以佐证。《简洁的原理》（英文版）第51-52页引用《自私的基因》作者Richard Dawkins的文章“Good and Bad Reasons for Believing”讲的就是科学的方法。 我一个文科生为什么会考虑到中国科学家的需要？ 一个原因是2013年中国科协联合财政部、教育部、国家新闻出版署、中国科学院、中国工程院实施的“中国科技期刊国际影响力提升计划”。 另一个原因是我常常浏览科学期刊，国外的如 Nature 、 Science 、 Cell ，国内的主要是浙大英文刊物。 提升英文期刊影响力，文字是基础。英文写不好就少有人看，就会埋葬学术思想。 回到虞博士的文字。 （1）第一句犯了逻辑错误：“这本书的对象不是中国科学家（包括研究生），因为是英文版。” “因为是英文版”和“这本书的对象不是中国科学家（包括研究生）”之间没有因果关系。 （2）第二句（我问了一些“学生”，有的说：看不懂 The Elements of Style （4th edition）第一部分的大纲。）证明虞博士没有读过我的书。我的书有《使用说明》，在书的第3页。 这是我七年修订、几十遍拜读不同原版后的心得，是我给出的阅读建议。 读过的版本如下：斯特伦克两个版本（1918年版、1920年版）、怀特修订的三个版本（1959年版、1972年版、1978年版）、挂在怀特名下的两个版本（1999年版、2009年企鹅插图版），还有四五位美国英文教授、编辑修订的不同版本）。 虞博士说的一些学生看不懂怀特版的“ The Elements of Style （4th edition）第一部分的大纲”，在我的意料之中。 也有一看就懂的。 我曾建议北大一位读法律的研究生（本科英语专业）读这本书，那时我的书还没有出版。后来给她送书去，她说买了怀特的，都看完了，说”很简单，都能看懂“。 说容易，美国小学高年级就看这本书。有小学四年级学生给怀特写信，请教用法问题。虞博士有时间可以翻看怀特书信集： Letters of E. B. White 。 说不容易，大学老师、专业作家、专业编辑很多都在读，好些大学老师还要求学生必须背熟。我以前推 文用过香港 《号外》创办人陈冠中回忆他在美国波士顿大学学新闻的文字： 不过他 还有招。他要大家背熟一本叫《 简洁的原理 》 （英文版） 的书的部分章节。没错，是一字一字的背诵。《 简洁的原理 》 （英文版） 是教中学生或大一学生的课外书，而我们是堂堂新闻系研究生，现在不光被指定要看还要背，算什么跟什么？英语是我第二语，连我也觉得委屈，其他美国学生可想而知，何况那届同学里有一半是英文本科毕业的。 过去三十年，我劝过不少想学好英文作文的人去看这本书，也买过多本送人。 我从幼稚园学ABC开始，经过小学、中学、大学，漫漫十八载练英文，到了背熟《 简洁的原理 》 （英文版） 里的作文天条那个晚上，才算真正完成了英文作文的基础教育。后来连我的美国同学都没有一个抱怨。 （说明：书名已改为我现在的译名。） （3）第三句（我当然不敢说“伟人”写得不好，但是，大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材。 ）里，虞博士谦虚地说”我当然不敢说‘伟人’写得不好“。 但我翻看了虞博士的几十篇相关博文后认为，评论有些草率。 证明如下（原文截屏如下，不再去找原文，以后再点评原文；这儿只注意第一段文字）： 没有认认真真看完这本书，就现学现卖，我只能说：学术不严谨。 其实博士只要去清北复交淘宝店看看商品详情，至少我会认为您是读过我这本书后发表的评论： https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=578721768255 如果博士再有点探究精神，可以根据淘宝店页面详情后面的图片找到我的公众号【清北复交】菜单栏去看看我的修订参考了哪些书，用法和例子又出自何处。 参考书目我已经放在科学网博客里： http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=3422258do=blogid=1206792 用法注释和例子出处还存放在公众号【清北复交】： https://mp.weixin.qq.com/advanced/selfmenu?action=indext=advanced/menu-settingtoken=105927496lang=zh_CN 虞博士所言的“大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材”是主观判断，还是科学依据？科学写作中应该少用这类模糊的词，怎么也得说百分之多少中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材。另外，“中文版的英语教材”，我还没有看明白，中文翻译还是用中文教英文写作？ 因为虞博士没有提供科学依据，所以我就认为“大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材”是虞博士的主观判断。 既然虞博士认为，“大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材”，我就不太明白您为什么要推荐 Style Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph M. William。这本书是英文的，不是“中文版的英语教材”。而且，您的注解刚好适用评价这本书（以后为分析这本书）。 既然虞博士认为，“大多数中国科学家还是喜欢看中文版的英语教材”，我就不太明白您 为什么要推荐 College Writing Skills with Readings ，而且是在写完有关 The Elements of Style 的博文半小时后就推文。 2019年1月27日后更有十五六篇博文讲自己用这本书 CollegeWriting Skills with Readings 讲课用。 这本书是英文的，不是“中文版的英语教材”。 虞博士推荐的这两本英文书，我很熟悉。 我对 Style 这本书还有所研究。 图片是第10版文字，誊录了第11版的改动文字。 至于 College Writing Skills with Readings ，这本书要删去很多内容。 个人的研究很主观，自娱自乐，不足参考。 对这三本书， The Elements of Style 、 StyleToward Clarity and Grace 、 College Writing Skills with Readings ，我找一个比较客观、有一定说服力而且大家都可以找到的证据：Syllabus Explorer。截屏并分析如下： The Elements of Style 在1,732,393本指定阅读书目里名列第一。 Style有很多版本。 理念很好，但讲解分析啰嗦过头，自己提出的要求自己做不到。 College Writing Skills with Readings 有不同版次，但 Syllabus Explorer只有这一条数据。 往 Syllabus Explorer 上传syllabus的不是只有美国一个国家，而是全世界很多国家和地区。 所以，用这些书的并非都是美国的大学。 我们比较这三本书在所有推荐书目里的推荐排名。 从这些数据来看， The Elements of Style 是远超另外两本书的。三本都是好书，但好中有好，排名次：上、中、下。敢问虞博士，为何对一流的书连认真读完的兴趣都没有？ 俗话说：求乎上，得其中；求乎中，得其下；求乎下，得个屁啊。 话糙理不糙。严羽《沧浪诗话》里说得更顺耳：“学其上，仅得其中；学其中，斯为下矣。” 下面这四点是《简洁的原理》（英文版）专有。 1. 2011年，美国《时代》杂志（ Time Magazine ）把《简洁的原理》列为1923年至今的 100本最佳、最有影响力的图书之一 （https: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style#cite_note-Time-2）。 2. 美国兰登书屋出版社的现代图书馆（Modern Library）100本非小说类最佳图书榜单上，《简洁的原理》在专家评选的榜单上名列 第21位 ，在读者评选的榜单上名列 第75位 （ www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-nonfiction ）。 3. 英国《卫报》（ The Guardian ）100本非小说类最佳图书排行榜上，《简洁的原理》名列 第23位 （ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jul/04/100-best-nonfiction-books-all-time-elements-style-william-strunk-eb-white ）。 4.学术杂志 Nature 官网上推荐的书只有这一本 （网址见文章最后部分内容） 第二部分 The Elements of Style 是给（美国）大学生上写作课用的教材。如果我们能啃下来，一定对写科技论文有益。但是，如果我每天走路30分钟就能降低血糖，我应该不想走90分钟（没有时间呀！）。所以，我的大纲是能简单就简单。对于能力非常强的学生，上一篇博客已经是“最后的一堂课”。 （1）第一句“ The Elements of Style 是给（美国）大学生上写作课用的教材”说对了一部分。这本书几十年前就成了美国大中小学的课外书，而且很早就走向社会为广大人民群众接受了，甚至成为有些家庭的传家宝（读这本书的铁杆粉丝Mark Garvey的书 Stylized 深入了解）。在美国，William Strunk和E. B. White已经成为这本小书的代名词，大家称这本书为：Strunk White。虞博士在美国工作，应该知道这个Strunk White的分量吧。 再说了，虞博士推荐的 StyleToward Clarity and Grace 、 College Writing Skills with Readings 都是美国大学生上写作课的教材。 （2）第二三句“如果我们能啃下来，一定对写科技论文有益。但是，如果我每天走路30分钟就能降低血糖，我应该不想走90分钟（没有时间呀！）”怎么理解？ 虞博士推荐的两本书 S tyleToward Clarity and Grace 和 College Writing Skills with Readings 都比 The Elements of Style 厚。 College Writing Skills with Readings 厚得不知超出几倍了。 《简洁的原理》（英文版）最薄， 全是干货 ，而且teaches what it preaches。是读干货满满的书节省时间能“降低血糖”，还是读啰嗦冗长言不由衷的厚书节省时间 能“降低血糖” ？ 用美国畅销书作家、很多人熟悉的 《肖申克的救赎》斯蒂芬·金说： 多数关于写作的书，里面写的都是废话……《简洁的原理》（英文版）是个例外（most books about writing are filled with bullshit ...One notable exception to the bullshit rule is The Elements of Style , by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White.）。 说得对极了！ 第三部分 1.语态 （最简单，虽然非常有争议） 2.常用时态（已发表的博客） 3.一些标点符号（参考The Elements of Style） 4.常用句型（主语谓语的“一致性”，参考The Elements of Style） 5.段落（参考The Elements of Style） 6.修改、修改、再修改（简洁为上／逻辑性／一致性） 虞博士的这六点可能是接第二部分后面文字：“我的大纲是能简单就简单”。我看不明白博士是贬还是赞 The Elements of Style 。罗列的六点，有三点是要参考 The Elements of Style 。其实这六点书里都有。如果博士读过我的修订版，应该知道第五章就是讲“修改、修改、再修改”。 总结 我没读懂虞博士的这篇博文，没发现逻辑性，也没发现一致性。推荐 The Elements of Style 这本书的科学家很多。我举一位国外的科学家和一位国内的科学家。这两位科学家从学术成就和文章写作两方面看都比虞博士有发言权。 第一位是 美国科学院、美国工程院、美国艺术科学院三院院士，H因子最高的化学家George Whitesides 。他说： 我还要推荐你读一读斯特伦克和怀特编著的《简洁的原理》 （英文版） ，去寻得遣词造句表达思想的感觉。 （ I also suggest you read Strunk and White, The Elements of Style (Macmillan: New York, 1979, 3rd ed.) to get a sense for usage. ） George Whitesides 的文章最早发表在 Advanced Material 上，据说在业内影响广泛。文章叫： Whitesides ‘ Group: Writing a Paper。下载地址： https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/adma.200400767 第二位是清华大学药学院鲁白教授。他在 复旦大学上海医学院做讲座时说： 作为结束语，我想推荐一本书。有的书是经常要查和翻的，像 The elements of style ，很多字是怎么用的，它都有，我是放在桌子上经常用的，比如说compare with和compare to, 到底怎么用，这已经不是语法问题，而是什么情况下用，它会告诉你怎么用，这种类似的情况太多了，这个不是仅对我们中国人，美国人也经常把这本书放在桌子上。 鲁白教授的讲座网上有记录： https://www.douban.com/note/287562584/?type=collect 最后借用著名经济学家张五常教授的话总结： ……我就推荐E. B. White写的《Elements of Style》这本小书。 四十年前我用这小书学英文，获益良多。不浅，但简洁易记，内容全面。是教懒人学英文的经典之作，……。首先要指出的，是懂语文与懂得写文章是两回事。比方说，林先生文内提出的田先生的文字例子，我们不能说田先生不熟学英文，但他三十七个英文字才用一个标点，则不能说是懂得写文章。这没有贬意，因为写文章看来不是田先生的专业。是老师们的专业，也是我的专业。行家说行话，这里不妨苛求一点。 附： 对写作科学论文的老师和同学，推荐看看 Nature 杂志提供的资料。 How to write a scientific paper （ https://www.nature.com/nature-research/for-authors/write ） A number of articles and websites provide detailed guidelines and advice about writing and submitting scientific papers. Some suggested sources are: (1) SciDev.Net's Practical guides section (including How to submit a paper to a scientific journal and How to write a scientific paper ). (2) The Human Frontier Science Program's report Websites and Searching for Collaborations also contains useful writing guidelines for non-native-English speakers, as well as other helpful advice related to scientific publishing. (3) The classic book Elements of Style by William J. Strunk, Jr (Humphrey, New York, 1918) is now published by Bartleby.com (New York, 1999) and is freely available on the web in searchable format. (4) Advice about how to write a Nature journal paper is provided in the Nature Physics Editorial Elements of style . (5) Advice about how to write a summary paragraph (abstract) in Nature Letter format is available as a one-page downloadable information sheet . (6) An amusing but pertinent algorithm, How to write a paper (one possible answer) is at Nature Network's New York blog.
The 1-hour workday Jeffrey J. McDonnell + See all authors and affiliations Science 12 Aug 2016: Vol. 353, Issue 6300, pp. 718 DOI: 10.1126/science.353.6300.718 When I was an assistant professor, I felt constantly overwhelmed. I had classes to teach, relationships with new colleagues to navigate, a lab group to assemble, and an infant at home not to mention research to conduct and papers to publish. To get ahead, I took on any opportunities that were offered, including membership on various editorial boards and professional committees. Despite working like a madman, my productivity as measured by paper output was meager. I simply could not find time in my day for undistracted writing. And when I did find the time after an extended stretch away from writing, the warm-up period to get back into the paper was often long, further slowing my progress. ILLUSTRATION: ROBERT NEUBECKER “I wake up early, make an espresso, and write until I'm spent.” At first I thought that this kind of frustration was routine for academic researchers. But as the years passed, I noticed a few senior colleagues who published with impressive regularity and always had a paper in the works. When I asked them what their secret was, I found that they prioritized doing small amounts of focused writing every day. I've since developed my own version of this approach. I call it the 1-hour workday, referring to the short, sacrosanct period when I do what I see as the “real” work of academia: writing papers. First thing in the morning is when I'm at my mental best, and when I'm still most in control of my time, so I now use the first hour of my day to write. For me, it's best done from home. I've developed something of a ritual: I wake up early, make an espresso, and write until I'm spent—or until distractions like email or the day's deadlines and meetings start to intrude. This is usually about an hour, some days a little less and some days more. I've found that, like hitting a ball in golf, regular writing is easier if I tee it up. I plan my early morning writing the night before. It is in my calendar and on my to-do list, with details about which paper and section I will be working on. This routine has transformed my work life. Instead of the frustration that frequently plagued me early in my career, now—no matter how work proceeds after I've completed my writing time—I go home at the end of the day with the satisfaction of having accomplished something. I have in no way mastered the writing game, but my 1-hour workday has certainly increased my academic output. And by keeping me focused and in practice, it has improved the quality of my writing and made the process much more enjoyable. It also offers an opportunity for deep thinking. I remember rarely having any such thinking time when I started out as a professor, but now I find that my daily keystrokes can lead to new ideas. When I string together days of successful writing, ideas flow and new connections present themselves even when I'm away from my keyboard, particularly on my bike ride to work or when I'm reading for pleasure. Many days, “writing” means editing and revising the work of others. This work can sometimes be a slog, but I keep my spirits up by thinking of it as a game of table tennis. My goal is to return the serve—when done quickly, this greatly improves the game. In any sport, one must stay toned and conditioned. If I fall out of practice, I quickly lose that fitness, and my writing and editing become labored. So, even though distractions abound, I protect that daily workout at the keyboard during the first precious work hour of the day. I've learned that writing does not need long stretches of uninterrupted time. Focus and regularity are what matter. I now advise my Ph.D. students and postdocs who are going on to faculty positions to adopt daily writing as an early-career habit so that they don't repeat my years of writing frustration. At any career stage, a daily writing ritual can help improve performance—and, perhaps most importantly, job satisfaction. Science Vol 353, Issue 6300 12 August 2016 Table of Contents Print Table of Contents Advertising (PDF) Classified (PDF) Masthead (PDF)
在科技论文中，经常见到on the contrary,on the other hand,in contrast,in/by comparion等短语。这些短语的中文意思接近，表示比较。但在写作时，他们的侧重点却不尽相同。 on the contrary : 用于否定或反驳前一个句子或分句所提出的论点。 in contrast : 用于介绍一个与前一句所陈述的观点强烈对照的新观点。e.g. Approach A provides high speed at the cost of increased memory requirement. In contrast,approach B is slower but requires much less memory. on the other hand, in comparison, by comparison : 用来提出新的信息，并与前一个句子或分句所提到的信息作比较或对照。 类似的短语和词有很多，例如时间副词Recently,often正确的摆放位置,and 与as well as 表示“和”时的侧重点等，这些用法的掌握都需要我们平时多阅读母语为英语的作者所写的论文，多比较，多积累。
好久没有更新我的博客了。原因有两个：进不来（log in failed often)和没时间(too much travel, plus WeChat)。 不过，我还是会常常过来看看“好友”。因为博客，我有幸结识了不少高手。在此，向科学网致谢。 如果有博友对我的英文写作博客有兴趣，只要百度一下（我没有试过）应该可以找到我。
J join (together) (joint) collaboration K kneel (down) (knowledgeable) experts L lag (behind) later (time) LCD (display) lift (up) (little) baby (live) studio audience (live) witness (local) residents look (ahead) to the future look back (in retrospect) M made (out) of (major) breakthrough (major) feat manually (by hand) may (possibly) meet (together) meet (with each other) (mental) telepathy merge (together) might (possibly) minestrone (soup) mix (together) modern ______ (of today) (mutual) cooperation (mutually) interdependent mutual respect (for each other) (number-one) leader in ________ N nape (of her neck) (native) habitat (natural) instinct never (before) (new) beginning (new) construction (new) innovation (new) invention (new) recruit none (at all) nostalgia (for the past) (now) pending From http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/redundancies_2.htm
If you are, you should work on the manuscript before you send it out for English editing. ps. This is how a frustrated English editor feels after having received two poorly written/translated manuscripts.
H had done (previously) (harmful) injuries (head) honcho heat (up) HIV (virus) hoist (up) (hollow) tube hurry (up) I (illustrated) drawing incredible (to believe) indicted (on a charge) input (into) integrate (together) integrate (with each other) interdependent (on each other) introduced (a new) introduced (for the first time) (ir)regardless ISBN (number) From http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/redundancies_2.htm
F (face) mask fall (down) (favorable) approval (fellow) classmates (fellow) colleague few (in number) filled (to capacity) (final) conclusion (final) end (final) outcome (final) ultimatum (firstand) foremost (first) conceived first (of all) fly (through the air) follow (after) (foreign) imports (former) graduate (former) veteran (free) gift (from) whence (frozen) ice (frozen) tundra full (to capacity) (full) satisfaction fuse (together) (future) plans (future) recurrence G gather (together) (general) public GOP (party) GRE (exam) green (in color) grow (in size) From http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/redundancies_2.htm
D depreciate (in value) descend (down) (desirable) benefits (different) kinds disappear (from sight) drop (down) during (the course of) dwindle (down) E each (and every) earlier (in time) eliminate (altogether) emergency (situation) (empty) hole empty (out) (empty) space enclosed (herein) (end) result enter (in) (entirely) eliminate equal (to one another) eradicate (completely) estimatedat (about) evolve (over time) (exact) same (exposed) opening extradite (back) From http://grammar.about.com/od/words/a/redundancies.htm
An Editor's Five Rules of Thumb Gardner Botsford on Writing and Editing http://grammar.about.com/od/editorsandediting/a/botsfordediting.htm Rule of thumb No. 1. To be any good at all, a piece of writing requires the investment of a specific amount of time, either by the writer or by the editor. Wechsberg was fast; hence, his editors had to be up all night. Joseph Mitchell took forever to write a piece, but when he turned in, the editing could be done during one cup of coffee. Rule of thumb No. 2. The less competent the writer, the louder his protests over the editing. The best editing, he feels, is no editing. He does not stop to reflect that such a program would be welcomed by the editor, too, allowing him to lead a richer, fuller life and see more of his children. But he would not be long on the payroll, and neither would the writer. Good writers lean on editors; they would not think of publishing something that no editor had read. Bad writers talk about the inviolable rhythm of their prose. Rule of thumb No. 3. You can identify a bad writer before you have seen a word of his copy if he uses the expression we writers. Rule of thumb No. 4. In editing, the first reading of a manuscript is the all-important one. On the second reading, the swampy passages that you noticed in the first reading will seem firmer and less draggy, and on the fourth or fifth reading, they will seem exactly right. That's because you are now attuned to the writer, not to the reader. But the reader, who will read the thing only once, will find it just as swampy and boring as you did the first time around. In short, if something strikes you as wrong on first reading, it is wrong, and a fix is needed, not a second reading. Rule of thumb No. 5. One must never forget that writing and editing are entirely different arts, or crafts. Good editing has saved bad writing more often than bad editing has harmed good writing. This is because a bad editor will not keep his job for long, but a bad writer can, and will, go on forever. Good editing can turn a gumbo of a piece into a tolerable example of good reporting, not of good writing. Good writing exists beyond the ministrations of any editor. That's why a good editor is a mechanic, or craftsman, while a good writer is an artist.
交通界大神加州大学伯克利分校 Daganzo 教授的殷殷教诲，建议交通学科的研究生都打印一份贴床头，早晚各膜拜一次，各种SCI必然随便发，我已经准备这么搞了~ http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~daganzo/WRITING.pdf PAPER-WRITING A Guide for Transportation Students .pdf
I know as a Chinese writing science paper in accurate, concise and fluent English is a difficult thing and maybe just a fancy. However, it's the author's responsibility to try to write the contents clearly and logically. Some Chinese authors just translate their science papers from Chinese into English directly and sometimes every word by word. Language problem and writing prolem have greatly hinder international readers from showing any interest in these published papers. When I edit an article and meet bad titles, abstracts or expressions, and I am not sure about my revision, I am usually up to my colleagues (our editorial members, scientific editors, and language editors) around the world to give me suggestions (we have a QQ group). A discussion among these groups gives me a lot of good suggestions. Here is an example. Dr.QIU Here is a title Differences in Hydrodynamic Processes and Depositional Styles of Different Deposits Associate with Glaciers in the Moxi Basin, Southwest China. How can it be read better ? I think differences and different is a repeat and it seems they are unnecessary. Here the author use Associate with, I donot know whether the author wants to say that the differences have relationship with Glaciers. Here is the abstract: Abstract: The primary objective of this study is to understand the grain-size distribution differences of different deposits associate with glaciers activity in Moxi basin, southwest China. The grain-size distribution of different deposits in the periglacial area can provide records for glacier retreat, climate change and environmental change since the Quaternary in the alpine region. Moreover, this research can be helpful when people choose a place for building in this region because these different deposit zones can indicate whether there are potential hazards or not, for example, the deposits of debris flow mean debris flow occurred there and there still are potential risks. Using the sedimentological and geomorphologic methods, 28 samples from different deposits (including glacial, fluvioglacial, debris flow, river and lake deposit, etc) are tested by grain-size analysis in Moxi basin. Dr.QIU If I change the title as Hydrodynamic Processes and Depositional Styles of Glacier-Associated Deposits in the Moxi Basin, Southwest China, is it okay? Prof. LIU Would be mostly the kind of paper dealing with the characterised sedimentology from glacial and debis flows in Moxi basin? hydrodynamic processes may be the inferred Dr.QIU The abstract is very long, I only pasted the background part. Here is the whole abstract. Abstract : The primary objective of this study is to understand the grain-size distribution differences of different deposits associate with glaciers activity in Moxi basin, southwest China. The grain-size distribution of different deposits in the periglacial area can provide records for glacier retreat, climate change and environmental change since the Quaternary in the alpine region. Moreover, this research can be helpful when people choose a place for building in this region because these different deposit zones can indicate whether there are potential hazards or not, for example, the deposits of debris flow mean debris flow occurred there and there still are potential risks. Using the sedimentological and geomorphologic methods, 28 samples from different deposits (including glacial, fluvioglacial, debris flow, river and lake deposit, etc) are tested by grain-size analysis in Moxi basin. Results show that the grain-size distribution differences of different deposits are obvious in Moxi basin. Debris flow deposits is typical turbidity deposit process, where the particle gradation is not developed well; fluvioglacial and lake deposits are selective deposit process obviously, the grain size distributes widely, and its accumulated percentage (the relation curve between the grain-size and its accumulated percentage) is larger than 60%; river deposits are impure deposit process, and the accumulated percentage of the grain size is less than 10%. In comparison, the grain size of the glacial deposit distributes narrowly and its accumulated percentage is around 20%. On analyzing the partial-size distribution of the lake deposit samples and comparing them with other deposits, this paper reconstructed a landslide event and an old dammed lake process which was caused by the landslide in Moxi basin in history, then, it is deduced that a large-scale debris flow occurred in the lake deposits area and caused its disappearance. Besides, the partial-size distribution results from Moxi Platform (which is a typical complex deposit terrace) indicates that Moxi Platform is not formed by a single deposit process, but by a complex terrace mixed with the glacial, fluvial and debris flow deposits. Dr. QIU The abstract is so poor too. It described too much of the background Prof. Wu reject directly Prof. LIU It is not well described, but it is of some reference if authors gave valuable hint just based on grain-size distribution. Dr. QIU It will need a lot of efforts before publication. However two reviewers recommened publication after they second review Nowadays, some reviewers donot have patience to read carefully. Dr. LIU What's going on about the main text of this paper? Have the author(s) presented valuable data and conclusiongs? Dr. QIU the content is okay, but the writing is too poor Massimo My two cents: Dr. Q, your proposed title is very good. The abstract suffers of the same problem as the title....and presumably of the paper Too verbose and convoluted.... It would need a very good rewriting by someone familiar with the scientific literature in sedimentology. Dr. QIU yes! I think a study must be on different situations So different in the title is usually unnecessary Massimo sure.... and anyway it's repeated twice. English is a simple and snappy language. .. Unless you are Shakespeare. ... you should keep wording to the minimum Dr. QIU Title is very important to the readers. a bad title will dispel the readers Massimo exactly. .... Laurence The abstract contains run-on sentences, with multiple grammatical mistakes. The title is too long. These are typically the first indicators that a paper is not well organized with the readership. In such cases the authors may have some fantastic science to tell the world about, but most readers would give up after a few sentences. Authors have the responsibility to tell a coherent story. Dr. QIU I completely agree with you. Laurence Thanks, Dr. QIU. As a language editor, I want to help these authors. Everyone needs editorial help. But when I have to say, Please send this back to the Authors for complete revision, it causes me pain and anguish. Authors have responsibility, and so do language editors. FOLEGA Dr. Qiu Laurence, I have the same feeling as you experience. Sometimes when I edit an article with bad writing, I feel anguish and have a pain in my stomach. Maybe we should reject more papers that are not well-written even they contain a certein valuable research results. Laurence I get a really good feeling when I read Richard Feynman's Six Easy Pieces. I feel wonderful whenever I read the General Chemistry by Linus Pauling (the only chemist who helped me understand that the words of the atomic numbers were written in Latin: hence 'sodium' comes from natrium, that's why the symbol is Na). Pauling also explained where the names reduction and oxidation come from and how the first sceintists to observe redox reeactions got the gain and loss of electrons backwards, but the names stuck, causing confusion of young scientists for centuries). Galileo's Dialog Concerning Two Chief World Systems, and Darwin's Origin of the Species show that the greatest scientists who changed our thinking all had great writing skills. Watson Cricks' famous paper on the structure of DNA ( http://www.nature.com/nature/dna50/watsoncrick.pdf) starts modestly: We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest. These scientists were all great writers. They had clarity of thought. they solved mysteries, making the complicated uncmplicated. So we just have to tell scientists, Your work does not explain your results very well. Please reconsider your writing because your results are importnat and we would like to publish them. I think those Authors will have a bigger stomach ache than yours and mine combined when we give them this news! Dr. QIU I cannot agree with you more!
As composition and rhetoric scholars Maxine Hairston andMichael Keene explain, a good title does several things: First, it predicts content. Second, it catches the reader's interest. Third, it reflects the tone or slant of the piece of writing. Fourth, it contains keywords that will make it easy to access by a computer search. In preparing a title for a paper, the author would do well to remember one salient fact: That title will be read by thousands of people. Perhaps few people,if any, will read the entire paper, but many people will read the title, either in the original journal or in one of the secondary (abstracting and indexing) publications. Therefore, all words in the title should be chosen with great care, and their association with one another must be carefully managed. Perhaps the most common error in defective titles, and certainly the most damaging in terms of comprehension, is faulty syntax (word order). What is a good title? I define it as the fewest possible words that adequately describe the contents of the paper. Remember that the indexing and abstracting services depend heavily on the accuracy of the title, as do the many individual computerized literature-retrieval systems in use today. An improperly titled paper may be virtually lost and never reach its intended audience. Generally, a good title follows the following rules: 1. The title should not be too long or too short. Generally it is not more than 18 notional words. 2. “Waste” words such as Studies on,Investigations on,'' and Observations on should not be included. An opening A , An , or The is also awaste word. Certainly, such words are useless for indexing purposes. 3. Titles should almost never contain abbreviations, chemical formulas , proprietary (rather than generic) names,jargon, and the like. 4. The title should be useful as a label accompanying the paper itself, and it also should be in a form suitable for the machine-indexing systems used by various kinds of Abstracts databases. The meaning and order of the words in the title are of importance to the potential reader who sees the title in the journal table of contents. The terms in the title should be limited to those words that highlight the significant content of the paper in terms that are both understandable and retrievable. 本文根据相关资料编辑而成.
Abstracted from Elsevier.com partially: SUCCESSFUL GRANT WRITING 1. Generate an idea Why is this interesting and who cares? Who will benefit if the work is successful? How novel is this idea? Why am I the best person to do this? Can I realistically achieve what I claim? 2. Background research Understand the different agencies and their styles Talk to the Program Manager - they are used to cold calls! Do the literature search, if can save you weeks of writing? Assume the panel members know nothing about your work, but everything about your competitors. But don't expect the panel members to be experts in your field, put your idea into context. 3. Write technical portion What problem are you addressing? Why hasn't been solved yet? Why do you think you will succeed? What is your hypothesis? What is your work plan and milestones? How will you measure success? 4. Submit and forget Allow enough time to upload the files and check pdfs for readability and errors. Many agencies system get very busy during submission times - accept and prepare for this. Once submitted, forget about the proposal until you hear from the review panel. Make sure that the agency communications don't get filtered into your spam folder. Many agencies will return detailed reviews. Use the review to revise and resubmit your grant. PDF.pdf
I have been given 30 mins to talk about scientific writing and publishing to young Taiwanese oceanographers. I have exactly one month to prepare my ppt. What would you like to know if you were an audience?
In order to open your mouth, you have to open your heart first. I am not good at writing, especially with my distinct view on things. Chinese students have learnt to accept things very well, but they do not nurture a critical mind in them. Sadly, i am one of them. For a very long time, I do not even have a voice, I have remain silent to whatever phemomemon. I cannot say I am happy about that. then i ask myself, what can i do to make myself heard? My answer to the question is this: one has to open his heart first, then he will feel things in a unique way, and then he can form an opinion of his own. So the essential thing is you have to be yourself first, and your thoughts collide with that of authors of whose books you read, eventually, you will develop something yours. This is what happened when I read MOMENT IN PEKING. When I read along, i couldn't help follow the author's idear, and i applaud Taosism adopted by Mulan. I immediately thought I should adopt Taosism, and then my life will be much happier and easier. I have received all the message the writer want to convey and then what? and then nothing. I accept completely like i accept ideas from parents and teachers. I never question. this happened when I read other books. Because i am determined to have a voice of my own and I was encouraged to write something often, i write this as a start and to remind me to write along. I am going to tune my mindset to a right channel to recieve from the inner heart and to utter my feeling, step by step, though.
关注： 1) 写review report是，对文章可谓是精度，要查阅相关的参考文献，感觉比自己写文章还要仔细； 2）写review report 时，首先是大体映像，文章新意如何；剩下的就是挑刺过程； 3）通过写review report，对自己今后应该如何写文章，也是一个启发：不能有大的原则性错误，细节指出也不能马虎。 Review report: “Square Planar Carbon-Also in Solids” The authors investigatedthe chemical bonding and the origin of the stability of square planar carbon insurface carbides which were observed during the surface reconstructions of Coand Ni after C deposition. Two model systems were used: the top monolayer on Ni(100) and the small clusters (Ni 4 C + and Ni 12 C 4 2+ )embedded in the lattice charges. Electronic structures and stabilities ofsquare planar C on Ni (100) and Co (100) were computed using density-functionaltheory (DFT) implemented in VASP program. Cluster calculations were done withGaussian 09. Natural Bond Order, Molecular diagrams and Bloch states were usedfor chemical bonding analysis. They found that the reconstruction of the (100)surface leading to the formation of square planar C in the p4g sites of Ni and Co surfaces. The formationof the square planar C in these systems and their exceptional stability are dueto σ-aromaticity. The paper has a story ofthe chemical bonding and the stability of square planar carbon on Ni and Cosurfaces. The results and ways of think are useful to further understand theinterplay of carbon and transition metal surfaces. However, there are someissues that need to be clarified: (1) The authors usedsmall clusters (Ni 4 C + and Ni 12 C 4 2+ )embedded in the lattice charges to study the chemical bonding in the infinitecarbide surface, since the electron density in the top monolayer localizes largelyon the C atoms. However, square planar carbon is an old and interesting story.There are many contributions on square planar carbon cluster. It would be goodto mention the chemical bonding differences of clusters used here and in otherpaper. (2) “The occupied threelowest energy states are completely bonding and delocalized, i.e , cannot belocalized as classical 2-c-2e bonds.” Itis not clear to see how the states are delocalized in the paper. (3) “It was found thatonly M 4 C + (quartets) and M 12 C 4 2+ (sextets) had the charge distributions in a close agreement with those presentin the grid”. However, the charge present in the grid is not explicit in the paper. (4) “We considered smallclusters from the reconstructed (100) surface, embedded in the sea of chargesprovided by the top two monolayers within 10 Å from the embedded cluster”. What the distance of 10 Å refers to is notclear. (5) Some notes may beneeded for the inset pictures in Figure 1. R eader s may be also in trouble with the meanings of some signs in the paper, such as “p4g”, “B5” and ” 2-c-2e”. 导师修改后的reivew: The p4g clockreconstruction of C on Ni(100) is a fascinating example of a largereconstruction of a metal surface. Indeed, it is interesting to connect this up to the industry that has arisen of trying to stabilize square planar carbon. Regrettably, the attempt in this paper is flawed 【缺点, 裂纹, 瑕疵, 一阵狂风】, and I cannot recommend publication. Here are the problems I see: 1. The authors ignore the large and easily located literature (just put the name of thereconstruction into Google) of the physics surface science community on justthis reconstruction. Leading references are the Woodruff article in Vol. 7 ofThe Chemical Physics of Solids and Surfaces, edited by King and Woodruff , M. Rocca et al, Phys. Rev. B. 35, 9510(1987), Clink et al, Phys Rev. Lett. 71, 4350 (1993), CQ Sun Surface Review andLetters, 6, 109 (1999). References to these old papers should be traced forwardwith The Web of Science. 2. Sigma aromaticity isjust a peg【钉, 栓, 桩, 销子, 借口】 to hang on【坚持, 不挂断, 靠着, 渴望, 有赖于】 a claim to stability. There is no evidence that so-called sigma aromaticity has any correlation with kinetic persistence or thermodynamic stability (except in comparisons with similar small clusters where it is invoked). There is a lot of reaching 【遥不可及的, 无法达到的】for unusual bonding in the discussion in this paper. 3. There is an extended structure with a square-planar carbon surrounded by 4 Ni atoms; Musanke andJeitschko, Z. Naturf. 46b, 1177 (1991). The Hoffmann group subsequently published an analysis of the electronic structure of the systems, using Ni4Cclusters, Z. Naturfor. 56b, 322-332 (1998). 4. “It was found thatonly M 4 C + (quartets) and M 12 C 4 2+ (sextets) had the charge distributions in a close agreement with those presentin the grid”. However, the charge distributions in the grid are not given. “Weconsidered small clusters from the reconstructed (100) surface, embedded in thesea of charges provided by the top two monolayers within 10 Å from the embeddedcluster”. What the distance of 10 Årefers to is not clear.
【最近从小木虫上看到该文，结合这两年写文章的经验，感觉总结的非常好。值得好好系统学习。】 Whitesides Group: Writing a Paper George M. Whitesides Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA02138, USA 1.What is a scientific paper? A paper is an organized description of hypotheses, data and conclusions, intendedto instruct the reader. Papers are a central part of research. If your researchdoes not generate papers, it might just as well not have been done.“Interesting and unpublished” is equivalent to “non-existent.” Realize that your objective in research is to formulate and test hypotheses, todraw conclusions from these tests, and to teach these conclusions to others.Your objective is not to “collect data.” A paper is not just an archival device for storing a completed researchprogram, it is also a structure for planning your research in progress. If youclearly understand the purpose and form of a paper, it can be immensely usefulto you in organizing and conducting your research. A good outline for the paperis also a good plan for the research program. You should write and rewritethese plans/outlines throughout the course of the research. At the beginning,you will have mostly plan; at the end, mostly outline. The continuous effort tounderstand, analyze, summarize, and reformulate hypotheses on paper will beimmensely more efficient for you than a process in which you collect data andonly start to organize them when their collection is“complete.” 2.Outlines 2.1 The reason for outlines. I emphasize the central place of an outline in writing papers, preparingseminars, and planning research. I especially believe that for you, and for me,it is most efficient to write papers from outlines. An outline is a writtenplan of the organization of a paper, including the data on which it rests. Youshould, in fact, think of an outline as a carefully organized and presented setof data, with attendant objectives, hypotheses and conclusions, rather than anoutline of text. An outline itself contains little text. If you and I can agree on the detailsof the outline (that is, on the data and organization), the supporting text canbe assembled fairly easily. If we do not agree on the outline, any text isuseless. Much of the time in writing a paper goes into the text; most of thethought goes into the organization of the data and into the analysis. It can berelatively efficient to go through several (even many) cycles of an outlinebefore beginning to write text; writing many versions of the full text of apaper is slow. All the writing that I do - papers, reports, proposals (and, of course, slidesfor seminars)- I do from outlines. I urge you to learn how to use them as well. 2.2 How should you construct an outline? The classical approach is to start with a blank piece of paper, and write down,in any order, all important ideas that occur to you concerning the paper. Askyourself the obvious questions:“Why did I do this work?” “What does itmean?”“What hypothesis did I mean to test?”“What ones did I actuallytest?”“What were the results?”“Did the work yield a new method or compound?What?”“What measurements did I make?”“What compounds? How were theycharacterized?” Sketch possible equations, figures, and schemes. It isessential to try to get the major ideas written down. If you start the researchto test one hypothesis, and decide, when you see what you have, that the datareally seem to test some other hypothesis better, don't worry. Write them bothdown, and pick the best combinations of hypotheses, objectives and data. Oftenthe objectives of a paper when it is finished are different from those used tojustify starting the work. Much of good science is opportunistic andrevisionist. When you have written down what you can, start with another piece of paper andtry to organize the jumble of the first one. Sort all of your ideas into threemajor heaps (A-C). A) Introduction Why did I do the work? What were the central motivations and hypotheses? B) Results and Discussion What were the results? How were compounds made and characterized? What wasmeasured? C) Conclusions What does it all mean? What hypotheses were proved or disproved? What did Ilearn? Why does it make a difference? Next, take each of these sections, and organize it on yet finer scale.Concentrate on organizing the data. Construct figures, tables, and schemes topresent the data as clearly and compactly as possible. This process can be slow- I may sketch a figure 5-10 times in different ways, trying to decide how itis most clear (and looks best aesthetically). Finally, put everything—outline of sections, tables, sketches of figures,equations - in good order. When you are satisfied that you have included all the data (or that you knowwhat additional data you intend to collect), and have a plausible organization,give the outline to me. Simply indicate where missing data will go, how youthink (hypothesize) they will look, and how you will interpret them if yourhypothesis is correct. I will take this outline, add my opinions, suggestchanges, and return it to you. It usually takes 4-5 repeated attempts (oftenwith additional experiments) to agree on an outline. When we have agreed, thedata are usually in (or close to) final form (that is, the tables, figures,etc., in the outline will be the tables, figures,…in the paper.) You can then start writing, with some assurance that much of your prose will beused. The key to efficient use of your and my time is that we start exchangingoutlines and proposals as early in a project as possible. Do not, under anycircumstances, wait until the collection of data is “complete” before startingto write an outline. No project is ever complete, and it saves enormous effortand much time to propose a plausible paper and outline as soon as you see thebasic structure of a project. Even if we decide to do significant additionalwork before seriously organizing a paper, the effort of writing an outline willhave helped to guide the research. 2.3 The outline What should an outline contain? 1.Title: 2.Authors: 3.Abstract: Do not write an abstract. That can be done when the paper iscomplete. 4.Introduction: The first paragraph or two should be written out completely. Pay particularattention to the opening sentence. Ideally, it should state concisely theobjective of the work, and indicate why this objective is important. In general, the Introduction should have these elements: *The objectives of the work. *The justification for these objectives: Why is the work important? *Background: Who else has done what? How? What have we done previously? *Guidance to the reader. What should the reader watch for in the paper? Whatare the interesting high points? What strategy did we use? *Summary conclusion. What should the reader expect as conclusion? In advancedversions of the outline, you should also include all the sections that will goin the Experimental section (at this point, just as paragraph subheadings). 5.Results and Discussion. The results and discussion are usually combined. This section should beorganized according to major topics. The separate parts should have subheadingsin boldface to make this organization clear, and to help the reader scanthrough the final text to find the parts that interest him or her. Thefollowing list includes examples of the phrases that might plausibly serve assection headings: *Synthesis of Alkane Thiols *Characterization of Monolayers *Absolute Configuration of the Vicinal Diol Unit *Hysteresis Correlates with Roughness of the Surface *Dependence of the Rate Constant on Temperature *The Rate of Self-Exchange Decreases with the Polarity of the Solvent Try to make these section headings as specific and information-rich aspossible. For example, the phrase “The Rate of Self-Exchange Decreases with ThePolarity of The Solvent” is obviously longer than “Measurement of Rates,” butmuch more useful to the reader. In general, try to cover the major commonpoints: *Synthesis of starting materials *Characterization of products *Methods of characterization *Methods of measurement *Results (rate constants, contact angles, whatever) In the outline, do not write any significant amount of text, but get all thedata in their proper place: any text should simply indicate what will go inthat section. *Section Headings *Figures (with captions) *Schemes (with captions and footnotes) *Equations *Tables (correctly formatted) Remember to think of a paper as a collection of experimental results,summarized as clearly and economically as possible in figures, tables,equations, and schemes. The text in the paper serves just to explain the data,and is secondary. The more information that can be compressed into tables,equations, etc., the shorter and more readable the paper will be. 6.Conclusion. In the outline, summarize the conclusions of the paper as a list of shortphrases or sentences. Do not repeat what is in the Results section, unlessspecial emphasis is needed. The Conclusions section should be just that, andnot a summary. It should add a new, higher level of analysis, and shouldindicate explicitly the significance of the work. 7. Experimental. Include, in the correct order to correspond to the order in the Resultssection, all of the paragraph subheadings of the Experimental section. 2.4 In summary: * Start writing possible outlines for papers early in a project. Do not waituntil the “end”. The end may never come. * Organize the outline and the paper around easily assimilated data - tables,equations, figures, schemes - rather than around text. * Organize in order of importance, not in chronological order. An importantdetail in writing paper concerns the weight to be given to topics. Neophytesoften organize a paper in terms of chronology: that is, they recount theirexperimental program, starting with their cherished initial failures andleading up to a climactic successful finale. This approach is completely wrong.Start with the most important results, and put the secondary results later, ifat all. The reader usually does not care how you arrived at your big results,only what they are. Shorter papers are easier to read than longer ones. 3. Some Points of English Style 1) Do not use nouns as adjectives: 2) The word “this” must always be followed by a noun, so that its reference isexplicit 3) Describe experimental results uniformly in the past tense. 4) Use the active voice whenever possible. 5) Complete all comparisons. 6) Type all papers double-spaced (not single-or one-and-a-half spaced), andleave 1 space after colons, commas, and after periods at the end of sentences.Leave generous margins. (generally, 1.25” on both sides top bottom). Assume that we will write all papers using the style of the American ChemicalSociety. You can get a good idea of this style from three sources: 1) The Journal. Simply look at articles in the journals and copy theorganization you see there. 2) Previous papers from the group. By looking at previous papers, you can seeexactly how a paper should “look”. If what you wrote looks different, itprobably is not what we want. 3) The ACS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors. (Janet S. Dodd,Editor Washington, D.C. USA 1997) . Useful detail, especially the section on references. I also suggest you read Strunk and White, The Elements of Style (Longman: NewYork, 2000, 4th edition) to get a sense for English usage. Two excellent bookson the design of graphs and figures are: “The Visual Display of QuantitativeInformation” by Edward R. Tufte, Graphics Press (1983)— and “EnvisioningInformation” also by Edward R. Tufte, Graphics Press (1990). From： http://emuch.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=6347393fpage=1
Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduction for Language Teachers By Andy Kirkpatrick and Zhichang Xu Copy edited by Don Donahue. The authors of Chinese Rhetoric and Writing offer a response to the argument that Chinese students' academic writing in English is influenced by culturally nuanced rhetorical baggage that is uniquely Chinese and hard to eradicate. Noting that this argument draws from an essentially monolingual and Anglo-centric view of writing, they point out that the rapid growth in the use of English worldwide calls for a radical reassessment of what English is in today's world. The result is a book that provides teachers of writing, and in particular those involved in the teaching of English academic writing to Chinese students, an introduction to key stages in the development of Chinese rhetoric, a wide-ranging field with a history of several thousand years. Understanding this important rhetorical tradition provides a strong foundation for assessing and responding to the writing of this growing group of students. About the Authors Andy Kirkpatrick is Professor and Head, School of Languages and Linguistics, at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. Directly prior to that he was Director of the Research Centre into Language Education and Acquistion in Multilingual Societies at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. He is the author of English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model (Hong Kong University Press, 2010) and the editor of the Routledge Handbook of World Englishes (2010). He is editor of the journal Multilingual Education and of the book series of the same name (both with Springer). Zhichang Xu is a lecturer in English as an International Language (EIL) at Monash University, Australia. His research areas include Chinese English (as an emerging Expanding Circle variety of English), English language teaching (ELT), intercultural education, blended teaching and learning, academic writing, and Chinese studies. He is the author of Chinese English: Features and Implications (Hong Kong Open University Press, 2010), and the lead author of Academic Writing in Language and Education Programmes (Pearson, 2011). Publication Information: Kirkpatrick, Andy, and Xu, Zhichang. (2012). Chinese Rhetoric and Writing: An Introduction for Language Teachers . Fort Collins, Colorado: The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press. Available at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/kirkpatrick_xu/ Publication Date: March 5, 2012 Contact Information: Andy Kirkpatrick: a.kirkpatrick@griffith.edu.au Zhichang Xu: zhichang.xu@monash.edu.au Table of Contents Open the entire book: 1.9 MB Front Matter Introduction 1 Rhetoric in Ancient China 2 The Literary Background And Rhetorical Styles 3 The Rules of Writing in Medieval China and Europe 4 The Ba Gu Wen 5 Shuyuan and Chinese Writing Training and Practice 6 Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation: Words, Sentences and Complex Clauses 7 Principles of Sequencing and Rhetorical Organisation: Discourse and Text 8 The End of Empire and External Influences 9 Party Politics, the Cultural Revolution and Charter 08 10 A Review of Contemporary Chinese University Writing (Course) Books Conclusion Works Cited Notes Perspectives on Writing Series Editor: Susan H. McLeod, University of California, Santa Barbara This book is available in whole and in part in Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF). It is also available in print at Parlor Press . http://wac.colostate.edu/books/kirkpatrick_xu/
http://blogs.nature.com/naturejobs/2011/09/27/38-tips-on-writing-an-academic-cv 27 Sep 2011 | 16:25 GMT | Posted by Rachel Bowden | Category: Academia , Featured , PhD , Postdoc , Postgraduate , Research Many academic job vacancies have fairly basic application forms, so the main way you will get an interview is by having a very good academic CV, says Emma Baker, careers advisor for the graduate school at King’s College London . Baker outlined a number of tips for writing academic CVs at the 2011 Naturejobs Career Expo , held last week in London. Have a read and let us know what you think – if you have any to add, please leave a comment below. Length You may have heard that your CV shouldn’t be more than two pages long, but Baker says that doesn’t apply to academic CVs. “ seems to be the only field where you can make it as long as you want it to be,” she says. However, you’ll need to think carefully about the structure you use to make sure the length doesn’t put a potential employer off reading it. Structure The most important information should be on the first half of the first page , says Baker, and the very first thing should be your name , not the words ‘curriculum vitae’. Your contact details should be at the top of the first page and should include a professional-looking email address – avoid using an inappropriately worded personal account. Also be aware that your current work email address will most likely expire once you leave, so it may not be the best one to use. Baker adds that it’s no longer necessary to list your postal address on your CV, as most applications are done by email and the job application form probably asks for that information. Baker says she sees a lot of CVs that start by saying something like: “I’m a passionate, hard-working individual with a PhD and I’m good at working in teams.” Avoid generic terms like this – you want to stand out from the crowd. Concentrate on your ‘unique selling points’. Consider the use of appendices for lists of publications and other large sections. Content: the basics The three main sections that should form the bulk of your academic CV are: Research Teaching Administration Generally speaking, content in each section should be in reverse chronological order, with the most recent thing first. Research Baker recommends including the following in your section about research: A description of your PhD or postdoc – this could be a brief overview with a more detailed account listed in the appendices Consider writing a research statement about your current area of research or the area you want to move into Your publications – you can include papers that aren’t published yet if you indicate what stage they are at You may also want to include a concise list of the specific lab techniques that you have used. In the research section, include details of any funding you have received – if you haven’t secured a research grant or fellowship yet, consider including travel or conference grants . “Academics want to know that you have the capability of attracting funding and going through the process involved in creating a funding bid,” says Baker. Give details of the process that you went through and the amount you received. Don’t forget to include details of any conferences you’ve presented at, and make it clear whether you did a poster or oral presentation . Teaching Baker says people often overlook information about teaching on their CV and don’t give enough detail. Explain what level of teaching you have done, for example undergraduate or postgraduate, and what kind of teaching it was, for example a lecture or a seminar. Administration “However you look at going into an academic post, will probably form part of an academic career,” says Baker. Examples of admin experience you could mention include organising symposiums or mini-conferences. Tailoring your content The best way to customise the content of your CV for each job vacancy is to make it match the person specification . “Make sure you’ve got evidence for every single point on the person specification in your CV, because it should be the criteria that when deciding who they want to interview,” says Baker. Check the department’s website to see what kind of research they are currently involved in and what techniques you need to be aware of. Use your network of contacts to get information about the department to help tailor your CV. Formatting “Don’t be afraid to use bullet points ,” says Baker. If you do use them, try to limit the number of bullet points to five per section, and order them so the most relevant point is at the top. If you have more than five points to include, consider breaking the section down into sub-sections. Use a consistent style for headings and subheadings so it’s clear which content belongs together. Getting this wrong is “a really common mistake”, says Baker, and it’s one of the first things she looks at in a CV. Employers also place great importance on spelling and grammar , so make sure you ask someone to proofread your CV. Finally, if you’re not sure which international format you should use for your CV, ask the employer. “Universities are global now, so a lot of them will be used to receiving CVs in different formats,” says Baker, adding that the difference between CVs across countries is becoming less pronounced.
Jackass can trash a manuscript but it takes good scholarship to create one Writing our own manuscripts and reviewing our colleagues’ manuscripts become routine tasks, sometimes so daunting that I have been dealing with up and down mood swings for quite some time. Sometimes up for reading a beautifully written manuscript (A fresh idea or an inspirational story, you can sense the authors put their souls and hearts into writing); sometimes down for a poorly written manuscript (It is the same old story; you wonder if the authors read any updated literature or just no means to catch it up). Sometimes, I can hardly imagine a colleague who reviews my own manuscript of a poorly written version under time pressure. Understanding one's different perspective may help develop a good rapport with one another. Reading again the article by David G. Drubin,, Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Biology of the Cell, reminded me of scholarship and professionalism. I post it here to remind myself of these ten commandments, in particular as follows: “ Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” That is so true: “Any jackass can trash a manuscript, but it takes good scholarship to create one”. “What goes around comes around.” Someone who has received unfair reviews on his or her manuscripts is more likely to treat others similarly. That is, do ing someone a favor create good will that will ultimtely benefit the doer of the good deed as much as it does the recipient of the favor. Here it is: 77777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777 Editorial Any jackass can trash a manuscript, but it takes good scholarship to create one (how MBoC promotes civil and constructive peer review) David G. Drubin * + Affiliations 1. Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Biology of the Cell . The title of this editorial is a variation on the observation of the late U.S. Congressman and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, that “ any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.” These words apply as well to the peer review process as they do to politics. Authors pour their hearts, souls, and creative energies into performing experiments and reporting the results in manuscripts, yet reviewers often seem more intent on kicking down the barn than they are on trying to help the carpenter with its design and construction, or they demand the addition of an entire new wing to the original structure . Because publications are the most important currency for securing employment and research funds, and for a researcher’s scientific legacy , peer review issues are critical to all practicing research scientists. Here I provide guidelines to help reviewers, editors, and authors make the peer review process more constructive and civil, and highlight what Molecular Biology of the Cell ( MBoC ) is doing to realize these principles. HOW PEER REVIEW ALLOWS MBoC TO SUCCEED IN ITS MISSION The peer review process plays a vital role in allowing MBoC to succeed in its mission “to enhance scientific communication among cell biologists” and “to serve all cell biologist authors” (Botstein, 1998 ). The MBoC review process ensures that authors meet the highest standards for performing experiments and reporting and interpreting the results. A rigorous review process establishes that articles published in MBoC are reliable and credible. No scientist has the perspective required to detect every flaw in the design of his or her own studies or in the interpretation and presentation of the results. Input from one’s peers is essential. PROBLEMS WITH PEER REVIEW While the peer review process is generally considered indispensable to scientific communication, almost every scientist has experienced frustration and anguish upon receiving unfair, hypercritical, obstructive, and even mean-spirited manuscript reviews. Conflict of interest is a major concern, because “the persons most qualified to judge the… merit of a submitted research paper are precisely those who are that scientist’s closest competitors” (Judson, 1994 ). TEN RULES FOR REVIEWING A MANUSCRIPT SUBMITTED TO MBoC 1. Review a manuscript only if you can do so objectively Never accept an invitation to review a manuscript unless you can do so without bias, which results when an author is given too little or too much respect or when you have a stake in whether the manuscript is published. 2. Review a manuscript only if you can do so in a timely manner If you are too busy and cannot review a manuscript in a timely manner, don’t do it . MBoC , like most other journals, sets guidelines for what is an acceptable time for reviewing a manuscript. (We ask reviewers to complete their reviews within two weeks.) 3. Understand your role As a reviewer, you are a consultant to the monitoring editor, selected for your expertise . Your job is to evaluate the rigor and originality of the science and the clarity of the writing. On the basis of the advice of two or three reviewers, the monitoring editor decides whether a manuscript should be accepted, returned to the authors for revisions, or rejected. 4. Recognize the authors’ efforts and the merits of the work while being clear in identifying faults Manuscript reviews should start with a positive statement acknowledging the authors’ efforts and the merits of what was attempted and accomplished. Importantly, although reviews should always be written in a respectful and civil manner, it is also crucial that reviewers be explicit when identifying problems with a manuscript. If, in attempting to not hurt the authors’ feelings, reviewers give the impression that they think that the work is acceptable when they in fact think the opposite, they do a disservice to both the authors and the editor. 5. Be critical, but be constructive Whenever possible, reviewers should provide constructive advice to authors on how to improve their research and on how to communicate their results more clearly. 6. Be judicious in suggesting additional work It is obstructive to create work for authors by proposing additional experiments that are tangential to the study and that are not necessary to support the study’s main conclusions or to provide sufficient substance to justify manuscript acceptance. As a reviewer, you may wish to pass some suggestions to the authors that you do not consider essential for the manuscript. In this case, organize your comments into distinct sections, differentiating suggestions that you consider essential from those that could be part of a future study. 7. Leave it to future generations to judge a manuscript’s impact Rarely is it possible to predict a manuscript’s future impact. Therefore, reviewers should focus on the questions “Is it new and is it true?” originally articulated by MBoC ’s founding Editor-In-Chief, David Botstein. 8. Be a champion for your field Sometimes reviewers write obstructive reviews when someone else attempts to make an important contribution in their field. Remember, “What goes around comes around.” Someone who has received unfair reviews on his or her manuscripts is more likely to treat others similarly. Thus, if you want your papers to be reviewed in a just and civil manner, then follow this variant of the Golden Rule: “Review unto others as you would have them review unto you.” Start a positive feedback loop by being a champion for your field. In addition to helping to create a civil esprit de corps within your field, there are other advantages to being an advocate for papers in your research area. When reviewers promote papers in their field, editors are made aware of the excitement in the field, and more papers are likely to be accepted. Everyone benefits. 9. Remember that it is not your paper When reviewing a manuscript, your job is to help make the work more rigorous, complete, and clearly presented. Provided that the work meets the journal’s quality standards, the authors should have the final say in how material is presented and interpreted. It is their paper, not yours. 10. Be a good role model Reviewing manuscripts with your students and postdocs can provide a great teaching opportunity. Be aware, however, that young scientists can be a bit too eager to demonstrate their ability to find a manuscript’s faults rather than its strengths. Train them in the principles just outlined. Remember, if one of your students reviews the manuscript, it is up to you to make sure that the comments also accurately reflect your opinion, as you are the one submitting the review.
This book is a collection of creative pieces—poems, short stories, essays, play excerpts—that give shape to mathematical and scientific content. This book portrays by example how various people work creatively with ideas from mathematics and other sciences. Creative writing about the content of mathematics and science is rare, and creative writing about the activity of mathematical and scientific creation is even rarer. And yet, when it occurs, it can be extremely popular, as well known plays like Proof and Copenhagen and biographies like A Beautiful Mind and The Man Who Loved Only Numbers attest. What draws the public to these works? And why, given that something does, are there so few examples of literature that engages these themes? Mathematics and science are part of world culture, part of the human spirit, fit subjects for art of all kinds.Chandler Davis, Marjorie Senechal and Jan Zwicky, "The Shape of Content: Creative Writing in Mathematics and Science" pp216
1. Read the ‘Rules for Writing a PRL.’ (Again and again.) 2. Perfect the gures and their captions until they truly contain the main points you wantthe reader to carry away. 3. There are lots of possibilities in constructing a gure. (i) Put more than one curve,each clearly labelled on one x-y plot. (ii) Use an insert in the gure to show a geometry,a blow-up of a curve, or an experimental setup. (iii) Put two gures on top of or next toeach other in order to gain enhanced understanding from the fact that the eye can directlycompare them. 4. Writing is not easy; you must work at it. Be prepared to revise your writing many timeto achieve clarity. 5. The fundamental unit of writing is a sentence. \Use the active voice; it has moreimpact." If you doubt this, contrast the sentence above (actually two joined by a semicolon)with its passive voice alternate: \The active voice is to be preferred for its greater impact."Every sentence must be understandable on its own terms. If you nd yourself saying " Asecond sentence will make the rst one clear," go back and rewrite the rst sentence untilit is clear on its own. 6. A paragraph consists of sentences assemble to make a single point. If you discover two(or more!) points in one paragraph, break it up. 7. Paragraphs can be constructed in several ways. (i) The most conventional and easiestpattern for a scienti c reader is to start with a sentence that gives the point to be made.Subsequent sentences develop the argument so that by the end of the paragraph the pointis made. (ii) Alternately the paragraph has a smooth introduction from the last paragraphand then goes into an argument whose concluding sentence is the point of the paragraph.Use this less often than (i). (iii) Really brilliant writers can place the point of a paragraphin its middle and still be clear. Neither you nor I are that good. If you nd the main pointin the middle of the paragraph, rewrite! 8. Tricks of the trade. To help the reader nd things in your paper, consider using: (i) anitalicized (or underlines) phrase at the beginning of the paragraph to alert the reader tothe subject matter (as I did here), (ii) numbered subpoints so the reader can clearly ndthem (as I have done several times), (iii) display equations (as opposed to inline equations)to de ne the most important symbols, and (iv) detailed labels on gures to identify curves. 9. The most common \style error" are: (1) Using di erent symbols or phrases for the sameconcept. Once you carefully pick a symbol or phrase stick to it; (2) Omitting the hyphensfrom unit modi ers. (De nition: a unit modi er is two or more adjectives or nouns whichas a whole serve as a single adjective. Put hyphens between the parts of a unit modi er.)Example: spin-polarised neutrons
今天收到一个邮件邀请投稿， I'm writing to you on behalf of the Chinese Advanced Materials Society and the Editors-in-Chief for the upcoming Journal of the Chinese Advanced Materials Society (JCAMS; ISSN: 2224-3682), which is being published by Taylor Francis publishing group. 很好奇， Chinese Advanced Materials Society，结果就去看了一下网站 http://www.thecams.org/ 有些晕，没搞懂，请教高明指点。。。
The whole structure of a scientific article Title Abstract (Summar) Introduction Methodology Results (I ncluding tables and figures) Discussion Acknowledgements Bibliography The Title The title has two funtions: Attract other researchers to read your paper. Provide the best infromaiton possible to help elcetronic search programs find your paper easily. A practcal way to craft your title: Carefully choose the keywords in your article. Which word would you choose if you have to summarise your article in only one word? It would be the first key word. Construct your title using all the keywords and trying, as closely as you can, to put them in their rank order. If the title is too long, drop off the least important keywords first, but don't abandon them; you will need them to fill in thekeywordsection later on. Finally, edit this draftTitleto interpolate an indication of your main result or main conclusion--in other words, the real reason for writing this paper in the first place. P.S. The keywords should be nouns. Don't use ambiguous words like, big, huge, or small. Give a clear message about the effect, influence, change, or relation in your work. The Introduction The Introduction is where the author convinces the readers that the work has been well thought out and, at the same time, orientates the reader's thinking along the same pathway as that of the author. An Introduction includes: Define the scope of the study Define the problem State the objective Identify gaps in the knowledge about the subject State the purpose of the experiment Summarize the background to the research (Sufficiently but not too widely) State the question that you asked Provide a context for your investigation Briefly explain the theory involved Present an hypothesis or an expectation Two relatively simple principles: The hypothesis is the key to the Introduction. By justifying the hypothesis logically and scientifically, you provide just about everything necessary for readers to understand what your pater is about and why you wrote it. Two distinct sections: A short statement of what the author could logically have expected to find before starting the research, preceded by a reasonable scientific proposal justifying that statement. The second section is shorter than the first and contains the hypothesis. The first section has no other purpose than to justify the hypothesis. Typical Hypothesis for different purpose of research: I was just gathering data Explaining why you chose the particular topic to study, it means explaining how eventually you plan to use the 'base data'. The most satisfactory way to address these issues is to progress beyond the objective and predict what you are going to find, then justify that prediction. It is a questionnaire, not an experiment The questionnaire has to have a reasoned hypothesis about how people will respond. An account of that hypothesis and the reasoning behind it in the Introduction is the ideal way to explain your topic and prepare the reader to grasp and understand the rest of the article. This is methodology, not experimentation.
From： http://www1.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/ Below are brief summaries of each of the ten steps to writing an essay. Select the links for more info on any particular step, or use the blue navigation bar on the left to proceed through the writing steps. How To Write an Essay can be viewed sequentially, as if going through ten sequential steps in an essay writing process, or can be explored by individual topic. 1. Research : Begin the essay writing process by researching your topic, making yourself an expert. Utilize the internet, the academic databases, and the library. Take notes and immerse yourself in the words of great thinkers. 2. Analysis : Now that you have a good knowledge base, start analyzing the arguments of the essays you're reading. Clearly define the claims, write out the reasons, the evidence . Look for weaknesses of logic, and also strengths. Learning how to write an essay begins by learning how to analyze essays written by others . 3. Brainstorming : Your essay will require insight of your own , genuine essay-writing brilliance. Ask yourself a dozen questions and answer them . Meditate with a pen in your hand. Take walks and think and think until you come up with original insights to write about. 4. Thesis : Pick your best idea and pin it down in a clear assertion that you can write your entire essay around. Your thesis is your main point, summed up in a concise sentence that lets the reader know where you're going, and why . It's practically impossible to write a good essay without a clear thesis. 5. Outline : Sketch out your essay before straightway writing it out. Use one-line sentences to describe paragraphs , and bullet points to describe what each paragraph will contain . Play with the essay's order . Map out the structure of your argument, and make sure each paragraph is unified. 6. Introduction : Now sit down and write the essay. The introduction should grab the reader's attention , set up the issue, and lead in to your thesis. Your intro is merely a buildup of the issue, a stage of bringing your reader into the essay's argument. (Note: The title and first paragraph are probably the most important elements in your essay. This is an essay-writing point that doesn't always sink in within the context of the classroom. In the first paragraph you either hook the reader's interest or lose it. Of course your teacher, who's getting paid to teach you how to write an essay, will read the essay you've written regardless, but in the real world, readers make up their minds about whether or not to read your essay by glancing at the title alone.) 7. Paragraphs : Each individual paragraph should be focused on a single idea that supports your thesis. Begin paragraphs with topic sentences, support assertions with evidence, and expound your ideas in the clearest, most sensible way you can. Speak to your reader as if he or she were sitting in front of you. In other words, instead of writing the essay, try talking the essay. 8. Conclusion : Gracefully exit your essay by making a quick wrap-up sentence, and then end on some memorable thought, perhaps a quotation, or an interesting twist of logic, or some call to action. Is there something you want the reader to walk away and do? Let him or her know exactly what. 9. MLA Style : Format your essay according to the correct guidelines for citation. All borrowed ideas and quotations should be correctly cited in the body of your text, followed up with a Works Cited (references) page listing the details of your sources. 10. Language : You're not done writing your essay until you've polished your language by correcting the grammar, making sentences flow, incoporating rhythm, emphasis, adjusting the formality, giving it a level-headed tone, and making other intuitive edits. Proofread until it reads just how you want it to sound. Writing an essay can be tedious, but you don't want to bungle the hours of conceptual work you've put into writing your essay by leaving a few slippy misppallings and pourly wordedd phrazies.. You're done. Great job. Now move over Ernest Hemingway — a new writer is coming of age! ( Of course Hemingway was a fiction writer, not an essay writer, but he probably knew how to write an essay just as well. )
Scientific writing 101 Recipe This is based on PI's experience in writing manuscripts see disclaimer below . Experiment/analysis phase Get all figures and tables made. Generate a rough outline for the results with each point roughly represent a section in the manuscript, attach the figures and tables to the outline. Expand/revise/reshuffle each section of the outline for a coherent, logical presentation. For each result section, answer the following questions: How does this section connect with the previous one? What is the major question/objective/significance for this section? What are the approaches taken? What have you found? What is your interpretation? How do the findings relate to what's known (discussion)? What are the implications (discussion)? Unanswered question to connect to the next section. Identify deficiencies and incomplete sections, go back to 1 to get more analysis done Check overall flow between result sections Write discussion if not writing it together with results, including: What are the major findings? For each finding: What is the implication/significance? How does the finding compared to what's known? Are they consistent or contradictory? If contradictory, why do you think they are different? What is the caveats of the approaches taken? Why do you think this should be published given the caveats? How does the finding push the field forward? What need to be done in the future? Write introduction, focus on what we know that are relevant to the analysis and results. Starting general and then specific. Need to provide a good representation of what's known on the major questions addressed in the manuscript. Write abstract, a concise representation of: Background: The question and significance. Approaches taken and major findings. Implication and significance of findings. Disclaimer The use of the following guideline is at your own risk. These tips are provided "AS IS" and "as available" for use, without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. We makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy, reliability, timeliness, usefulness or completeness of any of the information contained here.That is, if your paper is rejected using the guideline above, I am not responsible in any way whatsoever... Copy from: http://shiulab.plantbiology.msu.edu/wiki/index.php/Scientific_writing_101#Disclaimer
As a goal ，i ask myself to write down something always to myself . however， each time i begin my journey ，i feel my brain going blankly，just like nothing impresses me ，nothing does matter with me，nothing worthes my words！ why？ First， to be frank，i am not good at writing，and lack of practicing. maybe there are something making me feel different and wonderful many times. however，at that time，i don't write down any word and think further. another day，everything goes usual and quite ，so does my mind，i don't want to write it any more and i can't write down a word. Second，i lack of communicating .in fact ，i seldom interact with others，i don't share my worlds with others. i don't know much about what others are thinking about. what are they caring about. what are they doing at this moment. as a result，i go away from the real world and true life further and further. Last but not at the least. i can't digest what i read and what comes into my mind. as the world changing fastly，the information explosion makes me lost the way. i always feel confused and don't know what is right and what is wrong. and i accept all of them without filter out any information. as a result，my brain quits of work and goes blank and mad. what can i do？ On the one hand，write Diligently and practice more！keep curious ！whenever something inspire you. take out your pen and write it down. On the other hand. speak more、experience more and share more. writing stories from others‘ words ，from your experiences，from sharing ideas with others. Futher more，learn to give up and think deeply. get the information you needed and filter out useless. and think deeply of what you don't give up and digest them with your best efforts. To sum up ： a good writer is a diligent Practitioners+a reasonable lifer+a good thinker ！
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_buzzwords plus one for my NSF proposal: Detection and attribution No, I didn't want to add such words. I like plain but clear writing, using solid scientific evidence. However, my colleague asked me to trust him, that is, let him re-write what I wrote. OMG! I wonder how he is going to ruin my writing...
Ｉjust cannot help writing this. Anna来到办公室，兴高采烈的跟我谈她在刚刚结束的intecol上的收获，激情四射的，我觉得这个女孩浑身都在发光. 她在INTECOL的时候有几个晚上都是在和几个巴拿马的年轻教授( http://www.stri.si.edu/ )喝酒聊学术，其中的一个年轻教授已经发了两篇science ( http://www.stri.si.edu/english/scientific_staff/staff_scientist/scientist.php?id=41 ) ．我只是知道Anna是个相当social的女孩，有着２４岁女孩的激情和活力．然后她今天告诉我，那些个晚上，她其实已经头疼嗓子哑的；但是她已经被她所畅想的科研项目所痴迷，她需要和几个教授们好好谈谈． 也许我的行动力是欠缺了，但是激情尚有，她跟我讲了１５分钟，我都心潮澎湃了．她的本科专业是化学，现在硕博连读做的是NMR( Nuclear magnetic resonance )在湿地生地化循环中的应用。在过去的一年里，基本上就是利用她本科的化学背景来钻研这个技术，阅读大量文献并在会议上展出了关于该技术应用在碳氮磷的进展的poster。我之前也说过，有很多个晚上她都和我在办公室，距离开会前的几个周末她经常７点就到办公室，修改她的poster．我来之后，总要听她兴致勃勃地跟我讲讲她的最新修改，这个女孩子就像一团火总是让我激动．有很多时候，都有冲动写一些关于她的文章，比如那天she said FSU has one of the most advanced NMR machine in the world ( http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/about/tallahassee.html )，虽然FSU( florida state university)并不是一个很好的学校，但是世界级的仪器竟然在那个学校，而且重要的是如果学生有自己的项目是可以免费使用那个仪器的。仍然记得 Anna当天从FSU看完仪器回来跟我说＂终于知道学化学的重要性的，很后悔当初没有好好的记住一些化学知识．＂ 写这篇文章自己是有些冲动的，所以文章结构顾不上．继续说她会议归来的收获．早上她是拿着世界地图进来的，因为她要做一个世界范围内的项目，包括中国印度．会议上来自世界各地的湿地人讲述各自国家的研究，她同美国好几个主要的湿地实验室的教授进行交流，很多教授都对她的项目感兴趣．她得意地说她和某某著名教授拥抱，某某教授跪在她的poster上和她一起讨论，一个中国教授也写信给她要poster(我很高兴）．她给我边看边讲解她周六早上（周五结束的会议）在笔记本上写下的关于自己研究的几个hypothesis和最新发表在nature上的一篇引起她思考的文章．也许很多读者读到这里的时候会想这个女孩太会显摆了，但是一个２４岁的孩子一个刚进入科研领域的学生，能有这些有理有据的科研思考和畅想，并且有清晰的规划，意识到合作的重要性，不是一种很难能可贵的品质吗？“Our department has fell in behind at least 20years", 这是她给我印象很深的一句话，她说自己的项目在学院并没有引起重视，但是却得到世界其他科研人的兴趣，她渴望与世界进行合作，因为会议给与她深刻印象之一是湿地类型多样控制因素多样，好的研究是需要合作而非单枪匹马的一亩半分田的自我耕耘的。 Anna正常的硕博连读是五年，第一年拿到NSF，现在有了更多的好的想法而且已经有很好的人脉支持。她说＂I like to talk to others about my idea. At least in this department, I am the only person who knows well the technique (NMR), people who want to do this will ask me for help. And I also gained the support from the world-famous wetland scientists who have published several Nature/Science paper." 这种雄心壮志，真是让人无语了。另外我想说得是，她非常积极地强调”让更多地年轻人参与进来“，这个“年轻人“指本科生。她的计划是在采样过程中召集本科生和她一起对不同的湿地进行考察，这种想法是她职业规划中很重要的一部分，也许是因为她在本科时就深受志愿者的好处。她希望自己的science能够被大众所接受 。 我一直是对科研存有敬畏的，尤其是那些认真做科学的，很庆幸能够认识一些那种为科学狂热的朋友，想起了好友王凡的一篇久远的文章＂科学的巨大磁场＂（ http://bbs.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=309239do=blogid=514314 ） 。 做科学，热情和兴趣是一件很难得的事情，但是坚持则是需要和时间抗衡的 。而在国内很多外部的因素成为打击学生做科学热情和兴趣的主要原因，很遗憾很丧气 。 我又想多了，但心怀期待 。 (let's do it globally!)
by Paul T. P. Wong, Ph.D., C.Psych. (Research Director, Graduate Program in Counselling Psychology. Trinity Western University Langley, BC, Canada) Most students and beginning researchers do not fully understand what a research proposal means, nor do they understand its importance. To put it bluntly, one’s research is only as a good as one’s proposal. An ill-conceived proposal dooms the project even if it somehow gets through the Thesis Supervisory Committee. A high quality proposal, on the other hand, not only promises success for the project, but also impresses your Thesis Committee about your potential as a researcher. A research proposal is intended to convince others that you have a worthwhile research project and that you have the competence and the work-plan to complete it. Generally, a research proposal should contain all the key elements involved in the research process and include sufficient information for the readers to evaluate the proposed study. Regardless of your research area and the methodology you choose, all research proposals must address the following questions: What you plan to accomplish, why you want to do it and how you are going to do it. The proposal should have sufficient information to convince your readers that you have an important research idea, that you have a good grasp of the relevant literature and the major issues, and that your methodology is sound. The quality of your research proposal depends not only on the quality of your proposed project, but also on the quality of your proposal writing. A good research project may run the risk of rejection simply because the proposal is poorly written. Therefore, it pays if your writing is coherent, clear and compelling. This paper focuses on proposal writing rather than on the development of research ideas. Title: It should be concise and descriptive . For example, the phrase, “An investigation of . . .” could be omitted. Often titles are stated in terms of a functional relationship, because such titles clearly indicate the independent and dependent variables. However, if possible, think of an informative but catchy title. An effective title not only pricks the reader’s interest, but also predisposes him/her favourably towards the proposal. Abstract: It is a brief summary of approximately 300 words. It should include the research question, the rationale for the study, the hypothesis (if any), the method and the main findings . Descriptions of the method may include the design, procedures, the sample and any instruments that will be used. Introduction: The main purpose of the introduction is to provide the necessary background or context for your research problem. How to frame the research problem is perhaps the biggest problem in proposal writing. If the research problem is framed in the context of a general, rambling literature review, then the research question may appear trivial and uninteresting. However, if the same question is placed in the context of a very focused and current research area , its significance will become evident. Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules on how to frame your research question just as there is no prescription on how to write an interesting and informative opening paragraph. A lot depends on your creativity, your ability to think clearly and the depth of your understanding of problem areas . However, try to place your research question in the context of either a current “hot” area, or an older area that remains viable. Secondly, you need to provide a brief but appropriate historical backdrop . Thirdly, provide the contemporary context in which your proposed research question occupies the central stage. Finally, identify “key players” and refer to the most relevant and representative publications . In short, try to paint your research question in broad brushes and at the same time bring out its significance. The introduction typically begins with a general statement of the problem area, with a focus on a specific research problem, to be followed by the rational or justification for the proposed study. The introduction generally covers the following elements : 1. State the research problem , which is often referred to as the purpose of the study. 2. Provide the context and set the stage for your research question in such a way as to show its necessity and importance. 3. Present the rationale of your proposed study and clearly indicate why it is worth doin g. 4. Briefly describe the major issues and sub-problems to be addressed by your research. 5. Identify the key independent and dependent variables of your experiment. Alternatively, specify the phenomenon you want to study. 6. State your hypothesis or theory , if any. For exploratory or phenomenological research, you may not have any hypotheses. (Please do not confuse the hypothesis with the statistical null hypothesis.) 7. Set the delimitation or boundaries of your proposed research in order to provide a clear focus. 8. Provide definitions of key concepts . (This is optional.) Literature Review: Sometimes the literature review is incorporated into the introduction section. However, most professors prefer a separate section, which allows a more thorough review of the literature. The literature review serves several important functions: 1. Ensures that you are not “reinventing the wheel”. 2. Gives credits to those who have laid the groundwork for your research. 3. Demonstrates your knowledge of the research problem. 4. Demonstrates your understanding of the theoretical and research issues related to your research question. 5. Shows your ability to critically evaluate relevant literature information. 6. Indicates your ability to integrate and synthesize the existing literature. 7. Provides new theoretical insights or develops a new mode l as the conceptual framework for your research. 8. Convinces your reader that your proposed research will make a significant and substantial contribution to the literature (i.e., resolving an important theoretical issue or filling a major gap in the literature). Most students’ literature reviews suffer from the following problems: * Lacking organization and structure * Lacking focus, unity and coherence * Being repetitive and verbose * Failing to cite influential papers * Failing to keep up with recent developments * Failing to critically evaluate cited papers * Citing irrelevant or trivial references * Depending too much on secondary sources Your scholarship and research competence will be questioned if any of the above applies to your proposal. There are different ways to organize your literature review. Make use of subheadings to bring order and coherence to your review. For example, having established the importance of your research area and its current state of development, you may devote several subsections on related issues as: theoretical models, measuring instruments, cross-cultural and gender differences, etc. It is also helpful to keep in mind that you are telling a story to an audience. Try to tell it in a stimulating and engaging manner. Do not bore them, because it may lead to rejection of your worthy proposal. (Remember: Professors and scientists are human beings too.) Methods: The Method section is very important because it tells your Research Committee how you plan to tackle your research problem. It will provide your work plan and describe the activities necessary for the completion of your project. The guiding principle for writing the Method section is that it should contain sufficient information for the reader to determine whether methodology is sound. Some even argue that a good proposal should contain sufficient details for another qualified researcher to implement the study. You need to demonstrate your knowledge of alternative methods and make the case that your approach is the most appropriate and most valid way to address your research question. Please note that your research question may be best answered by qualitative research. However, since most mainstream psychologists are still biased against qualitative research, especially the phenomenological variety, you may need to justify your qualitative method. Furthermore, since there are no well-established and widely accepted canons in qualitative analysis, your method section needs to be more elaborate than what is required for traditional quantitative research. More importantly, the data collection process in qualitative research has a far greater impact on the results as compared to quantitative research. That is another reason for greater care in describing how you will collect and analyze your data. (How to write the Method section for qualitative research is a topic for another paper.) For quantitative studies , the method section typically consists of the following sections: 1. Design -Is it a questionnaire study or a laboratory experiment? What kind of design do you choose? 2. Subjects or participants - Who will take part in your study ? What kind of sampling procedure do you use? 3. Instruments - What kind of measuring instruments or questionnaires do you use? Why do you choose them? Are they valid and reliable? 4. Procedure - How do you plan to carry out your study? What activities are involved? How long does it take? Results: Obviously you do not have results at the proposal stage. However, you need to have some idea about what kind of data you will be collecting , and what statistical procedures will be used in order to answer your research question or test you hypothesis. Discussion: It is important to convince your reader of the potential impact of your proposed research. You need to communicate a sense of enthusiasm and confidence without exaggerating the merits of your proposal. That is why you also need to mention the limitations and weaknesses of the proposed research, which may be justified by time and financial constraints as well as by the early developmental stage of your research area. Common Mistakes in Proposal Writing 1. Failure to provide the proper context to frame the research question. 2. Failure to delimit the boundary conditions for your research. 3. Failure to cite landmark studies. 4. Failure to accurately present the theoretical and empirical contributions by other researchers. 5. Failure to stay focused on the research question. 6. Failure to develop a coherent and persuasive argument for the proposed research. 7. Too much detail on minor issues, but not enough detail on major issues. 8. Too much rambling — going “all over the map” without a clear sense of direction. (The best proposals move forward with ease and grace like a seamless river.) 9. Too many citation lapses and incorrect references. 10. Too long or too short. 11. Failing to follow the APA style. 12. Slopping writing. 下面是来自其他一些学术从业者关于如何写proposal的意见： * Writing Research Proposals, Drew University On-line resources for writers. * Guide to Writing a Research Proposal, University of Technology, Sydney. (A research proposal is required for admission to the program.) * Beginners Guide to the Research Proposal, University of Calgary Centre for Advancement of Health. * The Art of Writing Proposals: Some Candid Suggestions for Applicants to Social Science Research Council Competitions, Adam Przeworski and Frank Salomon. * The Elements of a Proposal, Frank Pajares, Emory University. 以及，关于如何写学位论文proposal的指导（Dissertation Proposal Writing and some strategies for completing the dissertation） * Dissertation Proposal Workshop, Institute of International Studies, UC-Berkeley. * Writing and Presenting your Thesis or Dissertation , LearningAssociates.net. * Dissertation/Project Hints: Proposal Writing, Hazel Hall, School of Computing, Napier University, Edinburgh, UK. * Writing Theses and Dissertations, Claremont Graduate University Writing Center.
Well, you may disagree with me. For one thing, AMS has copy editors, at least it used to (since I haven't published anything with AMS lately), but AGU does not (and still does not). Both AMS and AGU started to post links to editing companies. If you exam the two sites, you will likely agree with me that AMS's links are better than AGU's. http://www.ametsoc.org/pubs/preeditservices.html http://www.agu.org/pubs/authors/ You may wonder why I should care? Well, I was contacted by the CEO of AGU, regarding how to help researchers to improve their skills of writing and speaking (because my name and email were sent to her by someone on an AGU committee). Here is what I wrote to her: "I think the AGU can call for volunteers, especially those who have recently retired and want to stay in touch. Another way is to use freelancers like me. I checked the AGU site for authors, and it has three links to editing companies. I think more, and better, links should be added. (I made an attempt to be listed, but failed--the staff I contacted at the AGU didn't know how to find the person who is responsible for the web site.) For example, the AGU can list Nature Publishing Group Language Editing: http://languageediting.nature.com/editing-services Elsevier English language editing: http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices/ http://www.liwenbianji.cn/ is the biggest editing company in China. The AGU could also set up its own editing company..."
Here enclosed the PhDdissertation of Christopher Tribble (1999). Writing Difficult Texts. Ph.D. diss., Lancaster University. http://www.ctribble.co.uk/text/phd.htm 1. Family name: TRIBBLE 2. First names: Christopher Thomas All chapters can be downloaded as PDF files.Two large Excel spreadsheets used in the Lexical Dimensions chapter, can also be downloaded.For the moment I haven't had time to sort the Appendices out so that they can be uploaded to the web.If you have an urgent need for any information you think is important in this part of the thesis, please contact me. Abstract Title Page, acknowledgements and table of contents 01 Writing Difficult Text 02 Teaching Writing 03 Approaching the Data 04 What are we looking for? 05 Grammar and Style 06 Lexical dimensions 07 Organisation 08 Writing Project Proposals 09 Helping Students Write Difficult Texts Bibliography Corpus Results Biber Factor scores Corpus Results Original Counts
Resources of Salient Patch Features This page is under construction. Welcome to propose new papers or works by writing to me cao4 @ifp."you-eye-you-see".edu . Your help will be cordially appreciated and acknowledged. Thank you! : updated some codes (surf, HOG, GPS-based) Image Patch Detectors C Harris, M Stephens, A combined corner and edge detector , Alvey Vision Conference, 1988 ( high resolution file ) Edward Rosten and Tom Drummond's FAST corner detection. J. Shi and C. Tomasi . Good Features to Track, CVPR 1994. a better measure than traditional M c CS Kenney, M Zuliani , BS Manjunath , An axiomatic approach to corner detection , CVPR 2006. H. Wang and M. Brady. " Real-time corner detection algorithm for motion estimation. ". Image and Vision Computing, 1995 Wiki's Corner Detection List : SUSAN, DoG , Harris- Laplacian , FAST David G. Lowe, Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints , IJCV, 2004. DoG is approximation of Laplacian of Gaussian ================================MSER====================================== J. Matas , O. Chum, M. Urban, and T. Pajdla . Robust wide baseline stereo from maximally stable extremal regions , BMVC, 2002. MSER Per-Erik Forssén , Maximally Stable Colour Regions for Recognition and Matching , CVPR, 2007 extending MSER to color =========================================================================== K. Mikolajczyk and C. Schmid , Scale and Affine invariant interest point detectors . IJCV, 2004. Hessian /Harris + LoG : said to be good affine detector F. Jurie and C. Schmid , Scale-invariant shape features for recognition of object categories, CVPR, 2004. T. Kadir , and M. Brady, Scale, Saliency and Image Description . IJCV 2001 said to obtain better results in general object recognition HerbertBay, Tinne Tuytelaars , Luc Van Gool , " SURF: Speeded Up Robust Features ", ECCV, 2006 fast SURF detector: approximate Hessian =========================================================================== · T Lindeberg , Edge detection and ridge detection with automatic scale selection , CVPR, 1996 Patch Descriptors for Image David G. Lowe, Distinctive image features from scale-invariant keypoints , IJCV, 2004. Per-Erik Forssén and David G. Lowe, Shape descriptors for maximally stable extremal regions , ICCV 2007. A. Hadid , M. Pietikainen ,T. Ahonen , A discriminative feature space for detecting and recognizing faces , CVPR, 2004 ==================================== HoG ====================================== N Dalai, B Triggs , Histograms of oriented gradients for human detection , CVPR, 2005 N Dalai, B Triggs , and C. Schmid , Human detection using oriented histograms of flow and appearance , ECCV 2006 · Q Zhu, S Avidan , MC Yeh , KT Cheng, Fast Human Detection Using a Cascade of Histograms of Oriented Gradients , CVPR, 2006 · S. Bileschi and L. Wolf, Image representations beyond histograms of gradients: The role of Gestalt descriptors . CVPR, 2007. · Bosch, A. , Zisserman , A. and Munoz, X . , Representing shape with a spatial pyramid kernel , CIVR, 2007 · ============================= Shape Context ============================== · S Belongie , J Malik , J Puzicha , Shape context: A new descriptor for shape matching and object recognition , NIPS 2000. · G Mori,S Belongie , J Malik , Shape contexts enable efficient retrieval of similar shapes, CVPR, 2001 · G Mori, J Malik , Estimating human body configurations using shape context matching, ECCV 2002 · H Zhang, J Malik , Learning a discriminative classifier using shape context distances, CVPR 2003 · A Thayananthan , B Stenger , PHS Torr , R Cipolla , Shape context and chamfer matching in cluttered scenes, CVPR 2003 · =============================Angular Radial Histogram============================== A Chalechale , A Mertins , G Naghdy , Edge image description using angular radial partitioning , IEE Proc. Vision, Image and Signal, 2004 Lei Qin, Wen Gao . Image Matching Based on A Local Invariant Descriptor , ICIP, 2005 Angular Radial Histogram =========================================================================== K. Mikolajczyk , C. Schmid . A performance evaluation of local descriptors . PAMI 2005 GLOH is said to be superior to SIFT than structure image. but more computational expensive HerbertBay, Tinne Tuytelaars , Luc Van Gool , " SURF: Speeded Up Robust Features ", ECCV, 2006 fast SURF descriptors: Haar -wavelet response using integral image ============================== Poggio's cortex based ============================== T. Serre , L. Wolf, and T. Poggio . Object recognition with features inspired by visual cortex . CVPR, 2005. J. Mutch and D. Lowe, Multiclass object recognition with sparse, localized features , CVPR 2006. L. Wolf andS. Bileschi , A critical view of context , IJCV, 2006. · T. Serre , L. Wolf,S. Bileschi , M. Riesenhuber , and T. Poggio Robust Object Recognition with Cortex-like Mechanisms , PAMI, 2007. · Ethan. Meyers and Lior Wolf , Using Biologically Inspired Features for Face Processing , IJCV, 2008. · Ankur Agarwal , Bill Triggs , Multilevel Image Coding with Hyperfeatures , IJCV 2007. · D. Song and D. Tao, Biologically Inspired Feature Manifold for Scene Classification, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, accepted. · Y. Huang et al, Enhanced Biologically Inspired Model, CVPR 2008. · D. Song and D. Tao, C1 Units for Scene Classification, ICPR 2008. · ==============================Gabor, LBP ====================================== Gabor filter on Wiki , Detecting bars and lines on CVonline · J-K Kämäräinen et al, Object Localisation Using Generative Probability Model for Spatial Constellation and Local Image Features , ICCV-NRTL 2007 . · Chengjun Liu , Gabor-based Kernel PCA with Fractional Power Polynomial Models for Face Recognition , PAMI, 2004. YingNian Wu, Zhangzhang Si, Chuck Fleming, and SongChun Zhu, Deformable template as active basis , ICCV 2007. · Marko Heikkilä , Matti Pietikäinen , Cordelia Schmid : Description of Interest Regions with Center-Symmetric Local Binary Patterns. ICVGIP 2006. · ============================== Dense Sampled Shape Descriptor ================================= · H. Zhang, A. Berg , , M. Maire , and J. Malik . SVM-KNN: Discriminative nearest neighbor classication for visual category recognition. In CVPR, pages 2126–2136, 2006. shape + texture; NN + SVM A. Bosch , A. Zisserman , and X. Munoz. Representing shape with a spatial pyramid kernel . In Proc. CIVR, 2007. grid sampling + all three scale - SIFT descriptor Canny + sobel filter - HoG descriptor M. Varma and D. Ray. Learning the discriminative power-invariance trade-off . ICCV 2007 SVM-based, Invariance trade-off combine 6 features mentioned above caltech 101: 78.4%(1-vs-1) and 87.8% (1-vs-all) Evaluations K Mikolajczyk , T Tuytelaars , C Schmid , A Zisserman , J Matas , F Schaffalitzky , T Kadir ,LV Gool . A comparison of affine region detectors . IJCV, 2005 K. Mikolajczyk , C. Schmid . A performance evaluation of local descriptors . PAMI 2005 · C Schmid , R Mohr, C Bauckhage , Evaluation of Interest Point Detectors . IJCV 2000 Michael Stark , Bernt Schiele , How Good are Local Features for Classes of Geometric Objects , ICCV 2007 Matching and Indexing Algorithms J. Matas and O. Chum. Randomized RANSAC with Tdd test . BMVC, 2002. (later appeared in Image and Vision Computing, 2005) S. Obdrzálek and J. Matas . Sub-linear indexing for large scale object recognition , BMVC, 2005 best paper. O. Chum and J. Matas . Matching with PROSAC - progressive sample consensus . CVPR 2005. K. Mikolajczyk and J. Matas . Improving sift for fast tree matching by optimal linear projection . ICCV, 2007 Dusan Omercevic , Ondrej Drbohlav , Ales Leonardis , High-dimensional feature matching: Employing the concept of meaningful nearest neighbors , ICCV 2007 Richard Szeliski , Image Alignment and Stitching: A Tutorial , Chapter 3-4, 2006 Dimension Reduction, Vocabulary J. Winn, A. Criminisi and T. Minka . Object Categorization by Learned Universal Visual Dictionary , ICCV 2005 S. Savarese , J. Winn and A. Criminisi , Discriminative Object Class Models of Appearance and Shape by Correlatons , CVPR 2006 F. Jurie and B. Triggs , Creating efficient codebooks for visual recognition , ICCV 2005 E. Nowak, F. Jurie , and B. Triggs . Sampling strategies for bag-of-features image classication . ECCV, 2006 F. Moosmann , B. Triggs , and F. Jurie . Randomized clustering forests for building fast and discriminative visual vocabularies . NIPS 2006. Eric Nowak and Frédéric Jurie , Learning Visual Similarity Measures for Comparing Never Seen Objects , CVPR 2007 Applications J. Sivic , and A. Zisserman , Video Google: A Text Retrieval Approach to Object Matching in Videos , ICCV 03 Matthew Brown and David G. Lowe, Automatic panoramic image stitching using invariant features , IJCV, 2007. ; ; Edward Rosten and Tom Drummond, Fusing points and lines for high performance tracking , ICCV 2005 Donoser Michael, Bischof Horst, Efficient Maximally Stable Extremal Region (MSER) Tracking , CVPR,2006 A. M. Buchanan and A. W. Fitzgibbon, Interactive Feature Tracking using K-D Trees and Dynamic Programming , CVPR, 2006 M. Ozuysal , P. Fua , and V. Lepetit , Fast Keypoint Recognition in Ten Lines of Code . CVPR, 2007. Roger Grosse, Rajat Raina , Helen Kwong and Andrew Y. Ng. Shift-Invariant Sparse Coding for Audio Classification , UAI, 2007. Software and Other Resources Peter Kovesi' s Spatitial feature detection: canny , harris , fast radial , Garbor Edward Rosten FAST corner detector Vincent Garcia's keypoint extraction at Matlab Central SURF: ETH binary and an openCV implementation SIFT on GPU . ( with source code ): http://cs.unc.edu/~ccwu/siftgpu/ Optical Flow on GPU : http://openvidia.sourceforge.net/ HOG: Dalal’s toolkit . windows version using OpenCV boost . Sebastian Nowozin @TU-Berlin's SIFT implementation in C# Andrea Vedaldi @UCLA's SIFT, MSER, and VL Feature Library : SIFT for two 800x600 im : Gaussian (4sec) + detector (3sec) + descriptor (40sec) + siftmatch (24sec) + plotss (17sec). MSER: several second: but not clear feature descriptor Gyuri Dorkó @ INRIA's scale and affine Linux binary Vgg's affine region detectors and descriptors (binary) and Krystian Mikolajczyk's matching , indexing Course and Tutorial Cordelia Schmid and David Lowe's CVPR 03 tutorial Acknowledgement I am very thankful to Xu Zhao for the nice suggestions on shape context.
PhD and Yong faculty need the following helps in academic research: 1. style grammar and Language; 2 writing for publication; 3 publishing ethics; 4 research assessment; 5 international digital publishing landscape
http://eca.state.gov/education/engteaching/pubs/BR/functionalsec2_3.htm Reading Into Writing 3 Text Analysis and Pedagogical Summaries: Revisiting Johns and Davies Ann Johns and Danette Paz Although students are often required to write summaries, they often either lack appropriate strategies for writing effective summaries or are taught relatively inflexible strategies inappropriate to the genre they are reading. This chapter argues that Johns and Davies' (1983) topic types demonstrate how form and content interact and provide useful scaffolding for identifying the macro-structure of a text. Applications for research and pedagogy are described. Summarizing is a common strategy in reading, writing and talking, both within our second/foreign language classrooms and without. Yet few, if any, course books or manuals give practitioners adequate assistance for teaching academic summarizing to ESL/EFL students or for analyzing and evaluating student summaries from different content areas once they have been written. This example of a set of summary instructions, taken from a popular ESL textbook written in the 1980s, Approaches to Academic Reading and Writing, is still quite typical. The authors tell students to: 1. Read the original text carefully. 2. Identify the controlling idea and the relationships among the supporting ideas. 3. Decide which examples are necessary for a clear understanding of the text. 4. Write a first sentence which includes the source of the summary and the controlling idea. 5. Indicate whether the author is uncertain of the facts or expressing personal opinions. 6. Avoid making comments about or adding information to text. 7. Make the summary one-fourth or one-third the length of the original. (1984: 145) All of these instructions are challenging for second/foreign language students; however, #2 is particularly difficult, we have discovered. Many students find it impossible to identify the controlling idea, or thesis, since in some texts this idea is implicit, or in the cases of the scientific texts that we will be discussing, it may not be relevant. For students to be able to discover the relationships among the supporting ideas, they must understand the macrostructure of the text, the organizational scaffolding upon which the text content is constructed. Few published curricula provide useful assistance in solving the problems that #2 poses for students or in figuring out the other summarizing problems that students face in their academic classes. Some Previous Research We have been analyzing summaries written by college and university students for the past decade or so (Johns, 1985; Johns Mayes, 1990). In these efforts, we have attempted to understand the theoretical formulations of the comprehenders' goals (Kintsch van Dijk, 1975: 363) through examining how student summary writers reduce, replicate and distort the original texts. In our studies, the students were given an hour to summarize in about 100 words a 500-word passage from their assigned textbooks. Results from our studies (Johns, 1985; Johns Mayes, 1990) indicated that the student subjects, at both high and low English proficiency levels, did not utilize text organization to assist them in planning and writing their summaries. They appeared to have little understanding of the text macrostructure that would aid them to replicate the organization of the original. The students also seemed to have no preconceived plan for integrating text structure and content, for discovering where in the text important ideas are found. Most student summaries concentrated upon information from the first paragraphs of the original text; the others focused almost exclusively upon interesting details. In addition, the students inserted what Kintsch and van Dijk call distortions (1975), personal comments about how they liked the reading or what they thought about the topic. Because our students appeared to make little or no use of original text macrostructures to complete their summaries, they seemed to be unaware of how form and content interact for the purposes of comprehension and replication of text. Instead, students picked up bits and pieces of content to make up the required number of words in their assigned summary, with little or no regard for importance or the structural scaffolding. For these reasons, we turned to Johns and Davies (1983), Text as a vehicle for information: The classroom use of written text in teaching reading in a foreign language (1983), in our most recent research project (Paz, 1995a). Their study is an extremely useful illustration of the interaction of form and content, which has been of considerable assistance to us in developing our own pedagogies. In this publication, Tim Johns and Florence Davies discuss their extensive research into the interrelationships between text macrostructure, function, and content in secondary-school science course books. By examining a large number of course books, these authors were able to identify several repeated text structures, twelve topic types in which categories of information co-occur (p. 5): Figure 1 NOTES: Constituents immediately to the LEFT of the arrow are OBLIGATORY and can be regarded as constants. Constituents to the RIGHT of the arrow are optional. They can be regarded as the variables which define the obligatory constituents. Conditions for optionality are assumed, but no predictions are made about what these are. + indicates and not order. The list given here is not assumed to be either exhaustive or definitive. From Toward a classroom based methodology for identifying information structures in text , J. Davies (1983). Johns and Davies' text topic types relate specifically to the functions that texts serve within scientific cultures. The titles given to these categories refer to such functions as the (description of) a physical structure , the (narration of) a natural process , the (explanation of) a scientific principle and so on. For the purpose of this paper, then, we will rename Johns and Davies' topic types as function types, because, in fact, these categories refer to the purposes that these text categories serve within scientific discourses. Noting the interrelationship between text macrostructure and function represents the first part of these authors' theory of discourses within scientific course books. The twelve repeated function types in science (Figure 1) provide for practitioners a taxonomy of text elements that is very useful for both research and pedagogy. The second element in Johns and Davies' theory extends to the interrelationships among function, structure, and co-occurring topics. For each function type, the authors have identified certain information structure constituents that repeatedly co-appear within that category of text. As can be seen in Figure 1, the text organization of each function type elicits co-occurring obligatory and optional topic categories which provide the skeleton, or template, for the text macrostructure. The authors argue that within each of these function types (physical structure, process characteristics, mechanism and so on ) , the topic categories may be repeated several times, not necessarily in consecutive order. Optional topics may or may not be included, depending upon a number of factors such as importance to the text, the use of accompanying visual elements, or the readers' needs and backgrounds. Like Johns and Davies, we must recognize that in science and related fields, the exploitation of non-linear features such as visual representations, charts, and graphs, is fully as important to the reader as the text itself. Thus, when we are considering the analysis of a written text in the sciences, we must also consider the visual representations that accompany it. Johns and Davies argue for the importance of these visual elements, and a number of their suggested ESL/EFL classroom exercises deal with the interaction of written text and visuals. For example, they ask students to label a physical structure diagram with the aid of the text before students are asked to complete other text-bound exercises. Thus, in the exercises presented in their 1983 article, Johns and Davies tell students first to use this physical structure text to complete the labeling of an illustrations of a tooth: A tooth has three regions: the crown is the part projecting above the gum, the neck is embedded in the soft gum and the root is out of sight, anchoring the tooth in its bony socket. Inside the tooth is fairly hard material which contains some living tissues, This is the dentine. The dentine cannot withstand wear, so in the crown and neck it is covered with a substance called cement, which helps to fix the tooth in its socket. Inside the dentine, in the centre of the tooth is a hollow pulp cavity containing nerves, a small artery and a small vein. ( 1 ) Students work in groups to complete the labeling of a diagram of the tooth structure, thus enabling them to have a visual representation of a tooth before completing additional reading and summarizing exercise. In the next exercise, the student groups analyze the text macrostructure, the interrelationship of form, of co-occurring topics and of language. Rather than asking them to summarize or to identify the controlling ideas and relationships among supporting ideas, Johns and Davies give students a chart to complete in which co-occurring topics are listed. The chart looks like this: Figure 2 Part(s) Location(s) Properties Functions Under each category, students list their findings from the text. When they are finished, they have an organizational scaffolding of the text. In this particular tooth structure text, Johns and Davies' students found about thirty mentions of parts, the obligatory element in the physical structure text. The non-obligatory elements, location, property and function, sometimes co-occur with the obligatory part and sometimes they do not. After students complete the diagram of the tooth and the text chart (Figure 2), the original reading is taken from them. They then jointly construct a summary based solely upon the diagram and chart. This succession of exercises suggested by Johns and Davies provides for students the kind of summarizing support that will help them to approach different types of texts in the sciences. It assists them in understanding the relationships between visual and textual elements and the important interactions of function, structure, and content. It ensures that they will be precise in finding the correct terms and the appropriate co-occurring relationships among the topics in the text. The Johns and Davies' exercises also assist students in text differentiation, in realizing that all texts cannot be read or summarized in the same way because, in fact, they serve different functions and are therefore variously organized. What students and teachers who use the Johns and Davies model have found is that many of the general principles for text summary, cited in the first part of this paper, do not apply for science course books. Students do not have to read the whole text before they begin to analyze it. (#1 in the list of general instructions.) Instead, students can begin to complete the diagram and the text analysis chart while they read. This keeps them occupied, interested, and involved in understanding the priorities in the text. For many science texts, there are no controlling ideas (#2) as there might be in an argumentative essay. Thus, the concept of controlling idea can be ignored, at least for texts within certain scientific categories. Examples (#3) is not an appropriate term for what students record from the text. Instead, they are finding co-occurring topics, those content items that are essential to text understanding. Writing a first sentence which includes the source of the summary and the controlling idea (#4) may also be irrelevant here. In the tooth structure text, students can begin with the first part; they do not need to write a sentence such as The tooth has many parts. In fact, such a sentence might sound unscientific. Personal opinions (#5) do not play an explicit role in descriptions of physical structures in course books. Authors of these texts do not say, I think that the tooth has this type of structure. By the time this information appears in course books, the authors are quite sure about the facts they are presenting (see, e.g., Myers, 1992). Thus, we should teach students to vary summarizing strategies depending upon text function and content. In short, our previous research has found that students have considerable difficulties with general summary instructions. Like other researchers (Nelson, et. al, 1992; Perez, 1990), we discovered that students bring to their summarizing tasks few, if any, strategies for understanding the relationships between function, structure, and content. The work of Johns and Davies (1983), which assists students in analyzing and summarizing texts, particularly in the sciences, helps overcome many of the problems mentioned above. An Example of Applications of Functional Types An example from some of our recent work illustrates how functional types can inform both teaching and research. In our most recent research in this area, thirteen-year-old secondary school students, all of whom are English/Spanish bilinguals studying in the same English and science classes (discussed in Paz, 1995a) were divided into two groups of 10 (high and low English proficient), based upon both their standardized test scores and the grades that they had attained in their English classes. The two reading texts ( 2 ) chosen for summary were taken from their science course book, Jantzen Michel's Life Science (1986). One reading narrated a natural process, and the other was a description of a physical structure . The students were given one hour to read each original course book text and write and revise a summary of between 95 and 105 words. To provide a basis for comparison, we also asked a group of English and science teachers within the students' school to summarize the same course book readings. ( 3 ) We then analyzed the original reading texts from the science course books into Idea Units (Kroll, 1977), a taxonomy based primarily upon main clauses. (See Appendix I for the IU taxonomy; See Appendices II through VII for analyses of physical structure texts.) Then the IUs from each of the texts were separated according to information structure constituents, or topics, characteristic of the function type represented. Thus, the IUs in the process reading were analyzed into state or form of object/material, location, time or state, instrument or agent, property of structure and action. ( 4 ) The IUs from the physical structure text were classified according to structure, location, property/attribute, and function, as shown in Appendix II I . As is the case in many course books written for students, the discourse in the chosen readings was not pure; there are other functions being carried out in the same block of discourse for a number of rhetorical reasons. ( 5 ) In the physical structure text, for example, the discourse relating to the physical structure function type begins with IU #11. Other, introductory information is included in the first 10 sentences of the reading. (See Appendix II.) Appendix III is dedicated solely to this functional analysis. It shows which of the major constituents for physical structure were represented in each of the IUs from #11-#36 in the text taken from the students' course book. When the IU functional analysis of the original readings from the course book was completed, two researchers then analyzed each of the student and expert (teacher) summaries, first dividing them into IUs, and then dividing the IUs into the constituent structures or topics as had been done with the original readings. What was discovered, not surprisingly, is that the expert summaries completed by the teachers contained the essential information structure constituents for each functional text. The experts used the text macrostructure, realized in the information structure constituents, to construct their summaries, ignoring much of the introductory, non-scientific material in the first part of the readings. The teachers mentioned (repeatedly) those co-occurring elements that Johns and Davies argue are essential to the relationship between content and organization in science course book discourses. Appendix IV shows one of the teacher summaries. This expert writer devotes only one sentence to a controlling idea that summarizes the first part of the reading. Then she devotes the remainder of the summary to the major constituent elements of the physical structure text. Appendix V shows the analysis of IUs from the expert's summary and the breakdown of these IUs into constituent elements. Appendix VII breaks a poor student's text into IUs, and it shows that the text not only includes fewer of the constituent elements than did the expert text, it also includes inventions and distortions. As in our previous studies; we found that unlike the teacher/experts, students had few, if any strategies for summarizing texts. This was particularly evident in their summaries of the physical structure texts. (See Appendix VI .) Our statistical test showed that both low- and high-English proficient students' physical structure summaries contained less than 50% of the information structure constituents found in the teacher summaries. Students at both proficiency levels seemed to lack the schemata necessary to identify the text macrostructure and to produce summaries based upon the predictable information structure constituents as identified by Johns and Davies. Instead, they produced a significant number of IUs from topics and functions that were not found in the Johns and Davies' taxonomy, that were not essential to the gist of the text. In analyzing the expert summary protocols, on the other hand, we found that the vast majority of the IUs replicated from the readings were parallel to the information structure constituents predicted to be characteristic of that function type. A further discussion of our findings may explain some of the difficulties that the students faced. As was mentioned earlier, the physical structure text, which students found to be most difficult, began with information that was written to interest the readers but was not essential to the description of the structure represented. The student summaries for this text often included Idea Units #5, and #6, which read Cells contain many small parts. Each part seems to help a cell do a certain job. This is an interesting finding because students may believe that it is necessary in all summaries to have a thesis or controlling idea, and the only controlling idea that they could find was contained in these two sentences. In both of the texts, the physical structure and process , the 13-year-old bilingual students seemed to be attracted to interesting ideas rather than to the core sciences. They included in their summaries the information that the text writers had written to involve them in the reading. They also tended to include those ordinary, nonscientific words and phrases with which they felt comfortable. A third student characteristic, also found in our earlier studies, is that they tended to replicate IUs from the first part of the reading, ignoring much of the final portions which often included the essential constituents. The students completed their 100-word summary requirement and stopped, ignoring the text structure and other clues for effective text summarizing. The differences between the expert (teacher) and the student summaries were clear: The teachers disregarded the familiar words and background information that were inserted into the first sections of the reading text to make it attractive to young readers. The students, with few strategies for completing scientific texts, tended to take their IUs from the initial, non-essential material or to draw from what interested them in the reading. The teachers appeared to have a schema for the function type and a strategy for completing their summaries; they concentrated upon the essential elements of the function type, as outlined by Johns and Davies. The students, on the other hand, appeared to do the assignment without schemata for the function type or for what is important in science texts. These findings parallel our earlier studies (Johns, 1985; Johns Mayes, 1990) of older students and underscore the importance of the interaction of theory and practice and the careful teaching of reading and summarizing. Implications For Discourse Analysis and Pedagogy How do we improve student summarizing? How do we assist students in understanding text function and the information structure constituents that co-occur in identified function types? These are important questions in the teaching of reading, of summarizing, and of writing and are essential to our students' attainment of academic literacy. We provide here a few suggestions, based upon our research and reading. First of all, we believe that it is important to teach the interaction of language, text structure, and function in all of our reading and writing classes. In this effort, we can consult the work being done in Australian genre-based pedagogies. In Australia, ( 7 ) the teaching of genres is directly related to the jobs that texts are said to do (Richardson, 1994). For example, Derewianka (1990) encourages children to recognize the genre called A Recount as having orientations and a series of events, an approach which provides a structure or a scaffolding upon which they can develop a summary. If students are to think about recounts as having orientations and series of events, they are already on their way to doing some effective tree-trimming (Rumelhart, 1977) for summarization, since they will look for the orientation and the specific events when organizing their summaries. ( 8 ) However, in our view, the Australian pedagogies outlined in Derewianka and elsewhere might be enhanced by the work of Johns and Davies. Our students at every proficiency level are fairly good at reproducing narratives (and thus, recounts) in summary (Paz, 1995b); however, when texts become more complex, students need additional assistance learning what is important to text structure and content. The Johns and Davies theories about science course books can assist us in curriculum development and teaching at a number of levels. First, they can help us to select and analyze texts for student reading and summarization as found in the appendices of this paper. Completing our own analyses enables us to understand more fully the relationships between text function, content, and macrostructure and to select appropriate texts for summarizing. With the text function-type list, we can recognize blocks of discourse, in course books and elsewhere, that serve an identified purpose. Once we have decided upon a function type, such as instruction or description of a physical structure , we can give students repeated reading and discussion practice to assist them in transferring their strategies for reading one text to other texts of the same function type. Johns and Davies suggest that we begin our lessons by dividing the students into groups, providing each group with the same text from a function type, with a diagram or illustration to complete, and with a chart listing the information structure constituents of that function. We have found that students at all levels become very involved in completing the diagrams. They are often much better at relating words to visual elements than they are at paraphrasing or summarizing. When our students are given the constituent chart , they begin arguing about the words or phrases that fit into the information structure slots (e.g., Part, Location, Property, Function for a Physical Structure Text) and using the grammar of the passage to make their arguments. They find, for example, that the parts in a physical structure text are nouns and are generally preceded by definite or indefinite articles. Location topics are often found in prepositional phrases, and properties are often found in adjectives. Thus, as the students work on their analyses, they also become increasingly comfortable with the syntax and morphology of the sentences they are reading. When the analyses are completed, one group puts its findings from their completed chart on the board and the class negotiates any differences between each group's charts. We have been using these group activities in our classes since we first discovered Johns and Davies' approach, ( 9 ) and we have found them to be excellent, for directed reading, for summarizing--and for writing. As we noted earlier, when we ask students to summarize, we take the original text from them, and they use their diagrams and constituent charts to create their summaries, an exercise that requires them to restore and paraphrase in complete, grammatical sentences. Because the text they recreate is often too long for a summary of the original, they are asked to tree trim, to make decisions about what particular co-occurring groups of slots are most important for the gist of the text. Sometimes they choose not to trim the text substantially (as is often the case when we use tooth structure), but there are other times when such trimming is both possible and useful. Although Johns and Davis' work has been tremendously useful in our research and our approaches to teaching text summarizing, we are indebted to others, as well. David Rumelhart (1977, 1980), Patricia Carrell (1983) and others who work in artificial intelligence and reading argue that we store in our schemata, or prior knowledge, particular text macrostructures which we instantiate when we confront a new text which appears to be organized in the same way. Carrell has been particularly influential in arguing that we must prepare students for both the content and the form in text readings. Another important influence upon our work has been Michael Hoey (1981, 1986) and his work on problem/solution (PS) texts. Like Johns and Davies, Hoey argues that these texts have certain co-occurring content slots, or constituent structures, particular topics that readers expect to be discussed in a problem solution discourse. These co-occurring elements are the problem itself, the causes for the problem, suggested solutions and an evaluation of the various solution possibilities. All constituents but the final one, evaluation, appear to be obligatory but, like the Johns and Davies' constituents, they do not necessarily appear in a particular order. The advantage of the Hoey text theory is that problem/solution can be applied across content areas or disciplines, within academic contexts and elsewhere. One of the authors of this chapter, Ann Johns, has been using the Hoey functional taxonomy for many years: to analyze texts for their structure, to teach summarizing (1988), and to assist students in revising their own problem-solution texts to meet reader expectations (1986). In preparing to summarize, students are asked to read a problem-solution text and to copy, or paraphrase, each of the slots that Hoey identifies. What they discover, of course, is that the particular topics that the slots represent do not necessarily come in order. The problem can be mentioned at the end, for example, and the causes at the beginning (Johns, 1988). They also discover that one topic may be mentioned more than once; for example, several problems can be identified that stem from one cause (e.g. cause = water pollution; problems: deaths of fish and fowl; lack of potable water for humans; uninhabitable living areas for fauna and humans). However, if they organize their text analysis by slots, students will be able to trim the original text successfully and write a summary. By the same token, if students diagram the problem-solution texts they plan to write using the Hoey schema, they will be more successful in keeping track of text organization and content. Conclusions In our studies carried out over the past ten years, we have consistently found that students have little knowledge of text functions or macrostructures to guide them in text reading or summary, and that they have few, if any, strategies for summarizing texts. We have found the Johns and Davies'(1983) work to be the best guide for analysis and assignment of science readings, and we advocate the teaching of this taxonomy of function types to science students. We have also found the more general function type, problem-solution, discussed by Hoey (1986), to be useful in many contexts, both for reading and for writing. Both analyses show explicitly the relationships among form, content, and function within texts. We are surprised that although the theories and approaches discussed here appeared in the 1980s, they have not made significant inroads into curricula or course books in ESL/EFL classes. Students are still being given too many narratives to read and summarize, and when they are asked to write a summary of other function types, they are not adequately instructed. As we noted, the typical instructions that appear at the beginning of this chapter are inappropriate for reading and summarization in many contexts. We hope that this discussion of summarizing, drawing from the work of Johns and Davies, and Hoey, will lead to a broader use of theoretically-grounded research and pedagogical approaches. Ann M. Johns is a Professor of Linguistics and Writing Studies at San Diego State University (California, U.S.A.). She is co-editor of Coherence in Writing: Research and Pedagogical Perspectives (TESOL) and has published extensively on issues in English for Academic Purposes. She has just completed a text entitled Text, Role and Context: Exploring and developing academic literacies (CUP). Danette Paz teaches English and Spanish literacy at Memorial Academy, a secondary school in San Diego, California. She is active in local and state TESOL organizations. Notes: 1. Taken from Evington, E.J. O.F. Moore. (1971) Human Biology and Hygiene. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 2. 301 and 307 words, respectively 3. We had used the same methodology in our earlier work (Johns, 1986; Johns Mayes, 1990). 4. The process text included IUs not related to the function type such as definitions and partial descriptions of other processes. These were not analyzed for the study. 5. One reason is to interest students in the material. Often textbooks begin with stories that will entice students rather than with the hard scientific information. 6. Fisher's Exact Two-tailed Test 7. Specifically in New South Wales. 8. Rumelhart argues that summarizing is a tree-trimming process in which the nonessential elements are cut off. 9. For Ann Johns, this was in China in 1981, when Tim Johns and Florence Davies presented this paper to her teacher trainees. Appendix I Kroll's Idea Units 1. A main clause is counted as one idea unit including (when present) a direct object, an adverbial element and a mark of subordination. 2. Full relative and adverbial clauses are counted as one idea unit. 3. Phrases which occur in sentence initial position followed by a comma or phrases which are set off from the sentence with commas are counted as separate idea units. 4. Reduced clauses in which a subordinator is followed by a non-finite verb are one idea unit. 5. Post-nominal-ing phrases used as modifiers are counted as one idea unit. 6. Other types of elements counted as individual idea units are : a. Absolutes: e.g., microscopes having improved, it became easier to look inside a cell. b. Appositives: A saclike lining, called the cell membrane, surrounds the cell. Adapted from Kroll (1977: 90) Appendix II Idea Units of Physical Structure Text Animal Cells (1 - Early microscopes showed the outer edge of a cell clearly.) (2 - As microscopes improved) (3 - it became easier to look inside a cell.) (4 - Microscopes today show) ( 5 - that cells contain many small parts.) (6 - Each part seems to help a cell do a certain job.) (7 - You have seen) (8 - that animal cells and plant cells seem very different.) (9 - Yet most cells of animals and plants have many similar parts.) Look carefully at Figure 2-4. (10 - It shows some of the parts that are found in the cells of animals.) (11 - A saclike lining) (12 - called the cell membrane) (13 - surrounds the cell.) (14 - The cell membrane holds the insides of a cell together.) (15 - Certain substances enter and leave a cell) (16 - by passing through the cell membrane.) (17 - The cell membrane controls the in-and-out flow of these substances.) Look (18 - inside the cell membrane) in Figure 2-4. (19 - Most of the cell is filled with a jellylike fluid called cytoplasm.) (20 - Scattered through the cytoplasm are many parts of different sizes and shapes.) (21 - Most likely the part you will notice first is the large, round nucleus.) (22 - The nucleus (pl. nuclei) is the control center for the cell's activities.) (23 - It directs everything the cell does.) (24 - Structures inside the nucleus called chromosomes) (25 - store the directions for all cell activities.) (26 - The nucleus is surrounded by its own membrane.) (27 - This membrane separates the nucleus from the cytoplasm.) (28 - It seems to control the flow of substances in and out of the nucleus.) (29 - Outside the nucleus, there is a capsule-shaped body, a mitochondrion.) (30 - A mitochondrion helps to supply energy for the cell.) (31 - Mitochondria release energy from substances that enter the cell.) (32 - Look outside the nucleus) (33 - for winding channels called the endoplasmic reticulum.) (34 - Some scientists believe) (35 - these channels help transport materials throughout a cell.) (36 - Some channels are dotted with tiny cell parts called ribosomes.) (37 - Ribosomes produce substances needed for growth and other activities.) NOTE : The number preceding text represents the idea unit number assigned to that text. Appendix III Matrix for Physical Structure Text NOTES: 1 -indicates end of surface structure string. 2 *marks items which occur in more than one slot. 3 Idea units 1-10, 17 and 33 were not included in the matrix because they did not fit any of the major constituents slots. 4 Numbers in the parenthesis preceding text, represent the idea unit number assigned to the text. (See Appendix III). Appendix IV Expert Summary: Animal Cells Cells of animals and plants are similar in many ways. Cells have linings called membranes, which control substances entering and leaving the cell. Cells are filled with a jellylike fluid called cytoplasm. The nucleus, with its own membrane to separate it from the cytoplasm, is a large round control center for the cell. Inside the nucleus are chromosomes, which contain directions for all the activities of the cell. Outside the nucleus are the mitochondria, capsule-shaped energy suppliers for the cell. Endoplasmic reticulum are channels that aid transportation materials within the cell. Some contain tiny ribosomes that produce substances needed for activities, including growth. (105 words). Appendix V Idea Unit I.U.#9 - Cells of animals are similar in two ways. I.U.#12 - Cells have linings called membranes, I.U.#17 - which control substances entering and leaving the cell. I.U.#19 - Cells are filled with a jellylike fluid called cytoplasm. I.U.#26 - The nucleus, with its own membrane I.U.#27 - to separate it from the cytoplasm, I.U.#21 - is a large round I.U.#22 - control center for the cell. I.U.#24 - Inside the nucleus are chromosomes, I.U.#23 - which contain directions for all the activities of the cell. I.U.#29 - Outside the nucleus are the mitochondria, capsule-shaped I.U.#30 - energy suppliers for the cell. I.U.#33 - Endoplasmic reticulum are channels I.U.#35 - that aid transportation of materials within the cell. I.U.#36 - Some contain tiny ribosomes I.U.#37 - that produce substances needed for activities, including growth... Appendix VI Low Proficiency Student Text A cell is a little thin that helps the body to move it can see from a microscope. A cell have many parts it helps the cell work. The cell of an animal have a cell membrane that surrounds the cell. The membrane cell holds the inside of the cell....Some cells are filled with jellylike is a fluid called cytoplasm. Cytoplasm are different sizes and shaped. Nucleus is a large part of a cell it have a black round thin. The nucleus in the control center control the cell. The nucleus is surrounded by his own membrane. Appendix VII Idea Units of Low Proficiency Student INVENTION - A cell is a little thin that helps the body to move I.U.#1 - it can see from a microscope. I.U.#5 - A cell have many parts I.U.#6 - it helps the cell work. I.U.#7 - The cell of an animal have I.U.#12 - a cell membrane I.U.#13 - that surrounds the cell I.U.#14 - The membrane cell holds the inside of the cell. I.U.#19 - Some cells are filled with jellylike is a fluid called cytoplasm. DISTORTION (D1) - Cytoplasm are different sizes and shapes. I.U.#21 - Nucleus is a large part of a cell. DISTORTION (D2) - it have black round thin. I.U.#22 - The nucleus in the control center the control the cell. I.U.#26 - The nucleus is surrounded by his own membrane. (The invention and idea units 1, 5, 6, and 7 were not included in the matrix since they do not fit one of the above major constituent function slots).
http://eca.state.gov/education/engteaching/pubs/BR/functionalsec2_2.htm Reading Into Writing 2 Contrastive Rhetoric Robert B. Kaplan This chapter begins by discussing the concept and origins of the term contrastive rhetoric. In a brief description of the writing process, the questions of appropriate topics, acceptable evidence, and effective organization are discussed, and culturally and linguistically specific ways of describing the world are described. A model for the writing process is presented, focussing on the impact of author, content, audience, purpose, time, place, and genre of the writing situation. Finally, effective and ineffective examples of written English are presented and analyzed. Introduction What is contrastive rhetoric? Partly based on Whorfian ideas of the relationship between language and thought, it is an hypothesis claiming that (while mathematical logic may be universal) the logic expressed through the organization of written text is culture-specific; that is, it posits that speakers of two different languages will organize the same reality in different ways (Kaplan, 1988; 1987). That they should do so seems self-evident, because different languages provide different resources for organizing text. However, this filtering of text logic through language is largely unconscious; that is, learners of an L2: are not aware of the way in which their L1 influences the way they organize text logic, are not aware of the way in which an L2 organizes text logic, and are not aware that there is a difference. As Kellerman notes, Coping with new ways of 'thinking for speaking ...' means attending to features of context that are either not relevant or are defined differently in the native language... (1995: 141). Initially, the idea underlying contrastive rhetoric arose from practical daily experiences of L2 writing teachers, who can, with astonishing accuracy, identify the first language of students writing in the L2 on the basis of the way in which they structure their texts. Christensen (1967) devised an outline-like methodology for examining the way in which propositions were related to each other in text. Kaplan (1966) applied that analytic mechanism to texts written in English by speakers of other languages to show that such writers organized their texts differently; he extended the analytic technique to a pedagogical method to help students become conscious of these differences. He believed that, if students could see differences between the way they organized text in their L1 and the way typical English texts were organized, they could more closely approximate the text logic--the propositional relationships--characteristic of English. Admittedly, the earliest work in contrastive rhetoric was significantly flawed, attempting to compare student writing in L2 with professional writing in L1, ignoring differences in genre, and assuming that there was a single general text-logical structure for English. Subsequent research has demonstrated these flaws (Leki, 1991). Much recent work has concentrated on contrastive studies between two specific languages in which the constant was English text-logic and the variable was the text-logic of another language; there has now been fairly extensive study of English and some other languages (for which, see e. g., Kaplan, et al. , 1983; Connor and Kaplan, 1987; Purves, 1988). More recent work, rather than attempting to generalize across genres, has focused on particular text genres (e. g., Cantor, 1994; Kaplan, et al. , 1994; Lux, 1991; Mauranen, 1993; Swales, 1990a, 1990b; Touchstone, 1995; Touchstone, Kaplan and Hagstrom, 1995). The Act of Writing There are four questions, entirely culturally based, that a writer must face at the start of any cross-linguistic exercise in writing: What can be discussed? What is evidence? How can that evidence most effectively be organized? To whom may a text be addressed? What can be Discussed? A native speaker of American English, may, for example, be willing to discuss intimate aspects of his/her sex life, but may be unwilling to discuss bathroom functions, labeling any attempt to do so as scatological. English contains euphemisms for bathroom functions and facilities (pee pee, number one, men's room, lavatory, bathroom). Similarly, native speakers of American English may be reluctant to discuss death, using euphemisms in this register as well (the deceased, the dearly beloved, crematorium, mortuary park). Speakers of other languages may be reluctant to discuss their intimate relationships, but may find a discussion of bathroom functions or of death quite natural. What is natural in any given cultural context constitutes the key. What is Evidence? Confucianists are likely to regard the sayings of Confucius as evidence; devout Moslems may regard the precepts articulated in The Koran as evidence, and devout Christians are apt to quote The Bible as evidence. Inexperienced students may be unable to differentiate between an article in TIME or Newsweek and an article in a scholarly journal with respect to the validity of evidence, or they may be willing to accept as evidence something said by Donahue, or Oprah Winfrey (or one of their guests) during their respective television programs. Indeed, it is this area of evidentiality that gets many students into trouble in the context of plagiarism. In many cultures, if someone has already said something well, there is no need for a student to revise it, and if the source is widely known (e. g., Confucius, The Koran, The Bible) , there is no need to attribute it. It is perceived wisdom that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. In the academic world, the criteria for evidentiality are rather more complex, and the English-speaking world is marked by the capitalistic notion that not only ideas but the actual words in which they are couched are the property of the writer. Evidentiality is defined discipline by discipline, and students must learn what counts as evidence in English academic writing and recognize that the standards in other languages might be different. How can Evidence Most Effectively be Organized? Here is the crux of the matter. Writers arrange evidence in terms of their ...abilities to convey just those analyses of the event that are most compatible with the linguistic means provided by their languages... (Berman and Slobin, 1994: 12). Kellerman (1995: 138-139), citing Berman and Slobin's evidence, presents four versions of the same phenomenological event interpreted in four different languages to illustrate the point that the resources available to speakers of different languages prompt somewhat different presentations of the event. Below is a (slightly abbreviated) cross-language example showing how different languages filter the way in which events are related. It comes from transcripts of children with different native languages relating the Frog Story from a set of pictures without words (Berman and Slobin, 1994: 11). All of the children in these examples are native speakers: English And he starts running. And he tips him off over a cliff into the water. And he lands (9; 11) German Der Hirsch nahm den Jungen auf sein Geweih und schmi b ihm den Abhang hinunter genau ins Wasser. (9; 11) Spanish El ciervo le llevó hasta un sitio, donde debajo había un rio. Entonces el ciervo tiró al perro y al niño al rio. Y después, cayeron. Hebrew Ve ha'ayil nivhal, ve hu hitxil laruts. Ve hakelets rats axarav, ve hu higia lemacok she mitaxat haya bitsa, ve hu atsar, ve hayeled ve hakelev naflu labitsa beyaxad. (9; 7) Berman and Slobin claim that the difference between these excerpts is to some extent determined by the linguistic possibilities inherent in each of the languages. The first two, in English and German, describe the complexity of the fall via a series of adverbial particles and prepositional phrases (tips off, over a cliff, into the water; schmib, den Abhang hinunter, ins Wasser). The verbs tip and schmeiben signify the manner in which the deer causes the fall. The Spanish and Hebrew versions resemble each other but differ from the English and German versions. In the former pair, the event is recounted as a series of episodes. First there is a description of location (cliff with river below, place with swamp underneath); then the deer acts and, as a result, the boy and the dog fall. Berman and Slobin point out that the verbs chosen (throw, fall, stop) are bare descriptions of change of state, with no elaboration of manner (Berman and Slobin, 1994:12). Furthermore: These are not random differences between the narrative styles of these...children, but rather show their abilities to convey just those analyses of the event that are most compatible with the linguistic means provided by their languages. English and German provide large sets of locative particles that can be combined with verbs of manner, thereby predisposing speakers toward a dense style of encoding motion events....A different style arises in the other...languages, which rely more on simple change-of-state and change-of-location verbs,...predisposing speakers towards more extended analyses of motion events (Berman and Slobin, 1994: 12). The order of presentation appears to be very culture specific, conditioned by the linguistic resources available in the L1 but also by customary modes of perception. To Whom may a Text be Addressed? All cultures define who may speak and to whom. Academic writing assumes an equality of addresser and addressee; that is, academic writing presumes a context in which peers discuss mutually held ideas. This notion implies that addresser and addressee are defined discipline by discipline; a professional chemist may address another professional chemist, etc. The undergraduate world is, however, differently structured, with an uneven distribution of power; the teacher is more powerful than the student. Students learning to write must learn to cope with this essentially schizoid environment in which they recognize that there is an unequal relationship but must pretend that the relationship is in fact an equal one. Aside from the classroom artificiality, different cultures also have internally consistent hierarchies, and some languages (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) are syntactically marked with elaborate politeness structures designed to deal with that complex hierarchy, differentiating between males and females, elders and juniors, and so on. English to a large extent lacks the syntactic marking (though the hierarchy of English-speaking society is certainly preserved in semantics--see, e. g., the difference between sweat and perspire ). Scollon (1991) takes up the matter in the context of English and Chinese, and there are other studies of specific language pairs (e.g., Yoshikawa, 1978). Towards a Model Thus, text occurs within the phenomenological perception of the community of speakers; it is also constrained historically by the way text has been used in that community and by the kinds of genres available to that community. A speaker of English knows what a sonnet, for example, is, and what it may be used for; a speaker of English is unlikely to use a sonnet to transmit a culinary recipe; a speaker of Japanese is unlikely to use a haiku to transmit a business contract. Speakers of a language recognize certain genres and their uses, and therefore their text production is constrained within that knowledge. A speaker of English is unlikely to write an eight-legged essay, while a speaker of Chinese may, even given that the form is obsolete, produce such a form if it is within the speaker's inventory of available genre. Additionally, there are four kinds of difficulty which may affect a text: Contingent difficulty --use of arcane or technical reference (jargon) familiar only within certain sub-communities; Tactical difficulty --willingness of a writer to be understood only up to a point (perhaps because being fully explicit may be impolite, or politically awkward, or simply dangerous); Modal difficulty --presentation of a view of the human condition which is unfamiliar or inaccessible; e. g., the notion that a White person cannot understand the Black experience; Ontological difficulty --constraints created by the limits of the language itself, best illustrated by nonsense verse (e. g., in Alice in Wonderland or the poetry of e e cummings ). Model of Text Generation and Reception Phenomenological Reality / | \ Cultural and Historical Constraints / | \ Availability of different genre | | | text Generator | | | performative ability, intent , and intent to cater to the perception of the receiver, stance toward text, stance toward content -------- Shared Experience | | TEXT | | | four kinds of difficulty* -------- Recognition of available genre | | | Text Receiver | | | performative ability, intent and intent to cater to the perceptions of the generator, stance toward text and content the receiver, stance toward text, stance toward content the generator stance toward text and content Effect On Generator *Four Kinds of Difficulty Effect On Text Effect On Receiver contingent (arcane/techinical references which need to be looked up) tactical (willingness of the generator to be understood only up to a point) ontological (limitations of the language itself) modal (inaccessible or alien interpretations of the human condition) (after Kaplan 1991) Table 1 Given these various considerations, one may construct a rough model of what is involved in the generation of text in any language. Text may, of course, be either written or spoken--the focus here is on written text. (It is not clear to what extent the model for the generation of spoken text is identical to that for written text.) The text generator, text, and text receiver are connected by arrows pointing in both directions, because, obviously, the text generator is also invariably one of the text receivers; text generators normally read what they have written as part of the writing process. When text generator and text receiver are the same person, the shared world knowledge is perfectly matched; this is never the case with any other text receiver. This model addresses the question: Who writes what to whom, to what end, why, when, where, and how? When the model is different across two languages, the task of text creation is difficult, because the information contained at some or all of the nodes of the model will be different; that is, the persona of the writer, the available genres, and the persona of the audience will be different in each language. A COVEY OF EXAMPLES Students may be introduced to some taxonomy of genres like the following: Audience Writing without Composing Writing through composing Knowledge Telling Knowledge Transforming self shopping list diary one known other greeting card personal letter one unknown other check business letter small group known sermon small group unknown large group application form play, poem, novel, story Table 2 A few example genres are provided to suggest what is being sought. Learners can fill in the rest of the taxonomy based on their own writing experience. Once various genres have been inserted into the taxonomy, attention may be given to identifying the features of each cell; e.g., a shopping list is a selected set of items, normally arranged in columnar order, and stated as nouns or brief noun phrases. Not much composing is required to prepare a shopping list . A diary , on the other hand, consists of brief complete sentences; it is narrative in form, recounting selected activities over some stipulated time period (e. g., daily, weekly). Because its purpose is to record events, it is often chronologically organized. The intent is not to comment to any significant degree on the meaning of events; rather, it is to enumerate events, so while composing is involved, it is only a matter of telling what happened, not a matter of transforming events into a story or some other more complex text form. Because a diary deals with past events, the tense is likely to be dominantly past. A personal letter may be seen as a sort of diary made public; one tells a friend or relative about what one has been doing. Questions may occur in a letter, but would be unlikely in either a shopping list or a diary. Furthermore, while a diary may be non-selective--it can list everything the writer remembers--a letter is more selective, since one may choose not to share everything that has occurred since the last letter. These explications of a few of the types are intended to serve as examples of the sort of analysis students may be asked to undertake. The taxonomy also permits the introduction of a discussion of audience. When one writes a shopping list , the audience is quite probably one's self. (If it is some other person, the list will require annotation.) In such a case, the world knowledge of writer and reader are absolutely co-terminus; the writer and the reader have the same knowledge, and there is no need to worry about presuppositions concerning shared information. Once one moves to a form in which even one other reader is involved (e. g., a personal letter ), a different set of considerations must come into play; the writer is obliged to be concerned about the extent to which knowledge is shared between reader and writer and is obliged to explain some events in greater detail so that the reader has a context within which the event can be understood. In each case, students can be asked to define the audience in some detail. For example, in a sermon, the audience and the writer know each other quite well, since they are likely to be together on a weekly basis, but they know each other only in one very specific content--that in which a minister and his/her congregation interact. Some things can be considered shared, while others may not be shared to any significant degree. A minister may choose to deliver a sermon based on the story of the Widow's mite; in doing so, s/he may assume that his/her parishioners know the story and are prepared to grasp what the minister wishes to communicate. On the other hand, if the minister wishes to deal with a complex or controversial topic--for example, abortion--s/he must construct an argument rather than tell a story, with information supplied to establish a common base of understanding, and probably s/he needs to avoid some of the more abstruse points of theology. A simple form may be chosen--for example, a process--and students may be asked to compose the process in different ways based on different audience assumptions; e.g., How to Start a Car assuming cultural and individual familiarity with cars, keys, and locks on the one hand, and on the other hand assuming little experience with this technology. The learners may not initially be asked to write such a text; it is enough for purposes of audience awareness to be able at first to construct an oral text. Up to this point, learners have been asked to manipulate events and impressions; it is time for learners to begin to manipulate ideas. The compositional skills required for texts of narration, description, process, classification, and definition are different from the compositional skills required for texts of analysis and synthesis. (See the important distinction between knowledge telling and knowledge transforming in Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987.) In the earlier stages of composition instruction, the objectives are to establish a comfort level with the writing activity, to provide practice in the manipulation of grammatical structures, and to increase vocabulary knowledge. All of these objectives can be met through the kinds of writing undertaken at the lower levels--narrative, descriptive, etc. These minimal skills are likely to carry over, to some extent (depending on how well they have been learned), to the essayist writing involved in argumentative, analytic, and synthetic writing. The compositional skills involved in these cognitively more complex activities are significantly different. Contrastive rhetoric analysis is based on an attempt to visualize the relative levels of subordination among the propositions that constitute a text. A proposition is not necessarily a sentence; it may be a phrase, a clause, a sentence, or a cluster of several sentences. In contrastive rhetoric analysis, a proposition is called a discourse unit, and a cluster of closely related discourse units is called a discourse bloc. A discourse bloc analysis looks something like an outline. The similarity in appearance is misleading. First, an outline is a planning document; under ideal circumstances, an outline can be recovered from a text, but in most circumstances it is difficult or impossible to recover an outline (though it is certainly possible to create an outline which reflects the structure of the text). Although a discourse bloc analysis looks like an outline, it has a rather different purpose. The further to the left a unit is placed, the higher it is in dominance of the text. The further to the right a discourse unit is placed, the less dominant it is in the text. Those discourse units occurring furthest to the right often consist of examples and illustrations supporting the text argument. Such discourse units are subordinate to ones placed further to the left. Some discourse units are, of course, parallel to each other--or coordinate. Let us look at an analysis of a shorter text in which it is possible to get down to the level of individual discourse units. (The sentences are numbered for ease of reference.) On the trail of the first Americans (1) It has been believed for a long time that the first inhabitants of America were people from northeast Asia. (2) Anthropologists believe that small bands of nomadic hunters followed herds of animals across the Bering Straits land bridge and into what is now Alaska, later spreading throughout North and South America. (3) There is now some evidence to support this belief. (4) Examination of 20 teeth and 64 tooth sockets of paleo-Indians (the first Americans) which were discovered in Chile in 1936 shows a number of common characteristics which are also found in Asiatic teeth. (5) These characteristics include a shovel-like slope on the front and back of the incisors, an L-shaped ridge on the chewing surface of the lower molars, small bumps on the chewing surface of the lower molars and three-rooted front molars. (6) Since dental features are genetically determined and do not change over long periods of time, it is significant that these teeth are similar to the teeth of northeast Asians (as well as the teeth of present-day North and South American Indians). (7) For example, 353 teeth of paleo-Indians, present-day Indians, and northeastern Asiatics were examined, and all had the shoveling on the incisors. (8) Of 8,000 white American and European teeth, less than one-third had this feature. (9) These findings, then, corroborate the theory that the first Americans came from northern China, Mongolia, Japan, and Asiatic Siberia (Chedd, 1954). In this text, evidence is systematically introduced to support the initial contention. A detailed analysis might look like the following table. (The major semantic link is printed in bold italics; there are also other sets of semantic links through the text.) On the basis of this information it is possible to define the intended audience. (See Table III) Certain generalizations can be drawn from this analysis. Before any generalizations are attempted, it is important to reiterate that no single pattern can represent the complexity of genres available in English or in any other language. While the potential number of available genres in English (or in any language) is very large, academic essayist English does demonstrate certain regularities. Such texts often display complex patterns of semantic collocations which signal the relative relationship of propositions to each other. Further, academic essayist texts often display relatively complex patterns of subordination; there are often many levels of subordination in a text. (At the same time, both relatively simple and excessively complex patterns of subordination tend to mark the text as non-standard; thus, there seems to be a parabolic curve of complexity, with English academic essayist text falling roughly at the apogee of the parabola.) There is nothing in this text type that does not directly contribute to the flow of the argument; tangential information is not comfortably accommodated in such texts. Finally, it appears that the text progresses in a linear fashion from statement of aboutness to termination. This latter phenomenon belies the possibility of the template three- and five-paragraph essay and the notion that the three-paragraph essay has the obligatory features introduction, body , and conclusion . The presence or absence of introduction and conclusion depends on the nature of the text. The illustrative text above does not contain a formal conclusion (although it does contain a summary/recapitulation of the thesis). It might be argued that the first sentence of this text constitutes an introduction , though, more realistically, the first sentence seems to state the thesis of the text. The propositions of this text are not necessarily equated with grammatical sentences. Table III 1.I. Topic statement: ...the first inhabitants of America were people from northeast Asia .... 2.1. Support: ...Anthropologists believe that small bands of nomadic hunters followed herds of animals across the Bering Straits land bridge and into what is now Alaska... a. Support: ...later spreading throughout North and South America... 3.A. Claim of Evidence: ...There is now some evidence to support this belief ... 4.1. Evidence: ...Examination of 20 teeth and 64 tooth sockets of paleo-Indians ... which were discovered... shows a numberof common characteristics which are also found in Asiatic teeth .... a. Definition: ...(the first Americans )... b. Location: ...in Chile... c. Dating: ...in 1936... 5.d. Detailed support: ...These characteristics include:... (I.) List: ...a shovel-like slope on the front and back of the incisors ,... (II.) List: ...an L-shaped ridge on the chewing surface of the lower molars , (III.) List: ...small bumps on the chewing surface of the lower molars and... (IV.) List: ...three-rooted front molars .... 6.e. Argument: ... dental features are genetically determined (I.) Support: and do not change over long periods of time, f. Argument: ...it is significant that these teeth are similar to the teeth of northeast Asians ... (I.) Sub-Argument: ...(as well as the teeth of present-day North and South American Indians ).... 7.2. Evidence: ...For example, 353 teeth of paleo-Indians , present-day Indians , and northeastern Asiatics were examined, and all had the shoveling on the incisors. 8.3. Evidence: ...Of 8,000 white American and European teeth , less than one-third had this feature... 9.B. Summary and Recapitulation: ... These findings , then, corroborate the theory that the first Americans came from northern China, Mongolia, Japan, and Asiatic Siberia .... It may be useful to look at a non-standard text. The following text was written by a native speaker of Tsez who speaks Russian as a second language and is learning English. Language Policy in the Former USSR (1) Soviet period is the most intensive for language planning activities and therefore the understanding not only mechanisms of Soviet language policy, but also the political, historical and demographic context in which all these decisions were taken are of crucial significance to understanding the present day language situation in as well as any other regions. (2) In general two factors determined the character of L Pol in Soviet Union, which are: demographic on the one hand, and political on the other. (3) The significance both of them difficult to overestimate. Political factors: (4) When the soviet power had been established the administration was faced with two pressing requirements: mass communication and mass education. (5) The majority of the indigenous population remained to be uneducated, the majority of the former languages remained to be unwritten. (6) Within this particular situation a certain Language policy become necessary. (7) However its realization was mostly determined by Central Policy, which took into consideration one or another ideological concepts. (8) At the same time those ideological concepts could be realized within certain political and psychological context. (9) The following factor also played significant role in L Pol in Soviet union: it was believed that the contact of different cultures and languages is at least potentially beneficial. (10) Based on this assumption many liders of national minorities work toward the realization of this goal. (11) The first effort of the government toward the promotion of Russian naxodil vseobshuju podderzhku i ponimanije v nacional´nyx regionax.... This text can profitably be compared with the one entitled On the trail of the first Americans, which is roughly similar in length. Both are English academic essayist texts. (The latter text is, obviously, marked by some surface-level non-native speaker characteristics which will be ignored in this analysis.) Much of the development in this text occurs largely at the same level; that is, there isn't much subordination. Further, it will be noted that the argument does not flow smoothly; there is the substantial parenthetical section-- a digression--which interrupts the text flow, and there is a good deal of jumping around from topic to topic without developing any topic adequately. The logical structure of the text is not marked by the presence of advance organizers. Table IV 1.I. Topic Statement: ...Soviet period is the most intensive for language planning activities and A. Explanation: ... therefore the understanding not only mechanisms of Soviet language policy, but... B. Explanation: ... also the political, historical and demographic context in which all these decisions were taken are of crucial significance to understanding the present day language situation in as well as any other regions.... 2.C. Explanation: ...In general two factors determined the character of L Pol in Soviet Union, which are:... 1. Specification: ...demographic on the one hand ... 2. Specification: ...and political on the other .... 3.D. Explanation: ...The significance both of them difficult to overestimate.... 4.E. Explanation: ... When the soviet power had been established the administration was faced with two pressing requirements: 1. Specification: ... mass communication and mass education .... 5.F. Parenthetical material: ...The majority of the indigenous population remained to be uneducated, the majority of the former languages remained to be unwritten.... 6.G. Parenthetical Material: ...Within this particular situation a certain Language policy become necessary.... 7.H. Contrast: ...However its realization was mostly determined by Central Policy,... 1. Specification: ...which took into consideration one or another ideological concepts.... 8.2. Explanation: ... At the same time those ideological concepts could be realized within certain political and psychological context... 9.I. Explanation: ...The following factor also played significant role in L Pol in Soviet union:... 1. Explanation: ...it was believed that the contact of different cultures and languages is at least potentially beneficial.... 10.2. Explanation: ... Based on this assumption many liders of national minorities work toward the realization of this goal 11.J. Explanation: ...The first effort of the government toward the promotion of Russian naxodil vseobshuju podderzhku i ponimanije v nacional´nyx regionax.... Clyne (1994) presents a number of contrastive analyses of various languages (see, esp., Ch. 5, section 5.2 - 5.8, pp. 168-175). Clyne's analysis is derived from a set of five cultural parameters he proposes: Form vs. Content -- English cultures more strongly foreground form while other cultures are more content oriented (186); Verbal vs. Literate -- English cultures stress the written language as the main medium of effective communication while other cultures stress oral language (189); Rhythm of Discourse -- English cultures tend to stress symmetry and do not stress positive politeness while other cultures function differently in both contexts (190); Directionality -- English cultures tend to be unique in their emphasis on linearity (190); Abstractness vs. Concreteness -- English cultures tend to stress concreteness and reasoning (191). These parameters are not to be interpreted as polar oppositions; rather, certain culturally-defined writing practices tend to move in one or the other direction along the posited continua. It seems to me that this sort of analysis of student texts can help students to understand how to organize a text and how to avoid some of the more egregious faults that occur in student text organization--some deriving from first language interference, but some deriving as well from inexperience with text organization. A purpose of such analysis is to bring to consciousness what is typically not perceived. The issue is summarized by Mauranen in a contrastive text linguistic study of Finnish and English: ... differ in some of their culturally determined rhetorical practices, and these differences manifest themselves in typical textual features. The writers seem not to be aware of these textual features, or the underlying rhetorical practices. This lack of awareness is in part due to the fact that textlinguistic features have not been the concern of traditional language teaching in schools....Such phenomena have therefore not been brought to the attention of struggling with writing....Nevertheless, these sometimes subtle differences between writing cultures, often precisely because they are subtle and not commonly observable to the non-linguist, tend to put... at a rhetorical disadvantage in the eyes of readers....This disadvantage is more than a difference in cultural tastes, since it may not only strike readers as lack of rhetorical elegance, but as lack of coherent writing or even thinking, which can seriously affect the credibility of non-native writers (1993: 1-2; emphasis added). The technique can be used as well in helping students to understand summarization, and more generally in helping students to abstract meaning from reading texts. In the classroom, students can be asked to analyze texts they have read; ideally, small groups can work together, and several small groups working on the same text can subsequently compare their analyses and discuss discrepancies. It is perhaps too painful for students to analyze their own texts initially. Teachers may wish to submit for analysis texts written in a prior term. Teachers need to model the approach several times before students are asked to undertake their own analyses. A problem is that texts of reasonable length are required to facilitate the process, and longer texts take more time to analyze. The technique produces results, and students' sense of text organization improves as a result of contrastive rhetoric analyses. Thus, contrastive rhetoric posits that speakers of two different languages will organize the same reality in different ways. That they should do so seems self-evident, because different languages will provide different resources for organizing text. The techniques discussed here are intended to bring these differences to awareness and to help students perceive how text in an L2 (English, in this case) is organized and how that organization may differ from the learner's L1. Robert B. Kaplan is Emeritus Professor, Applied Linguistics at the University of Southern California. Dr. Kaplan is the past Editor-in-Chief and currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, which he founded in 1980 and serves on the editorial boards of several scholarly journals. He has previously served as President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, TESOL, the National Association for Foreign Student Affairs and several other organizations. He has authored or edited 27 books and written more than 100 articles or chapters in books.
I remember (do I?) someone said that a UN document needs to be recorded by 3-4 languages, to avoid misinterpretation. Here is one example how easily English writing can mislead us. our words about sugar The background is well-known: In the United States, more than two-thirds of the population is overweight, and half of them are obese . From: http://news.yahoo.com/sugar-regulated-toxin-researchers-180605186.html Half of THEM? Who are THEM? The US population, or the two-thirds who are overweight?
Writing a first grant proposal Julian G Cambronero , Lee-Ann H Allen , Martha K Cathcart , Louis B Justement , Elizabeth J Kovacs , Kenneth R McLeish William M Nauseef Affiliations Nature Immunology 13 , 105–108 (2012) Published online 19 January 2012 A workshop organized by the Society for Leukocyte Biology offered advice to young scientists on how to decipher the grant-submission process of the US National Institutes of Health and compose a clear, compelling and fundable grant. Fiscal challenges worldwide have restricted the resources available to support research and thus have intensified competition for extramural funding from both government and private agencies. The ramifications of this economic reality are felt most acutely by those least prepared to negotiate the challenges to access funding: graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. Established in 2009 with the charge of enhancing the educational opportunities for members of the Society for Leukocyte Biology (SLB), the Professional Development Committee elected to organize at the 2011 annual SLB meeting an interactive workshop to target the needs of scientists at the initial stages of their careers. The workshop, “Grant Writing for Junior Faculty and Postdoctoral Fellows,” focused its attention specifically on providing critical information to junior investigators on the present peer-review process of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), as well as personal perspectives from successful NIH grantees, deferring to another time discussion of non-NIH funding mechanisms. 全文 writing a first grant proposal.pdf
I noticed a new client, a fresh Ph. D. from Nan Da, who writes English like a native speaker, actually better than a native speaker. I asked him to reveal his secret. He replied: "I read about 500 papers written in English."
your manuscript. Clearly, I didn't come up this list. A client sent the list to me, asking me to check his paper against this list from the journal. Guess what? I do more than what are listed below. 正文内容一致性检查： 1） 所有缩略语第一次出现时是否给出全拼？请严格检查！ ( 摘要里第一次出现须给出全拼，正文中第一次出现也须给出全拼 ) 2） 所有文中的术语和定义是否自始至终有统一的表达？ 3） 每一句话的主谓语是否一致？（单数主语用了复数谓语或相反？） 4） 文章内容叙述的时态全文是否基本一致？（对等的内容应用相同的时态！） 5） 是否尽量用简单句表达？用复合句时，主句和从句各自的主谓语是否找得出来？定语从句修饰的中心词或短语是否找得出来？状语从句补充说明的中心词或短语是否找得出来？ 6） 每个段落是否有一个主题句？ 7） 段落中的每一句话是否支持本段落的主题句？ 8） 是否有很长的段落？段落太长须要再分段！ 9） 正文中的叙述和判断，如果不是本文计算分析得出的，是否引用了相应的参考文献？ 10 ）文字叙述中是否恰当引用了相应的图或表？是否有图或表没有被引到？ 11) 结论中的定量和定性结果是否和正文及摘要中的一致？ 12 ）稿件 引言 和 结论 部分，须用黑体红字说明本工作的创新之处（与以往研究的区别及本工作的意义）
每篇文章必须写到你自己爱不释手的时候才可以丢给别人看。写文章有三个阶段。 第一阶段：提笔，总结，把作好的东西通通搬上纸面。改n遍，n10。这叫搭粗架子。 第二阶段：写累了，改累了，就不要再改了。这时，把所有写好的东西扔掉，重新写。重新搭更美的架子。把食之无味，弃置可惜的东西扔掉。把禁不起推敲的结果扔掉。如此改至少15遍，直到。。。。。 第三阶段：会有一天，你会 突然 特别喜欢你自己写的东西了，这时别人让你停你都舍不得停下来，觉得太美太艺术了，觉得自己是个语言的匠人了。你就象米开朗琪罗完成一个塑像，从雕像上抠下一个小芝麻大小的泥块，又把这个小芝麻分成一半，慢慢加回去，这才满意。 这时您就进入下一个境界 。这以后再改十遍，就可以考虑投出去。如果改到你把昨天改掉的东西今天又改回来了，你的“推敲”功夫就花的差不多了，可以几乎无悔的投稿了。 写论文，就是这么简单的一个过程。科研，就是要作到这个份上才感觉到味道。记住，母语是英语的人一篇文章都要改起码30次，中国的学生改的次数只应该更多。 There are a lot of discussions about writing papers recently. Writing a paper is like giving birth to a baby, or to make an art piece that will be put into the museum. In the not too faraway "old days", journal papers were called " archival papers " - meaning that these papers are for archives, meaning that they will simply be put up there in a library shelf for many future generations to reference. Today, we seem to no longer worry about the name "archival paper" anymore. Cheap .pdf format makes a paper seems like a disposable show 'n' tell. However, let it be known that a paper is always a paper. A paper is not an entry into your SCI Pub column, a way to keep a score. If you write a bad paper once, your colleagues will forever disrespect anything you do thereafter. Many Chinese or anyone in non-English speaking countries are tired of writing. Students get tired with their professors after a few rounds of "torture". Asian country authors put up relatively rushed work frequently. As an editor to a journal, I always tell such authors one simple fact - that native English speakers typically go through 25-30 rounds of revision before they submit a paper . Writing a paper typically takes three phases: In the first phase, you write and you write, starting to fill in more facts, adjusting the structure; At one point, you say "I am so tired of this", and you delete ALL THE CONTENTS, and you write from a blank scratch. You decide to tell your story in the right way . This time, your paper takes a gigantic leap of quality. After this point, you edit your paper 10-15 times, each time wishing you could be done soon. At SOME POINT, you began to think differently. Your paper is such an art piece - it flows well, it read pleasantly, and draws the audience into it. In one word, it starts to feel nice to you. YOU ACTUALLY DON'T WANT TO LET IT GO! You start to like your own work! you want to work on it forever. You work on it for 10 more rounds, each time ADMIRING your own work. You enter into a mood, like an artist drawing on a canvas or a sculptor making silk dress out of stone. NOW, this is the time you can, and must let your paper go! Many discussions on this sciencenet talks about a student getting SO TIRED of his/her professor after the first two rounds in the FIRST PHASE of paper writing. This is simply ridiculous. No self-respecting writer from a native English speaking country would even do this. (By the way, writing a paper without your advisor's consent is a series offense. It is like if you work in a bank as an intern and you give a customer a loan without your bank manager's approval. You will be fired if that is the case, correct? ) 以下是摘抄 一段百度百科的文章 ，读下很有隐喻的指导性： 东风夜放花千树，更吹落星如雨。宝马雕车香满路，凤箫声动，玉壶光转，一夜鱼龙舞。 蛾儿雪柳黄金缕，笑语盈盈暗香去。众里寻他千百度，蓦然回首，那人却在，灯火阑珊处。 东风仿佛吹开了盛开鲜花的千棵树，又如将空中的繁星吹落，象阵阵星雨。华丽的香车宝马在路上来来往往，各式各样的醉人香气弥漫着大街。悦耳的音乐之声四处回荡，职如风萧和玉壶在空中流光飞舞，热闹的夜晚鱼龙形的彩灯在翻腾。美人的头上都戴着亮丽的饰物，晶莹多彩的装扮在人群中晃动。她们面容微笑，带着淡淡的香气从人面前经过。我寻找她千百次，都见不到，不经意间一回头，却看见了她立在灯火深处。 "作为一首婉约词，这首《青玉案》与北宋婉约派大家晏殊和柳永相比，在艺术成就上毫不逊色。词作从极力渲染元宵节绚丽多彩的热闹场面入手，反衬出一个孤高淡泊、超群拔俗、不同于金翠脂粉的女性形象，寄托着作者政治失意后，不愿与世俗同流合污的孤高品格。词从开头起“东风夜放花千树”，就极力渲染元宵佳节的热闹景象：满城灯火，满街游人，火树银花，通宵歌舞。然而作者的意图不在写景，而是为了反衬“灯火阑珊处”的那个人的与众不同。本词描绘出无宵佳节通宵灯火的热闹场景，梁启超谓“自怜幽独，伤心人别有怀抱。”认为本词有寄托，可谓知音。 上片与元夕之夜灯火辉煌，游人如云的热闹场面，下片写不幕荣华，甘守寂寞的一位美人形象。美人形象便是寄托着作者理想人格的化身。 王国维把这种境界称之为成大事业者，大学问者的第三种境界，确是大学问者的真知灼见。
Here introduces some information about "creative nonfiction writing". The following passage written by the Godfather of the creative nonfiction writing: Lee Grutkind. http://www.creativenonfiction.org/thejournal/whatiscnf.htm WHAT IS CREATIVE NONFICTION? This may come as a surprise, but I don’t know who actually coined the term creative nonfiction. As far as I know, nobody knows, exactly. I have been using it since the 1970s, although if we were to pinpoint a time when the term became “official,” it would be 1983, at a meeting convened by the National Endowment for the Arts to deal with the question of what, exactly, to call the genre as a category for the NEA’s creative writing fellowships. Initially, the fellowships bestowed grant money ($7,500 at the time; today, $20,000) to poets and fiction writers only, although the NEA had long recognized the “art” of nonfiction and been trying to find a way to describe the category so writers would understand what kind of work to submit for consideration. “Essay” is the term used to describe this “artful” nonfiction, but it didn’t really capture the essence of the genre for the NEA or lots of other folks experimenting in the field. Technically, scholars, critics, and academics of all sorts, as well as newspaper op-ed reporters, were writing “essays,” although that was not the kind of work the NEA had in mind. “Journalism” didn’t fit the category, either, although the anchoring element of the best creative nonfiction requires an aspect of reportage. For a while the NEA experimented with “belles-lettres,” a misunderstood term that favors style over substance and did not capture the personal essence and foundation of the literature they were seeking. Eventually one of the NEA members in the meeting that day pointed out that a rebel in his English department was campaigning for the term “creative nonfiction.” That rebel was me. Although it sounds a bit affected and presumptuous, “creative nonfiction” precisely describes what the form is all about. The word “creative” refers simply to the use of literary craft in presenting nonfiction—that is, factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid manner. To put it another way, creative nonfiction writers do not make things up; they make ideas and information that already exist more interesting and, often, more accessible. This general meaning of the term is basically acknowledged and accepted in the literary world; poets, fiction writers—the creative writing community in general—understand and accept the elements of creative nonfiction, although their individual interpretation of the genre’s boundaries may differ. The essential point to acknowledge here is that there are lines—real demarcation points between fiction, which is or can be mostly imagination; traditional nonfiction (journalism and scholarship), which is mostly information; and creative nonfiction, which presents or treats information using the tools of the fiction writer while maintaining allegiance to fact. There is, it is true, controversy over the legitimacy of creative nonfiction, both as a term and as a genre; it flares up regularly, perhaps even annually, every time a book like James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces, which purported to be a memoir but contained fictionalized events, is unmasked. Such scandals seem to inspire frenzies among literary and cultural critics, an excuse for predictable (but nevertheless often satisfying) expressions of schadenfreude and sanctimonious pronouncements about Truth in Art. Ultimately, this controversy over the form or the word is not only rather silly but moot; the genre itself, the practice of writing nonfiction in a dramatic and imaginative way, has been an anchoring element of the literary world for many years. George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London, James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son Ernest Hemingway’s Death in the Afternoon, and Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff are classic creative nonfiction efforts—books that communicate information (reportage) in a scenic, dramatic fashion. These four books represent the full spectrum of creative nonfiction: Baldwin’s work is memoir and therefore more personal or inward, dealing with the dynamics of his relationship with his father and the burden of race in America; Wolfe’s work is more journalistic or outward, capturing the lives of the early astronauts. Death in the Afternoon and Down and Out in Paris and London fall somewhere in between—personal, like memoir, but filled with information about bullfighting and poverty, respectively. I often refer to this combination as the parallel narratives of creative nonfiction: There is almost always a “public” and a “private” story. At one point in history, this kind of writing gained popularity as the “New Journalism,” due in large part to Wolfe, who published a book of that title in 1973. In it, he declared that the New Journalism “would wipe out the novel as literature’s main event.” Gay Talese, in the introduction to Fame and Obscurity, his landmark collection of profiles of public figures including Frank Sinatra, Joe DiMaggio, and Peter O’Toole, described the New Journalism thus: “Though often reading like fiction, is not fiction. It is, or should be, as reliable as the most reliable reportage, although it seeks a larger truth than is possible through the mere compilation of verifiable facts, the use of direct quotations, and adherence to the rigid organizational style of the older form.” This is perhaps creative nonfiction’s greatest asset: It offers flexibility and freedom while adhering to the basic tenets of reportage. In creative nonfiction, writers can be poetic and journalistic simultaneously. Creative nonfiction writers are encouraged to utilize literary and even cinematic techniques, from scene to dialogue to description to point of view, to write about themselves and others, capturing real people and real life in ways that can and have changed the world. What is most important and enjoyable about creative nonfiction is that it not only allows but also encourages the writer to become a part of the story or essay being written. The personal involvement creates a special magic that alleviates the suffering and anxiety of the writing experience; it provides many outlets for satisfaction and self-discovery, flexibility and freedom. --Lee Gutkind
This evening, I took part in an English lecture made by Prof. DAI FAN from Sun Yat-sen University, China. She shared the experience in teaching the course named 'Creative Nonfiction Writing' with us and impressed me deeply. It encouraged me greatly. I think I can improve myself with the unique methods. Here enclosed the information for this kind of course(such as thetheme, criteria for the essays)from the internet, and it may offersome suggestion tous teacher in themainland China. http://www2.hawaii.edu/~dennisk/eng_206/eng206syllabus.html Course Theme : Who am I? Who or What has Shaped me? What do I believe in? Where do I fit in? These are some questions at the heart of creative nonfiction, a literary genre which allows writers to explore questions about themselves and the world, from a personal perspective, as well as to create an identity and a map of the world centered around some meaningful and significant place, person, event, activity, or community. The writing is creative in part because it is unique, different from anyone else's. The theme of this course in creative nonfiction is "Situating Identity in our Global and Multicultural Age." ("Site/Situating," Place/Placing," "Home" "Map," and so on, may be both real and imaginary, literal and metaphorical.) In your writing for this class, you will reflect on how you conceive of yourself, how important you find various traditional elements of identity, such as place, ethnicity, ancestry, family, gender, class, culture, language, and/or religion. You will reflect on the movements of your ancestors, family, and yourself; consider historical processes that have affected these movements. Through reading and research, recollection and reflection, you will explore in writing who you have become, are becoming, or might become and what you find important in the world. You will share your research and discoveries in writing with each other. We will read creative nonfiction by some well known and accomplished writers to give us some perspectives on what others have written in this genre, what others have experienced. By comparing and contrasting a multitude of perspectives on identity, you will hopefully discover ways in which we are both alike and unlike each other, and come to appreciate differences as well as look for common ground. The focus of the readings will be on the Pacific, with Asia on its western boundary, America on its eastern boundary, and Hawai'i and Pacific Islands at its center, simply because the course is being offered here, in this place between Lae'ahi and Pu'u o Kaimuki, at a college named for a Hawaiian Queen; and because the students sitting in the classrom have some roots in or connection to Hawai'i, the Pacific and Asia. (The course is designated H-focus, which means it has a Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific focus and fosters "multi-cultural respect and understanding.") Writing Topic: Places: Home and Away Biography: People Who Have Shaped Who We Are Autobiography : Finding a Way Cultural Tradition: What We Value, What We Believe, What We Pass On Community: Where We Belong, Where We Fit At least three of these writings will include with outside sources: such as an interview or two and library or internet research. This requirement is designed to get you to include more than your own perspective in your writing, to create layers of complexity, to go beyond the monovocal. The writing for this class will be done in perhaps a different way from your writing in other classes. We won't be working on one essay at a time, but all five at once, but in different stages. On the first day or two we will generate ideas for all the topics. You will start writing on the first topic, but at the same time begin collecting ideas for the other four. I find that writing grows in complexity when you think about it over a long period of time...weeks, months, even years. You will discover things in your daily living that can be included in an essay --if the topic is important to you; that is, you are thinking about these things as part of your life. Criteria for Grading Writing Content : Does the writing have a clear focus or theme? Do you provide sufficient descriptive details, information, explanations, or evidence to give the reader a clear idea and understanding of what you are trying to convey? In general, an "A" paper will contain elements of surprise, urgency and complexity. Form : Is your writing focused and structured? Grammar, Style, Spelling and Mechanics : Are your sentences clear, concise, and consistent in form and point of view? Is your style appropriate to your purpose, subject, and audience? Does your grammar and punctuation make clear your intended meaning? Do your spelling and mechanics meet the standards of edited publishable English? Diction : Are your word choices precise? Is your figurative language (metaphors, similes, etc.) fresh and effective?
题目一：scientific writing basics 题目二： how to write like a pro 报告人：Dr. Zuojun Yu （ Honolulu-based freelance English editor ） 时间：2011年12月8日（周四） 下午3:00—5:00 地点：东南楼350报告厅 欢迎老师同学踊跃参加！
Zuojun Yu, a Honolulu-based freelance English editor, will give two one-hour-long lectures on scientific writing in English. Lecture 1: scientific writing basics Lecture 2: how to write like a pro Preferred audience: young scientists and Ph.D. candidates in the field of environmental sciences. Date: Dec. 8th and 9th, 2011 Locations and time: to be announced
Zuojun Yu, a Honolulu-based freelance English editor, would like to give two one-hour-long lectures on scientific writing in English. Lecture 1: scientific writing basics Lecture 2: how to write like a pro Preferred audience: young scientists and Ph.D. candidates in the field of environmental sciences. Date: Dec. 6th or 7th, 2011
Good evening, I'm writing to tell you that all US troops will return home from Iraq by the end of December. After nearly nine years, the American war in Iraq will end. Our servicemen and women will be with their families for the holidays. The war in Iraq came with tremendous cost. More than a million Americans served in Iraq, and nearly 4,500 gave their lives in service to the rest of us. Today, as always, we honor these patriots. When I came into office, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end. As Commander in Chief, I ended our combat mission last year and pledged to keep our commitment to remove all our troops by the end of 2011. To date, we’ve removed more than 100,000 troops from Iraq. This is a significant moment in our history. For more information, including video, please visit WhiteHouse.gov/BringingTroopsHome . The end of the war in Iraq reflects a larger trend. The wars of the past decade are drawing to a close. As we have removed troops from Iraq, we have refocused our fight against al Qaeda and secured major victories in taking out its leadership–including Osama bin Laden. And we’ve begun a transition in Afghanistan. On the first day of my Administration,roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and we’ll continue to draw it down. As we welcome home our newest veterans, we’ll enlist their talents in meeting our greatest challenges as a nation—restoring our economic strength at home. Because after a decade of war, the nation that we need to build is our own. Today the United States moves forward, from a position of strength. Thank you, President Barack Obama
I have to say that Chinese are really smart, or at least Chinese students are really quick at learning English writing. A week ago, I started to edit a manuscript written by a beginner. Half way through, I could not take it any more. Why? I was doing less than English editing, because of various "small errors" here and there, involving spacing, punctuation, etc. So, I sent the manuscript back, with instructions for revision. I also wrote a few Blog on how to fix these problems. (See my Blog in the past few days on English writing.) Today, the revised manuscript came back. I was a bit nervous, because I was not sure how much improved it would be. To my surprise, it was so much better! I am so pleased with this graduate student that I suggest that he give a seminar to his fellow students on English writing.
Background: John is a student (or a junior scientist), whose manuscript was sent to me for English editing by his "boss." As usual, I threw in free comments and suggestions. In this case, I suggested him to split the paper into two. End of my Round 1 of editing. After some consideration, John agreed with me and sent me a shortened version. I edited it again, after having gotten the "go ahead" from his "boss." Again, I made suggestions for him to revise. A day later, John asked me for "help," again... Dear John, To revise a paper takes time. I am a good writer, but I need a lot of time to write and even more time to revise a manuscript. The key to good writing is revision, revision, and revision. Please ask yourself these questions: 1) What is new about this paper? (So, you need to know what has been published on this topic.) 2) Are the results important/useful enough to be publish in a journal? 3) Have I told a good story? (Note: A story has a story line and follows a logic; so is a scientific paper.) I want you to work hard on the paper yourself. Then, ask (your boss) to read it, and let him decide if I should do Round 3 of editing. Zuojun
I told the journal editor "such a poorly written paper should have never been sent out for review, not to mention the second time." Below is part of my review. Reject. The paper is very poorly written, from violating plain English language rules to bad organization. Most importantly, I don’t think the authors demonstrated xxx is the cause. They can (do the following test to sort things out). … Some examples of bad English: 1) The authors don’t punctuate correctly. For example, “The Indian Ocean, unlike other oceans is strongly …” (Line 38). A comma is needed after “unlike other oceans.” 2) Randomly place citation(s). For example, “during southwest (xxx et al., 199x) monsoon…” (Line 58; Lines 237-238). 3) Even at the beginning of a sentence, the authors use “Fig x” (Line 218; 247), or “Figures 3 to 5) (Line 273) without any consistency. In Line 302, it was a lower case “figure x.” 4) “To understand and comprehend…” (Line 340). Redundant. ps. May be some students put this poor guy there as the first author.
Three magazine professionals explain what authors should and shouldn't do to establish a mutually beneficial relationship with a magazine's editors. http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition/points_of_view/we_love_you_you_re_perfect_now_edit?type=PTPICKS
简单的语言 在本贴中，我将介绍简单的语言对于学术文章的重要性。科学是复杂的，因此语言需简练。复杂的语言会让读者难以理解你想表达的学术内容。最好使用简单、清楚、简洁的语言让读者易于理解。我在后面还会提供一个图表帮助作者来简化文章中的语言。 Simple is best The nature of reality and science are complicated enough without English getting in the way "Easy writing's curse is hard reading." --Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) The origins and evolution of the universe, the Earth and life. The climate system and effects of humans on the environment. Alternative energies and sustainability. The struggle to understand ageing, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. These are only some of the issues being addressed currently by modern science, and they are all extremely complex. A commonly-used approach in science to manage this complexity is to tackle one small part of the problem at a time, and it is in this incremental approach that the modern scientific endeavor has been so successful in helping us understand our universe. Never the less, the methods, technologies and language of science are also extremely complex. Our disciplines are replete with their own vocabularies of technical jargon, often with their specific “grammars” in which only certain combinations of terms make scientific sense. Given this complexity of nature and our scientific methods and language, clear and concise written scientific English is essential. Unfortunately the English language is not intrinsically concise, although it is becoming more so. Compare, for example, the following lists: a majority of most a number of many, several, some at a rapid rate rapidly as a consequence of because of at this point in time currently based on the fact that because despite the fact that although due to the fact that because in order to to so as to to on the basis of based on On the left are terms that are perfectly correct, but not concise. The concise versions are on the right. The list on the left is a legacy from when English was more formal and “wordy”. These terms are still used frequently in much English writing, but in technical scientific writing they are being discarded increasingly in favor of the terms on the right. Many native English writers believe that using the wordy terms appears more intellectual or clever, and non-native writers have also been taught the same. This is wrong. The use of these wordy terms is fine in creative literature and poetry and in other types of writing where style may be considered as important as substance, but in scientific writing we should be aiming for concision. In my time here in China, I’ve twice had Chinese people tell me about their school education in English. A common task would be for the teacher to tell the class to write, for example, 200 words on a particular topic. Frequent use of terms such as “in order to” and “at this point in time” were a good way to reach the word limit, but in scientific writing the objective is usually the opposite: to say as much as you can in as few words as possible. The less you use these wordy terms the more space you have to use the technical and often complex scientific language you should be focusing on. This is especially the case for abstracts, where upper word limits need to be strictly adhered to. Another simple way to improve concision is the use, or rather not using, the word “of”. As you know, this word indicates the possessive of something, for example “the slope of the mountain”. This can be shortened to “the mountain slope”, where the word “mountain” is now used essentially as an adjective to describe the slope. Now take the short sentence “the slope of the mountain that is covered with forest.” This can be shortened to “the forested mountain slope”, where the adjective “forested” means the same as “covered with forest”. The sentence has been reduced from 10 words to four, and means exactly the same thing. This is a very simple and general example of improving concision, but this process constitutes much of the editing I perform on English manuscripts written by non-native English writers. The opening quote of this post – “easy writing's curse is hard reading” – means that writing the first thing that enters your head will usually convey most of what you want to say, but will often contain too many words and too much repetition. This can make it difficult and tiring to read. An initial draft of a piece of English writing can almost always be improved and made more concise. One of the great things about English is that although it has the capacity to be unnecessarily wordy, it is flexible enough to improve concision dramatically, as the above example showed. Unfortunately, this is often not an easy thing to do, especially for non-native speakers and writers. Similar to native speakers, non-native speakers need to spend time both writing and reading in English to develop the writing (and re-writing) skills needed for optimal concision. It is not just in English that this is an issue. The 17th Century French mathematician, physicist and theologian Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) famously said to a correspondent in a letter: “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” He meant that to have improved the concision of his letter would have required much more thought and effort than the initial draft. Pascal wrote this in French, but it still applies equally to making things concise in English. Returning to a theme of an earlier post (Writing and the art of scientific reading), good readers make good writers. The more English text you can read in your scientific field, and the greater familiarity you gain with the scientific vocabulary and grammar of your discipline, the more easily you will be able to use it in your writing. This includes learning the most concise way to write things. The nature of reality and science are complicated enough without wordy English getting in the way. Try your best to write concisely and clearly, and let your English language be an open doorway to the importance of your research, not an unwieldy barrier. Matthew Hughes, PhD Soil Sciences Editor Edanz Group China
Yes, we are still open for business, seven days a week. Please send your abstracts to us for free editing and comments. We may not know your research, but we can always help to improve your writing somewhat. Xiao Zhang, Your English is pretty good. If you want to improve scientific writing , you can start with reading English publications. When you read a paper, ask yourself how easy it is to understand it. A well-written paper should do that for readers, because there should be a good logic flow to guide you through. Please feel free to contact me if you need specific help with writing. I don't know everything, but I am willing to try my best. Aloha, Zuojun
Important points: 1. Highlight the contributions, and focus on the novel work. 2. Write a paper as a presentation. Other points: 1. Full name before any abbreviation. 2. Function Call Graph (FCG), i.e. capitalize the first letter of words which will provide the abbrievated name. 3. "can not" - "cannot" 4. Avoid using "The" in titiles. 5. Avoid using "we", "us", and "our"; use "the proposed" instead. 6. Avoid using "that is" and "it means". 7. Reduce using "()". 8. Either use "energy" or "power", but not both. 9. In reference part, don't use abbrievation of conference name, but the full name.
Royce Murray University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, Chemistry Anal. Chem., 2011 , 83 (3), p 633 As Editor I have from time to time in this column offered advice to authors on the desirable elements of a good research report. Like contrary children, for some authors such advice seems to vanish like smoke in a wind. So I take here a different approach, based on the idea that some folks have a knack for doing the opposite of what is recommended to them (like contrary children). I present some guidelines for how to prepare a research report that is variously boring, confusing, misleading, or generally uninformative. Whether the author’s project is imaginative (or not) and the experiments are done with skill (or not) and the data are scientifically meaningful (or not) is irrelevant. My advice is solely based on principles of presenting the objectives, experiments, results, and conclusion in a fashion that as such no one will finish reading them or, if they do, readers will have little chance of understanding or remembering them. Like any form of skillful writing, following the rules below for awful writing requires practice and a lack of mental concentration. Rule 1. Never explain the objectives of the paper in a single sentence or paragraph and in particular never at the beginning of the paper. Rule 2. Similarly, never describe the experiment(s) in a single sentence or paragraph and never at the beginning. Instead, to enhance the reader’s pleasure of discovery, treat your experiment as a mystery, in which you divulge one essential detail on this page and a hint of one on the next and complete the last details only after a few results have been presented. It’s also really fun to divulge the reason that the experiment should successfully provide the information sought only at the very end of the paper, as any good mystery writer would do. Rule 3. Diagrams are worth a thousand words, so in the interest of writing a concise paper, omit all words that explain the diagram, including labels. Let the reader use his/her fertile imagination. Rule 4. Great writers invent abbreviations for complex topics, which also saves a lot of words. Really short abbreviations should be used for very complex topics, and more complicated ones for simple ideas. Rule 5. In referring to the previous literature, be careful to cite only the papers that make claims that would support your own, especially those that contain little evidence for the claim, so that your paper shines in comparison. Rule 6. It should be anathema to use any original phrasing or humor in your language, so as to adhere to the principle that scientific writing must be stiff and formal and without personality. Rule 7. Your readers are intelligent folks, so don’t bother to explain your reasoning in the interpretation of the results. Especially don’t bother to point out their impact on or consistency with other authors’ results and interpretation, so that your paper can be an island of original thinking. So these are a few simple rules for poor scientific writing. If you follow them faithfully and your paper is rejected or never cited, irrespective of your native brilliance, you have nonetheless been successful as a poor writer. 经人推荐，发现这是一篇很有指导性的文章，我想对任何领域撰写科研论文也一样，因此转载至此，共分享和学习。
Think You Know 'How To Write A Sentence' (click here to listen)? Most people know a good sentence when they read one, but New York Times columnist Stanley Fish says most of us don't really know how to write them ourselves. His new book, How To Write A Sentence: And How To Read One, is part ode, part how-to guide to the art of the well-constructed sentence.
我希望在国内成立一家 英语 论文编辑服务公司，招聘一些研究生从事 英语 论文编辑和翻译工作。当然，公司将为这些研究生提供特殊的培训和指导，并指派有相关领域经验的主管编辑负责审核他们的工作，以保证 英语 论文的语言部分不会被审稿人挑出毛病。 为什么我觉得这样的公司在国内会有市场？ 第一，被招聘的研究生英语水平基础一定要很好，同时他们也能积极继续提高自身英语水平以迎合未来他们自身研究的需求。公司不会付给他们很高的酬劳，而且他们将从事的是枯燥的编辑和翻译工作。作为回报，公司将为他们提供免费培训。（但这些学生的收入还是会相当不错，以便留住他们至少为公司工作两年时间。) 第二，低劳动成本将使得我们的编辑及翻译服务费用和那些雇用“英语母语人士”的公司相比更具竞争力。而服务费用高是当前许多人不采用论文编辑及翻译服务的主要原因之一。 如果您感兴趣，请回答下列问题： 您需要英文编辑服务吗？如果是，对于简单编辑(一次编辑)、标准编辑(两次编辑) 和大幅编辑(三次编辑)这三种服务方式，您能接受的费用范围各是多少 (比如说，每3000个英语单词多少人民币)？ 您是否需要将您的中文论文翻译成英文？如果是，您能接受的费用范围又是多少(比如说，每3000个汉字多少人民币)？ 您是需要论文编辑多，还是翻译多？您的研究领域是什么？ 诚挚对诚挚，希望您能在此给予回复。 新年快乐！（科学网 张笑/译） Do you wish someone could help you write research papers in English? I wish to set up an editing company in China that uses graduate students as editors and translators. Sure, these students need to go through special training and be supervised. Their work will be checked by an experienced managing editor in the field so that journal reviewers cannot complain about the English presentation of the manuscript. Why do I think such a company will work? First, the chosen students should be pretty good in English already. They should also be motivated to improve their English skill for their own future in research. The training is free, in exchange for (not well) paid editing and translation chores for the company (but the income should be reasonably good to keep these students in the company for at least two years). Second, the low labor cost will allow the editing and translation fees to be competitive with similar companies run by native speakers. The high cost is one of the main reasons that keep many of us away from using editing and translation services. What I need is your input. Do you need help with English editing? If you do, what are the price ranges that you can accept, for light editing (one round of editing), standard editing (two rounds), and extensive editing (three rounds)? Do you need help to translate your paper from Chinese into English? If you do, what is the price range that you think you are willing to pay? Do you need editing more than translation, or the other way around? What is your research field? I am sincere, so please leave a comment only if you are, too. Happy New Year!
Once a first draft is complete, says Hauber, the work has only just begun. Revise and revise and revise, he advises. Hauber says that new authors tend to think that once a sentence is written, it's gold or carved in diamonds. In reality, however, editing is crucial. Even polished authors go through an average of 1012 drafts, and sometimes as many as 30. Writers should ask not only the principal investigator to view drafts, but also every co-author, as well as fellow students or postdocs, and colleagues outside the immediate field of research. Lead authors should give co-authors set deadlines of 10 days to two weeks to suggest changes. Experienced authors counsel letting the draft sit for a few days before reading it with fresh eyes to catch mistakes or problems in flow. Blumberg prefers to read drafts aloud with his students to spot errors. By Kendall Powell To read the original article, go to Publish like a pro By Kendall Powell Journal name: Nature Volume: 467 , Pages: 873875 Year published: (2010) DOI: doi:10.1038/nj7317-873a Published online 13 October 2010 Prolific authors and journal editors share how to get manuscripts noticed, approved and put in print.
You are only as good as your last paper previous success does not guarantee future acceptance. You've got to hook the editor with the abstract. Don't delete those files. Keep every version. You never know what aspect you can use for some other piece of writing. Writing is an amazingly long learning curve. Many authors say that they're still getting better as a writer after several decades. The most significant work is improved by subtraction. Keeping the clutter away allows a central message to be communicated with a broader impact. Write every day if possible. Once you've written what you wanted to convey, end it there. by K.P. To read the original article, go to Publish like a pro By Kendall Powell Journal name: Nature Volume: 467 , Pages: 873875 Year published: (2010) DOI: doi:10.1038/nj7317-873a Published online 13 October 2010 Prolific authors and journal editors share how to get manuscripts noticed, approved and put in print.
Some examples for IELTS Writing Topics from Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, China. 1, 城市存在的问题 While people flood into big cities to seek jobs and happy life, there is a tendency for people to move out. What problems do big cities have? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words. Every year men and women crowd into cities in search of employment, decent living conditions, and the excitement and stimulation of urban life. According to a research, the population in Shanghai alone has increased 26% in the last three years. With the rise in urban population, many big cities have met various problems. One big problem is the ever-increasing pressure caused by over-crowding. As more and more people flood into cities, city services and facilities have been strained to a breaking point. Cities have been exposed not only to the problem of traffic and housing, but to the problem of education, sanitation, employment and so on. A second problem is the living environment. The rising of too many compacted high buildings strips people of sunlight, trees and grasscondemning them to live among stone and concrete, neon lights and endless traffic flows. Additionally, the growing number of cars and buses sends huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, making the air of cities unbreathable. But of all the problems, the most serious and pressing one is the widespread crime, which is a threat to paralyse the city. Bank robberies which were unheard of in the past now occur more frequently. Not a single day passes without the reports of somebody being mugged, being kidnapped or being murdered, etc. All these problems make big cities no longer attractive to people as years before. The tendency to move to the edge of the city or the suburban areas reflects this mentality. Unless there is some improvement, more and more people will seek to live in the suburbs. 2, 21世纪会带来什么 You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic: The 21st century has begun. What changes do you think this new century will bring? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words. Mankind has made great progress since scientific exploration began, and this progress seems to be accelerating. In the past hundred years we have seen inventions that have not only greatly improved our lives but changed the very way we live. There is no reason to believe that this rapid progress will not continue in the 21st century. Although there is no way to exactly predict what our scientists and entrepreneurs will come up with, there are indications that advances will be made in certain areas. The following are some examples. Firstly, advances will continue to be made in the field of medicine that will allow people to live longer and healthier lives. In developed countries today most people already have a lifespan that was unusually long a hundred years ago. Steady progress has been made in the eradication of diseases and this should continue in the next 100 years. In addition, biotechnology in the field of genetics may someday allow us to develop bodies that are stronger and free of inherited defects. Perhaps we will even be able to clone ourselves. No matter what form these advances take, it is highly likely that we will greatly extend our lifespan in the new century. Secondly, new technology has already brought people around the world closer. This trend will continue in the 21st century as communication becomes more efficient and affordable. Countries and their people have formed stronger bonds both economically and politically, such as the recent development of the European Union. Perhaps some day in the future national boundaries will disappear. However, one side effect of this globalisation is that many characteristics of individual cultures will be lost. Sadly, by the end of the century, some languages and art forms may only be found in museums. Thirdly, we can expect both a growing population and demands for a higher standard of living to put increasing pressure on Earths resources. We have already seen some of the effects of this pressure in the form of pollution and global warming. It is likely that these trends will also continue and that more damage to the environment will be done. On the other hand, perhaps we will find more efficient ways to make use of the available resources or develop alternative forms of energy. In that case, we may live with nature more harmoniously. The scenarios above are just three of the many possible changes that this new century will bring. We can expect to see great advances in many fields, including medicine, communications, trade, transportation and production. Although there may be problems in the future, our ingenuity and inventiveness will help us to deal with them. 3, 水资源短缺 You should spend about 40 minutes on this task. Write about the following topic: What are the causes of water shortages? Please also offer some solutions to deal with this problem. Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience. Write at least 250 words. Since the beginning of time, water has been shaping the face of Earth. Water sustains human life, our environment and our cultures. But the global demand for water is increasing and the destruction of water-dependent ecosystems has accelerated. From my point of view, the main reason of scarcity of water resource is the rapid population growth, especially in developing countries. In order to meet the great demand for water, people exploit water resource in various ways. Water supply sources are being stretched to their limits. And groundwater pollution is increasing rapidly. Research indicates that over 1 billion people still do not have access to safe water supplies and over 1.7 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. Another reason is the development of industry and agriculture. In some developing countries, some private factories make use of water resource inefficiently and make much pollution. Irrigated farming also contributes to water scarcity. Despite the high yield, irrigation is extremely water intensive. It takes about 1,000 tons of water to grow one ton of grain and 2,000 tons to grow one ton of rice. Finding solutions of the problem involves the increase of worldwide awareness and international cooperation. Every individual should realise water crisis and the necessity of water-saving. As to the government some effective measures should be taken, including erecting modern irrigation systems and increasing the number of sewage water recycling plants. Building more dams can also be an effective solution. Dams play an important role in detaining the surface rainwater flowing from mountains and would prevent the loss of rainwater straight into the sea.
Depth of details is 1. Limited by the length of the article. e.g., GRL (a letter journal) versus JGR (a regular journal) 2. Indicated by the lengths of paragraphs and sections Emphasis of details is shown by repetition, wording, illustration, and placement Repetition: mentioning a particular result in the abstract, result section, and conclusion. Wording: using dependent clauses and infinitive phrases. because, since, as, although, when to filter out the high-frequency signal References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996)
“Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more science than a heap of stones is a house.” ---J. H. Poincare A graduate student at U. Hawaii asked for help with her first research paper. I recommended my eight Blog articles on “ Scientific Writing for Beginners .” Encouraged by her compliments, I decide to write my second set of articles on scientific writing, with more emphasis on the language itself. Using transitional words and phrases makes writing read more smoothly. They provide logical organization and understandability, and improve the connections and transitions between thoughts A coherent paper allows the reader to flow from the first supporting point to the last. Transitions indicate relations , whether within a sentence, paragraph, or paper. This list illustrates relationships between ideas, followed by words and phrases that can connect them. Addition: also, again, (b) as well as (a), besides, coupled with, furthermore, in addition, likewise, moreover, similarly Consequence: accordingly, as a result, consequently, for this reason, for this purpose, hence, otherwise, subsequently, therefore, thus Generalizing: as a rule, as usual, for the most part, generally, generally speaking, ordinarily, usually Exemplifying: chiefly, especially, for instance, in particular, markedly, namely, particularly, including, specifically, such as Illustration: for example, for instance, for one thing, as an illustration, illustrated with, as an example, in this case Emphasis above all, chiefly, with attention to, especially, particularly, singularly Similarity: comparatively, coupled with, correspondingly, identically, likewise, similar, moreover, together with Exception: aside from, barring, besides, except, excluding, other than, save Restatement: in essence, in other words, namely, that is, that is to say, in short, in brief, to put it differently Contrast and Comparison: contrast, by the same token, conversely, instead, likewise, on one hand, on the other hand, on the contrary, rather, similarly, yet, but, however, still, nevertheless, in contrast Sequence: at first, first of all, to begin with, in the first place, at the same time, for now, for the time being, the next step, in time, in turn, later on, meanwhile, next, then, soon, the meantime, later, while, earlier, simultaneously, afterward, in conclusion, with this in mind, Summarizing: after all, all in all, all things considered, briefly, by and large, in any case, in any event, in brief, in conclusion, on the whole, in short, in summary, in the final analysis, in the long run, on balance, to sum up, to summarize, finally Diversion: by the way, incidentally Direction: here, there, over there, beyond, nearly, opposite, under, above, to the left, to the right, in the distance Based on http://www.studygs.net/wrtstr6.htm and modified for scientific writing. Zuojun’s note: Between paragraphs: Do not waste the first sentence to repeat what is said in the previous paragraph. Between sentences: Finish one thing before starting another. Do not go back and forth.
You may have seen “Lost in translation” (a movie), or have read “Lost in translation” (a novel); the two are unrelated though. I did both, therefore my title for the Blog: Found in translation. Yes, I found out recently that I can be pretty good at translation (of a research paper in a field that I have some knowledge). In the past, I repeatedly said to my friends and clients that I would not do translation (Chinese to English) for them, no matter what … Then, I was forced to translate a research paper for an old client. The main reason was the deadline, because he did not believe any translation company can do a good job, which means the translated paper needs to be edited by me afterwards. I agreed with him (and I could use the income), so my brain was called to action. First, I asked for an assistant from the co-author list. Then, I marked all the jargon in red and sent the annotated file to my new assistant, asking him to translate each into English, in addition to preparing figures, tables, and reference list in English. The first thing I did was to familiarize myself with the research topic. I quickly read a couple of published papers in English, which I picked from the reference list. A couple of hours later, I had learned a bunch of jargon on the subject. I worked on the paper for 2-3 hrs each day, and I was getting better and better each day. I expect to finish translating this paper of 8000 Chinese characters in 20 hrs. As much fun as I have had working on this task, I still prefer NOT to translate for my clients. Why? It’s mainly the cost. I want to do a decent job, which means I need time to learn new things (including jargon), to understand the paper itself, and to present the work in my own words that can be understood by people in that field (which may NOT be my own field). My final request to my client: This is your work, so please read my translation very carefully and point out any mistakes I made. After all, I am only a ghostwriter.
http://lawrenceofacademia.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/how-to-write-less-badly/ Ten tips to improve your academic writing: Treat writing as exercise: youll get better and faster with practice. Set goals based on output, not input. Find a voice: do not strive merely to be published, but to be read. Give yourself time. Ignore the fakers: everyones unwritten work is brilliant. Portray your work as the answer to a puzzle. Write, then squeeze the other things in. Accept that not all of your thoughts are profound. Realize that your most profound thoughts are often wrong. Edit your work, over and over.
A large volume of information Is an alternative to details the experimental setup employ the notion of nonetheless share similarities with some of .. that seems to be inferior to .. we consider in this paper Is a special case of (see for instance …) Lead to rather surprising results related to… . .. for approaching a solution to optimization problem: Tackle Rather recently, there is a growing body of work providing for Enjoy … guarantees The set of … is denoted by Learning to rank is an important problem in web page ranking, information retrieval and other applications. Are an important component of IR systems. Recent work … show that Experimental results on the two algorithms verify the correctness of the theoretical analysis. Approach simplifies the process of Can handle many thousands of features Provide proof of correctness Following the standard machine learning setup, our goal is to lean a function …between an input space X (all possible queries)and output space Y(rankings over a corpus). We restrict ourselves to the supervised learning scenario, where input/output pairs(x,y) are available for training and are assumed to come from some fixed distribution P(x,y). The average precision score is defined as MAP(p, ˆp) = 1/rel sum_{ j:pj=1} Prec@j, where rel = |{i : pi = 1}| is the number of relevant documents, and Prec@j is the percentage of relevant documents in the top j documents in predicted ranking ˆy. MAP is the mean of the average precision scores of a group of queries. ROCArea assigns equal penalty to each misordering of a relevant/non-relevant pair. In contrast, MAP assigns greater penalties to misorderings higher up in the predicted ranking. We build upon the approach used by for optimizing … is a feature mapping function from a query/document pair to a point in N dimensional space As is usual in SVM training, C is a parameter that controls this tradeoff and can be tuned to achieve good performance in different training tasks. 描述实验过程: For each dataset in Table 5, we performed 50 trials. For each trial, we train on 10 randomly selected queries, and select another 5 queries at random for a validation set. Models were trained using a wide range of C values. The model which performed best on the validation set was selected and tested on the remaining 35 queries. The challenges in … led to … …Has received a significant interest in… The empirical results also agree well with the theoretical results obtained in the paper on a par with A significant body of work has studied behavior ...have gained renewed interest due to their ..properties. ... do not scale to large data sets. This is because typically, their .(such as storage).requirements grow quadratically with the sample size, Y is a matrix of 0's and 1's, with each row having a single 1. To support more flexible notions of structural correctness A potential drawback of FBS methods is that often the step-sizes must be carefully tuned. In contrast, our method.... usually succeeds without user intervention. plug.. into... in the framework of in the absence of inherit ... properties of .. contribution is exploring computationally efficient methods to iteratively excuting ... updates excutes a ... step empirically examine the performance on ...t asks Encouraging results validate the efficacy of our techniques. the field of ... is concerned with... during the training phase, also known as the learning phase, on the basis of the training data computationally infeasible If the desired output consists of one or more continuous variables, then the task is calledregression. Cases such as the digit recognition example, in which the aim is to assign each input vector to one of a finite number of discrete categories, are called classification problems. The easist way to fulfill the requirement is to Performing such calculations is intractable due to .. can also be Most of the approaches do not come with guarantees on /are not guaranteed to The difficulties stem from The main drawback of the approach is that In contrast, The approach conveniently fits our needs. To address the above problems caused by ..., we develop a novel and very efficient learning algorithm for ... To the best of our knowledge, ... To this end, 为此目的 Driven by the success of ...on ..., we perform a detailed evaluation onweb-scale datasets. We exploit the connections between... and ... to motivate the algorithm.
Based on P.T. OConners Woe is I (Seemy blog: Introducing a FUN and USEFUL book on English writing: Woe is I ) Note: If you see I am copying a sentence word-by-word from the book, dont take me to court! Chapter 10: Saying is believing How to write what you mean A good writer is one you can read without breaking a sweat. Remember this: The reader is always right. Chances are, if something you are reading does not make sense, it is not your faultits the writers. And if something you write does not get your point across, its probably not the readers faultits yours. To be clear in your writing, you have to be clear in your thinking. 1) Say what you have to say. Thats right. Get to the point. Here is one example of throat-clearing phrase you should ditch: Perhaps it would be valuable as we arrive at this point in time to recall 2) Stop when you have said it. You need to use a period. Thats right. When it is time to start another sentence, start another sentence. But, how do you know when it is time? Well, try breathing along with your sentences. As you silently read along, do not breath unless you see a period. If you start to turn blue (out of breath) before getting to the end, that sentence is too long. 3) Dont belabor the obvious. This is to eliminate redundancies. Such as few in number , blue in color , plan in advance , final conclusion, refer back You get the picture. 4) Dont tie yourself in knots to avoid repeating a word. Editors sometimes call this attempt at elegant variation the Slender Yellow Fruit Syndrome. As in this case: George was offered an apple and a banana, and he close the slender yellow fruit. 5) Be direct. In geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The same applies to scientific writing. Example? We conclude that George W. is an idiot. Not: Our conclusion is that George W. is an idiot. 6) Dont make yourself the center of the universe. E-mailers are often guilty of this. I have certainly noticed this problem with my e-mail, for a long time. Dont make every other word with I or me or my . 7) Put descriptions close to what they describe. The reader shouldnt need a map to follow a sentence. Example: The pasture contained several cows seen by reporters that were dead, diseased, or dying. Do you see whats wrong? Who were dead, diseased, or dying? The cows, not the reporters. Try: Reporters saw a pasture containing several cows that were dead, diseased, or dying. 8) Put the doer closer to whats being done. If you need a compass to navigate a sentence, take another whack at the writing. Example: The twins , after stubbornly going to the same high school despite the advice of their parents and teachers, chose different colleges. Try: The twins chose different colleges, after stubbornly going to the same high school despite the advice of their parents and teachers. 9) Watch out for pronounitis. John told Sam he took his hat because its too sunny outside. Whose hat? 10) Make sure there is a time and, place for everything. Where was the field experiment conducted? Which year and month? There are the questions readers shouldnt have to ask. 11) Imagine what you are writing. One image (one thing) at a time, please. (This reminds a joke. Dont read further if you are very over-weight. A heavy woman steps on a talking scale, and the scale says: One at a time, please. This is what I picture myself, when I feel the urge for another sugary American cookie.) 12) Put your idea in order. Dont make the reader rearrange your messy sentences to figure out what is going on. The parts should follow logically. 13) Get the big picture. Forget the details for a minute. Now, step back and take a look at what you have written. Have you said what you wanted to say? Assuming you have made your point, ask yourself whether you could make it more smoothly. Somebody once said that in good writing, the sentences hold hands. See if you can give yours a helping hand. If may be that by adding or subtracting a word here or there, you could be even clearer. Or you could switch two sentences around, or begin one of them differently. By the way, I do so when drafting my e-mail. Do you? 14) Read with a felonious mind. If you see a letter or memo or report or a research paper that you admire, read it again. Why do you like it? What makes it so effective? When you find a technique that works, steal it. (As I am stealing from this book, right now.) Someday, others may be stealing from you. See you soon!
Based on P.T. O’Conner’s Woe is I Chapter 1: Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety Object Lessons The me generation There days, we don’t say “It’s I ” any more. Why? Because language is a living thing, always evolving, and “It’s I ” is just about extinct. So, next time you identify the bad guy in a police lineup, feel free to point and say, “That’s HIM, Officer!” Just between me and I You will never make such a mistake like this, “You will be hearing from I .” However, one might say: “You will be hearing from my sister and me .” So, if you find yourself putting you and I after a preposition, try this: In your mind, eliminate the other guy, leaving the tricky pronoun ( I or me ) all by itself. Between you and me , it works. ps. Part 1 can be found at http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=306792do=blogid=351211
Based on P.T. O’Conner’s Woe is I (Seemy Blog: Introducing a FUN and USEFUL book on English writing: Woe is I http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=306792do=blogid=350432 ) Chapter 1: Therapy for Pronoun Anxiety The Which Trials: That or Which? Examples: Nobody likes a dog that bites. Nobody likes a dog which bites. Answers: The second example is wrong. So, follow these two rules: 1) If you can drop the clause and not lose the point of the sentence, use which . If you can’t, use that . 2) A which clause goes inside commas. A that clause doesn’t. Who’s That? Examples: The woman that married John Smith lives next door. The woman who married John Smith lives next door. Answers: Both are correct. A person can be either a that or a who . A thing, on the other hand, is always a that . Question: Is an animal a that or a who? The answer is in the book (This way, I am not going to ruin the profit of the author )
You should read this book, if you care about writing English well. How did I discover this book? Thanks to my son, to the courses he will take in the upcoming (high) school (senior) year. I needed a book to kill my time, and this book caught my eye. The good thing about this book is you can read it backward! I just finished the last chapter in the 2nd edition, which is about how to write/use email properly. Very useful. Woe is I Reviews of Woe Is I It's like Strunk and White combined with S. J. Perelmannone of whom would have had the slightest objection. New York Times Book Review Woe Is I is enormous fun as well as enormously instructive. Publishers Weekly I mean, this is, like, a cool book. Garrison Keillor Possibly the most popular book on grammar ever published. Writers.com A nifty guidebook to modern grammar that affectionately elbows the reader on every page. San Francisco Chronicle The best thing to happen to grammar since Strunk and White. Molly Ivins It is the best primer on English usage to come along since Strunk and White. Atlanta Journal-Constitution Wow! Who would have thought you could have such a delicious time with a grammar book? Susan Isaacs Clear, easy to read and filled with examples that provide a fresh understanding of musty old rules. Charlotte Observer Hallelujah! This book works. Des Moines Register
For abstract, define only those abbreviations that you will use in the abstract, not those you will use in the main text. For example: Abstract: The sea-surface temperature (SST) in the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes abnormally warm every 3-5 years, known as the El Nino. The authors use SST data derived by satellite to show another El Nino is on the way. Note that the purpose for defining abbreviations is for speedy writing and reading. If the abbreviation is used only 2-3 times, do not introduce it (unless it saves you a lot of space, say in a long abstract). Avoid using confusing abbreviations, such as AS (just-in-time definition for Arabian Sea), NC (North China), etc. Just-in-time definition is what I prefer; however, most journals in my fields (oceanography and meteorology) still do not accept just-in-time definition. (Its time for evolution.) For the papers main text (not including the abstract), whatever abbreviations you define in the abstract do NOT count. You need to treat the paper as a separated body from the abstract. Do not define the same abbreviation again and again in the paper, especially not in the conclusion part (no matter how convenient this is for people like me who may read the conclusion first or only read the conclusion). If I am wrong on these rules, please let me know. p.s. Yahoo! has a nice article on When and how to introduce abbreviations under Acronyms and other abbreviations
Lecture 1: scientific writing basics Lecture 2: how to write like a pro Speaker: Zuojun Yu, a Honolulu-based freelance English editor 时间：6月28日上午9:30-11:30 地点： 中国科学院南海海洋研究所 , 标本楼6楼学术报告厅 Same lectures will be given in Beijing on June 25 (Friday) at the LASG/IAP: http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=330808
I know my host is very busy, and I had a chance to witness it. On the 21st of June, he introduced one speaker at 8:45 am in one building, and walked me to another building for my lectures from 9-11 am. I was not very well settled, because I had to speak from a raised stage with a microphone much too low for me to use. (I was told to sit down and teach, but I was not used to sitting while lecturing.) With me standing, I felt that I did not have good eye contact with my audience. I tried not to be distracted by cool sea breeze or traffic noise from the street. Suddenly, my host asked the audience: Do you all understand the point Yu Lao Shi just made? Silence was the answer. I knew I lost my audience, the worst thing for any speaker. I went back a couple of slides, and repeated my teaching in Chinese. When I finished both lectures, I was not getting questions. I didn't know what to do. My host came to rescue again: Now, let's ask some questions. Start with you... He practically made every one in the first few rows to ask a question. After that, students were more willing to ask me questions on their own... What a relief to me. Thank you, my host. I have learned how to interact better with the audience from you!
It was Friday evening, and the World Cup was probably playing on TV. I was very pleased that so many students showed up for my lectures. To encourage interaction, I showed the beautiful note cards I brought from Hawaii. The first six who asked me questions would share the package. I received more than six questions, so the cards were all taken. Some of the questions are excellent ones; some, I need more thinking. I encourage the students to contact me in future when they have more specific questions during their writing. I hope they will.
Due to flight delay, the lectures will be given in the evening on the 18th (Friday), starting at 7 pm. I will teach scientific writing at the YIC ( 中国科学院烟台海岸带研究所 ). It's on June 16th (Wed), starting at 19:00 (or 7 pm). 英文写作 讲座信息如下 Zuojun Yu, a Honolulu-based freelance English editor, will give two one-hour-long lectures on scientific writing in English. Lecture 1: scientific writing basics Lecture 2: how to write like a pro Same lectures will be given in 1) Qingdao on June 21 (Monday) at the FIO ( 海洋局一 所 ) : http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=327267 2) Beijing on June 25th (Friday) at LASG ( 中国科学院大气物理研究所, 大气科学和地球流体力学数值模拟国家重点实验室; 英文缩写 LASG). It starts at 9:30 am. For detail, please visit: http://www.lasg.ac.cn/Sylm/2010/5/gt1vqr52wg.htm 3) Guangzhou on June 28th (Monday) at the SCSIO ( 中国科学院南海海洋研究所 ): 主办: 中国科学院南海海洋研究所 《热带海洋学报》 Contact info: http://www.jto.ac.cn/CN/column/column111.shtml
First of all, I do not translate. So, take what I write below with a grain of salt . Background: A friend of mine is trying to translate a manuscript in Chinese. The goal is to publish the manuscript in an English language journal. 1) Get a paper published in a good English language journal on the same or similar topic, preferably by a senior scientist from an English-speaking country (unless it's by me; just kidding). Read it at least once to learn the terminology. 2) Check the journal style, which is usually available online. If not, get a published paper from the journal this translated manuscript will be submitted to; this published paper should tell you a lot about the journal's style. It may also tell you whether or not this journal provides copy-editing. 3) Read the Chinese paper from the beginning to the end once at least (if it's not written by you), to get a feeling about what it is about. 4) Start stair-climbing… 5) Let the original author read the translated version and give you feedback: he may not write English well, but he should be able to tell... At least I hope so. Please let me know if this list is totally my imagination, or it actually helps. ps. I read this Blog today (April 14, 2011), and feel it is still valid. By now, I have actually translated a paper for Chinese Sci. Bulletin ( 中国科学 D 辑 ) . I wrote a Blog about my own experience, which you can find blow: Found in Translation http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=306792do=blogid=372353
I will teach scientific writing at LASG (中国科学院大气物理研究所, 大气科学和地球流体力学数值模拟国家重点实验室; 英文缩写LASG). It's on June 25th (Friday), starting at 9:30 am. For detail, please visit: http://www.lasg.ac.cn/Sylm/2010/5/gt1vqr52wg.htm Same lectures will be given in 1) Qingdao on June 21 (Monday) at the FIO: http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=327267 2) Guangzhou on June 28th (Monday) at the SCSIO: 主办: 中国科学院南海海洋研究所 《热带海洋学报》 Contact info: http://www.jto.ac.cn/CN/column/column111.shtml
4) Appropriate Use of Conventions a) Adjective and verb confusion Example: His colleagues agree that he does his job good. Correction: His colleagues agree that he does his job well. b) Pronoun case: Example: He sat between you and I in the meeting. Correction: He sat between you and me in the meeting. c) Idiom: Example: Dr. Yee had a very high opinion towards her. Correction: Dr. Yee had a very high opinion of her. d) Comparison of modifiers Example: Of the five posters, I like Dr. Lis more. Correction: Of the five posters, I like Dr. Lis best. e) Sentence fragment Example: Whether or not the answer seems correct. Correction: The answer seems to be correct. f) Comma splice or fused sentence Example: Ann enjoys reading novels, she reads at least one each week. Correction: Ann enjoys reading novels, and she reads at least one each week.
3) Clarity and Precision a) Ambiguous and vague pronouns Example: In the paper they claim these results are new. Correction: The authors claim these results in the paper are new. b) Diction Example: He derived the satellite data from a Website. Correction: He downloaded the satellite data from a Website. c) Wordiness Example: There are many issues we face in everyday life we live. Correction: There are many issues we face in everyday life. d) Missing subject Example: If your car is parked here and not eating at the restaurant, it will be towed away. Correction: If you park here and do not eat at the restaurant, your car will be towed away. E) Weak passive verbs Example: When we take the data, the sampling sites are being selected first. Example: Before we take the data, we select the sampling sites first.
The last stop of our summer visit in China will be my beloved hometown, Hangzhou. We will be staying at Dahua Hotel during the last week of June. I stayed there before, and really enjoyed the quiet surrounding and reasonably priced restaurant operated by the hotel. I wonder if some of my fellow Bloggers care to get together for an afternoon tea or lunch (since I need to have dinner with my parents). Also, if someone feels his or her institute has a great need for lectures on how to write research papers in English, please send me a short message ( 发短消息 ) with your email address so we can try to set up a location and time, like the one in Qingdao (see http://www.sciencenet.cn/m/user_content.aspx?id=327267 ).
The modern uses of the semicolon relate either to the listing of items, or to the linking of related clauses . Applications of the semicolon in English include Between closely-related independent clauses not conjoined with a coordinating conjunction I went to the basketball court; I was told it was closed for cleaning. I told Ben he's running for the hills; I wonder if he knew I was joking. Nothing is true; everything is permitted. A man chooses; a slave obeys. Between independent clauses linked with a transitional phrase or a conjunctive adverb I like to eat fish; however, I don't like to be eaten by them. I like being odd; yet, I hate being different. Between items in a series or listing containing internal punctuation , especially parenthetic commas, where the semicolons function as serial commas : She saw three men: Jamie, who came from New Zealand; John, the milkman's son; and George, a gaunt kind of man. Several fast food restaurants can be found in each of London, England; Paris, France; Dublin, Ireland; and Madrid, Spain. Examples of familiar sequences are: one, two, and three; a, b, and c; and first, second, and third. Zuojun: I see few authors use semicolon in their research papers. One thing you could try is to use semicolon to break a very long sentence that you don't want to split into two sentences. Happy writing!
2. Logical Expression of Ideas a) Coordination and subordination Example: Ann has a cough, and she has probably caught a cold. Correction: Ann has a cough ; she has probably caught a cold. b) Logical comparison: Example: Dr. Wang publishes more papers than his colleagues. Correction: Dr. Wang publishes more papers than his colleagues (do). c) Modification and word order Example: Crying loudly, the tree had the boys kite wrapped around it. Correction: Crying loudly, the boy had wrapped his kite around a tree.
Before my summer lectures on scientific writing, I have received the following questions from a student rep. I post my quick, and not well-thought-through, answers below. I hope you all can contribute by giving your version of A1, A2 and A3. Thank you in advance! Q1: When preparing a research paper in English, is itok to write it in Chinese first, and then translate it into English? If your answer is No, how can we overcome it? (Actually, some of us are doing so right now.) A1: My answer is actually YES. If you feel comfortable writing in Chinese first, go ahead. You do need to pay attention to some writing style in English, which I will teach when I visit. My guess is that you will do this only once or twice, because you dont want to write two papers each time and only publish one! Q2: We often have trouble choosing proper words in English. Do you have any good suggestions? A2: Its hard even for a native speaker to write well One thing you could do is to use the thesaurus in Word (under Review button). Still, you need a good sense of knowing right from wrong, which takes time to learn. In time, however, you will get better. Q3: Can you talk about how to improve English writing besides through reading? Because we may still feel intimidated by English writing after we have read lots of English materials. A3: Rome was not built in one day. Do not rush yourself. How long did it take you to learn how to write well in Chinese? All the composition lessons in grade school, middle school, and high school It's like swimming: You can never be good at it without lots of practice in the water Read and WRITE with your heart and mind, and you will get better and better every day. Good Good Study, Day Day Up!
I. Consistency a) Sequence of tenses Example: After the experiment was finished, data are collected for analysis. Correction: After the experiment was finished, data were collected for analysis. b) Shift of pronoun Example: If you want to improve your English writing, one should try to read more and write more. Correction: If you want to improve your English writing, you should try to read more and write more. c) Parallelism Example: This paper showed us how to collect data, how to analyze data, and drawing a conclusion was also demonstrated. Correction: This paper showed us how to collect data, analyze data, and draw a conclusion . d) Noun-number agreement Example: Ann and Daisy want to be an oceanographer. Correction: Ann and Daisy want to be oceanographers . e) Subject-verb agreement Example: There is eight experiments. Correction: There are eight experiments.
海洋 局 一所、海大、海洋所，各位同仁： 海洋 局 一所 定于6月21日（周一）9：00am 在海洋局一所科研楼八楼会议室举办英文写作的讲座，欢迎各位派学生参加。讲座信息如下 Zuojun Yu, a Honolulu-based freelance English editor, will give two one-hour-long lectures on scientific writing in English . Lecture 1: scientific writing basics Lecture 2: how to write like a pro ps. More locations will be given later, likely in Yantai, Beijing, and Guangzhou.
Nature Editor's Summary on 3 September 2009 Nitrogen lost at sea Fixed nitrogen availability is the factor limiting primary production in more than half of the world's oceans. Recent reports have shown that anammox (anaerobic ammonium oxidation), rather than conventional denitrification producing dinitrogen gas (N2), is responsible for all or most of the fixed nitrogen loss in oxygen limited regions of the ocean. Ward et al. demonstrate that denitrification, rather than anammox, dominates the fixed nitrogen loss in the Arabian Sea. In this region denitrifying bacteria are more abundant than anammox bacteria, even when anammox rates are significant. This work addresses a major uncertainty in our understanding of the global nitrogen cycle and the fixed nitrogen inventory, confirming that denitrification is a major process in the overall marine nitrogen cycle. Zuojun's comments: Be brave. Yes, this was written by a native speaker. So what. You can make it better by adding one word, however.
If you ask me how I became an English editor, I would first tell you about my two great English teachers in China. I was admitted by the Shandong College of Oceanography (now Ocean University of China) as a student of Class 77, with mixed ages from 16 to 32 (or wider). We were given an English test, so the school could offer Class A to a handful of students whose English was already quite good. I only made it to Class B, but was allowed to join Class A after the summer vacation, a story I wish to tell some day. In short, I had the best English teacher in college, and again in the graduate school of Zhongshan University. Both teachers were tall and handsome, but whats important to their students was they all insisted on one thing: reading, reading, and reading. In fact, both teachers asked us to recite every lesson from the text book! I think that practice helped me to build a solid foundation for scientific writing. I did beg my father to buy me a brick-size tape player when it was first available, to study English. It was useful, but I probably spent more time listing to pop songs than the New Concept, something I never dared to confess to my dear father who actually borrowed money for the first time in his life from two old friends of his to purchase this recorder. (I just asked my father the actual cost of this brick-size recorder. Both my parents remember it very well, because they paid RMB300 for it and the price went down a lot two months after their purchase. To get some idea about how expensive the tape player was to my parents: it cost their combined income over two months! Hard to imagine I would do that for my son, though a new iPod is not cheap.) In short, one must read, read, and read some more in order to write English well. If you dont have time for novels, read news and publications in English on the topics you are familiar with. These are other peoples writing, but soon the words, phrases, and sentences will become yours. Rome was not built in one day, nor is ones ability to write well in English.
When you read articles in English, pay attention to these two words: but and and . You may notice these two words occasionally are used at the beginning of a sentence, BUT good scientific writing should avoid starting a sentence with either of these two words. But : When you use this word at the beginning of a sentence, try to change it in the following ways: Original writing: We carried out many numerical experiments using the new mixing scheme. But, the improvement on climate prediction was limited. Take 1: We carried out ....; however, the improvement ... Take 2: We carried out ... The improvement on climate prediction, however, was limited. And : You should always be able to simply drop this word, if you have it at the beginning of a sentence. If not, send your writing to me and I will revise it for you or revise this Blog.
It’s New Year’s Day here in Honolulu, a very quiet morning except for birds’ singing. In contrast, the New Year’s Eve was LOUD, because it’s one of the few occasions that people in Hawaii are allowed to set off fireworks (when limited permits are issued for big fireworks that shoot high into the sky). We joined Yanli’s family to celebrate the coming of 2010, with good food, wine, and lots of small fireworks (that need no permit). Waking up half-rested, I was thinking of what to do on New Year’s Day. I could go check how my numerical experiments are doing, but that will only take an hour. I could finish editing a manuscript for my new client, which might take 2-3 hours. I could write a Blog about my ~100 days on the ScienceNet. Suddenly, an idea came to me… Writing well in English is a useful skill, whether you hate “the SCI journals” or not. If you can publish research papers in English, you will have more international readers. (Do go for Open Access journals whenever possible.) So, here is my proposal to you. If you are a graduate student whose advisor needs help with English writing, ask her (or him) if you could help to improve the draft (or translate it) for a reasonable fee, say much cheaper than a world-class English editing company would charge. If you are a serious student with average level of English skill, she might actually let you. Then, I request that you go over the manuscript twice or more, until you feel that you have done all you could to improve it. After that, you send it to me for polishing… Tell your advisor that I cannot promise the manuscript will be accepted by an SCI journal, but the editor and reviewers should be pleased with the clear English presentation. If you are a young scientist without your own research grants, you may approach senior PIs at your institute, who are not working on exactly the same topic as you do (to avoid potential conflict of interest) but could use some help with English writing. You may wonder what you could gain by doing this, besides making some spending money. Well, you could at least improve your own English writing greatly. (See my Blog on What Can You Gain from English Editing? If you are a devoted scientist, good English writing will come handy. If you are a graduate student who may decide not to continue research some day (for whatever reasons), you can always make a decent living as an English editor. Now, you may also wonder what I hope to gain through this partnership. I hope to expand my business in 2010, of course. I also feel I can help you to be a better writer of scientific articles. To find out more about me, you may simply google my name in English. Happy New Year!
This article is written for you, if you plan to send your manuscript for editing service. Good English editing service is usually not cheap. So, how can you get more out of such a service? Citations: First, you check the journal style, to make sure the citation format is correct. There are many ways to cite a reference, such as , , (Smith 2008), etc. Note the subtle difference between the first two citation examples. I consider this authors responsibility, but I will comment on it if citation format varies in one manuscript. If you are citing more than one paper in a parenthetic remark, such as , there are two basic rules: one is to separate papers by a semicolon (not a comma), and the other is to cite according to the year each paper was published (first published, first cited). There are more rules, but I don't mind editing more complicated cases for you, or some journal copy editor may fix it for you. Figures and tables: If you start a sentence with Figure 1 illustrates (same for table), you do not abbreviate the word Figure (or Table). If you need to say Figures 1a and 1c show , you need to check the journal style first, because it may be Figures 1, a and b, show or in some other format. (Dont you wish all journals have the same style? Well, it is not going to happen for a long while, just as we wish the whole world could speak one language, preferably Chinese ) If you use Figure 1 anywhere else in a sentence, you may be able to abbreviate it as Fig. 1 Again, only the journal style can guide you. Same for using it in a parenthetic remark: The temperature increase is noticeable (Fig. 1). Another thing for Chinese (at least) to pay attention to is that subject and verb need to go harmonically together. Here are some examples: 1) The waves generated by Typhoon Nina are very powerful. You should see (simplify) this sentence as The waves (adj.) are very powerful. This way, you can avoid a very common mistake, that is, The waves (adj.) is Share this Blog with your friends, if you think it may help them. Zuojun: When my clients improve their English, I will receive a much better manuscript next time. As a result, I can improve their writing further because revising (including editing) is the key to good writing. If I am bogged down with fixing these little (easy) problems, I have less time to think about the whole sentence or paragraph or section. So, please help me to serve you better
王 应 宽 2009-10-29 UTC-6 CST UMN, St Paul 博主按： 本人最近在明尼苏达大学图书馆借阅了一些关于科技论文写作的书籍。觉得有些内容好，对写作很有帮助，于是在阅读时做了一些读书笔记。准备陆续将自认为有用的内容与大家分享。本文所摘录的使你的写作更易读懂的十种方法，将从选词构句的微观操作层面，指导作者如何进行有效的科技论文写作，如何修改完善文字写作和语言表达。转贴于此，希望对改进作者的英文写作有所裨益。 内容出处： Birgitta Malmfors, Phil Garnsworthy, Michael Grossman. Writing and Presenting Scientific Papers. First edition. Norttingham University Press, Norttingham, UK, First published in 2000. P133. 使科技写作更易读懂的十种方法 Ten Ways to Make Your Writing Easier to Read 1 Choice of words Use words that are accurate-that mean what you want to say; words that are appropriate-that fit with well with other words in the paper; and words that are familiar-that are easy to read and understand. Use specific, concrete words; they are easier to understand and to remember. When you have something simple to say, say it simply. Use the word that conveys your meaning most accurately, but when deciding between two such words, choose the shorter, more common word. There are exceptions to that rule, however. Use a long word if it is the only word that expresses your meaning accurately, if it is more familiar than a short word, if its connotations are more appropriate, or if scientists in your discipline prefer it. For example: Instead of Use Ameliorate improve Approximately about Commence begin Enumerate list Finalize finish, complete Prioritize rank Utilize use Viable option choice Your choice of words is important! 2 Avoid jargon Use technical words and expressions (jargon) only when the terms are essential and familiar to the reader. Otherwise, avoid the use of jargon because it is difficult to understand. Instead, use a simpler plain language equivalent, even when the equivalent expression is longer. 3 Use active verbs and avoid passive verbs A verb is active when the subject does the action. A verb is passive when the subject is acted upon. To identify a passive verb in a sentence, look for a form of the verb to be followed with by. For example, This method was recommended by them is passive, whereas They recommended this method is active. A sentence that uses an active verb is shorter and clearer; more interesting and less boring; more direct because it emphasizes the subject; more forceful; takes less time to read and is easier to understand; and sounds less pompous and bureaucratic. Passive verbs are desirable to provide coherence within a paragraph , i.e. to provide transitions between sentences by repeating a word. For example, These problems ended with the discovery of penicillin. Penicillin now could be used by A sentence is easier to read if old information comes at the beginning of a sentence. Start one sentence with the idea that ended the previous sentence, even if it means using a passive verb. It is desirable also to use the passive verb in the following situations: to emphasize the receiver of the action , e.g. Waston and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize; to avoid assigning blame , e.g. It is known that there are errors associated with field data; or omit an unknown or irrelevant agent, e.g. The petri dish was warmed slightly. 4 Use strong verbs-not nouns Put the weight of the sentence in the verb. Strong verbs make sentence more forceful and easier to read. Instead of writing, We performed an analysis of the data, it is more forceful to write, We analyzed the data. Nouns ending in ment, -ion, and -al often hide the verb. For example: Instead of Use Make an adjustment adjust Perform an analysis analyze Provide assistance assist Reach a conclusion conclude Take into considerationconsider Make a decision decide Perform an investigation investigate Give a description of describe 5 Tighten your writing If the same idea can be expressed in fewer words, then the writing is wordy. Wordy writing bores the reader and makes it difficult for the reader to understand what you mean. Good writing is tight, and tight writing allows you to convey more information. Tight writing is important, especially when you have to write an abstract with strict limits on the numbers of words or characters allowed. To tighten your writing, follow these strategies: Eliminate redundant words whose meaning is already clear. E.g. a period of three months, during the course of the experiment, during the year 2008; maximum possible; past experience; plan in advance; refer back; the colour blue; true facts; repeat again. Eliminate the words that say nothing E.g. it is interesting to note that; quite; really; rather; the (especially with plurals); very (if it substitutes for damn!) Use infinitives (the to form of the verb; e.g. to run) and gerunds (the ing form of a verb; e.g. running) to make a sentence smoother and shorter. Combine sentences to eliminate unnecessary words and to focus attention on key points Put the main idea of your sentence into the subject and verb to reduce the number of words Think about what you mean to say, write it in different ways, and choose the tightest one. Phrases beginning with of, which, or that often can be shortened. Instead of writing, The estimates of the parameters were, it is shorter to write, Parameter estimates were Sentences beginning with There are or It is can often be tightened. Instead of writing, There are three reasons for these results, it is tighter (and stronger) to write, Three reasons for these results are. Substitute a single word for a wordy phrase. For example: Instead of using Use At the present time now Due to the fact that because (Not since) It may be that perhaps In the event that if In the near future soon Prior to the start of before On a regular basis regularly A second point is secondly More often than not usually Would seem to suggest suggests One of the problems one problem In spite of the fact that although, despite, or nevertheless On two separate occasionstwice Were found to be in agreement agree Take into considerationconsider Carry out experiments experiment It is obvious that obviously 6 Sentence length and sentence structure Keep sentences short and simple. Simple sentences have one main idea. Compound sentences have two main ideas that are closely related, and they are joined with conjunctions such as and, but , or or . Complex sentences have one main idea and one subordinate idea related logically, e.g. If, then. Always edit sentences for tightness, but use long sentences to link ideas; to avoid a series of short, choppy sentences; or to reduce repetition. When using long sentences, keep the subject and verbs close together by putting modifying material at the end of the sentence. Instead of starting a sentence with a reference to some previous research, for example, start with the main finding of the research and place the reference at the end of the sentence. Strive to put the most important idea early in the sentence. 7 Use parallel structure Use the same grammatical form or consistent pattern for ideas that have the same logical function. Parallel structure makes writing smoother, more forceful, and easier to understand, especially when used for a list of or series of ideas. Be sure that each item in the list begins or ends with the proper word form. Parallel structure is especially useful when writing results and the discussion. Once you decide on the form of the structure to present the result for one variable, say, use the same pattern to present results for other variables; simply copy, paste, and revise the text. Having mastered the result for one variable, the reader can see the pattern and can understand results easily for other variables. 8 Use transactions to link ideas Transition words and phrases (e.g. and, during, or for example) signal connections between ideas. Transitions tell the reader if the text sentence continues the previous idea or starts a new one. They tell the reader whether the idea that comes next is more or less important than the previous one. Transitions are used also to introduce an example, to compare or contrast ideas, to summarize or end. The following are examples of Transition words and phrases: To show addition or continuation of the same idea: And, in addition, also, likewise, first, second, third, similarly To introduce the last or most important item: Finally, moreover, furthermore To introduce an example: For example (e.g.), for instance, to illustrate, namely, indeed, specifically To contrast: In contrast, on the other hand, or, whereas To show that the contrast is more important than the previous idea: But, nevertheless, however, on the contrary To show the cause and effect: As a result, for this reason, because, therefore, consequently To show time: After, next, as, then, before, until, during, when, in the future, while, since To summarize: In conclusion, to summarize, to sum up, to conclude, in one word, in short 9 Write coherently Coherence refers to the logical sequence of sentences within a paragraph. Just as you should begin a sentence with the subject, which states the main idea of that sentence, you should begin a paragraph with a topic sentence, which states the main idea of that paragraph and provides structure to the paper. A good topic sentence forecasts the reader the content of the paragraph and holds the paragraph together. A paragraph that lacks a topic sentence lacks unity. If a paragraph contains more than one main idea, consider linking ideas with a transition sentence. Otherwise, consider splitting the paragraph into more than one. To improve coherence within a paragraph, discuss only one idea, or one topic, at a time. Use the same organizational pattern for successive sentences. Use parallel structure for the main subjects and main verbs. Tell the reader what to expect, e.g. There are two problems with this method: the first is, and the second is; then go on to elaborate on the problems. 10 Make your logic clear Write what you really mean to say and write it logically! If you have difficulty putting an idea onto paper, say What I really mean to say is, and write the words you mean to say. Once the words are on paper, you can revise them. Above all, make sure what you write is coherent and makes clear, logical and scientific sense!
I was told that most articles in U.S. newspapers are written at the 8th grade reading level. I didnt believe that until I saw my sons writing; I knew then that I could never be a writer, neither in English nor in Chinese. What I am trying to say is my English writing is not difficult to understand. So, if you have trouble with a particular sentence I wrote, please let me know so that I can re-write it. When I write, I usually draft it and then revise it 2-3 times to make it as clear as possible before sending it off. If you cannot understand my Blog, I would like to try harder because I do want to communicate with you.
Please skip the first two paragraphs, if you have read Part one. I recently learned from a journal editor that 稿件的编辑加工是一个bottleneck. Since I have been involved in journal publication for more than 15 years, first as an author and now as an English editor, I would like to share some views based on my own limited experiences. To eliminate such a bottleneck, three steps are required: 1) good scientific writing skill, 2) good English editing assistance, and 3) professional copy-editing service (usually provided by the editorial office of the journal). Lets discuss Step two, English editing. I am afraid this is the most difficult issue for any English journals. There are some simple solutions. 1) For journals that have too many acceptable manuscripts (in terms of scientific merits), the editors can simply say: We will accept your manuscript, provided that you improve the English presentation. If the editors want to be helpful, they can provide a list of English editors or companies; this can also help to ensure the quality of editing. 2) If a journal needs to use manuscripts for an upcoming issue, it can take over the English editing responsibility by using its own English editors or other companies. I know at least two journals that pay $50-$60/paper for their English editors to put a final touch on accepted manuscripts and absorb the cost. If the journal is unable to absorb the cost, it can ask authors to pay for it, or raise page charge accordingly. One problem with this approach is some English editors are native speakers but do not have the science or research background. I also suspect that the low pay does not encourage thorough editing in some cases. Step three, professional copy-editing, is like putting make-up on before one steps into the spotlight. Its very important. Unlike Blog, I can always go correct my mistakes later though I try to avoid them at the first place; once a journal issue is published, it is permanent. I think each editorial office needs a few copy-editors. They can be trained on the job, as long as they are willing to work hard and have basic English knowledge. If the editorial office is overwhelmed, it can also contract out this service. These are what I can think of now. I can revise these two parts or add Part three, after I receive some constructive comments.
I recently learned from a journal editor that 稿件的编辑加工是一个bottleneck. Since I have been involved in journal publication for more than 15 years, first as an author and now as an English editor, I would like to share some views based on my own (limited) experiences. To eliminate such a bottleneck, three steps are required: 1) good scientific writing skill, 2) good English editing assistance, and 3) professional copy-editing service (usually provided by the editorial office of the journal). In U.S., most authors (at least in my field) are able to write research manuscripts on their own (Step one). They generally do not seek English editing services, but some do (Step two). In fact, my current school used to have a part-time editor, paid by the school (so there is no charge for authors who use this service). I am not sure what is available now. As for Step three, it depends on journal. One society called the AMS offers professional copy-editing at no additional charge. In fact, they are hiring another copy-editor right now. Another society called the AGU does not care how poor the English reads, in the title, the abstract, or the main text. Somewhere at its Web site, it states typos are authors responsibility. Its embarrassing, but no one seems to care. Since English journals in China tend to have many contributing authors with little English writing training, my suggestions for Step one are as follows. 1) The journal can provide a list of English editors and companies that have demonstrated their capability in scientific writing and editing in these specific fields covered by the journals scope. I want to recommend Liwenbianji ( 理文 编 辑 ; http://www.liwenbianji.cn/home ), but a managing editor told me some authors were not too satisfied by the outcome. I suspect that it depends; fair enough. 2) The journal contracts a service provider that is willing to offer bulk rate. The cost is charged to the authors, who need such a service, 3) Some journals, including Nature, have their associated but separated editing services, such as the Nature Publishing Group Language Editing ( http://languageediting.nature.com/ ). I think its a good idea. The editorial office can hire a staff to oversee this group, using Ph.D. candidates in the field whose English is already quite good, plus a managing English editor to ensure the quality of the final products. (I know some Chinese students who can write reasonably well, and their skills improve quickly after seeing tracked editing on their own work.) The cost should come from the authors who use this service, which should cover the staff, and provide income for the students and the managing English editor. I was told 99% of authors can afford to pay page charges, but I dont know what percentage can afford this additional service, which can be as high as RMB 0.40/word (or USD 0.06/word). (To be continued.)
The magnitude of the challenge of slowing the rate of biodiversity loss is demonstrated by the fact that most of the direct drivers of biodiversity loss are projected to either remain constant or to increase in the near future. (p. 14 of Ecosystems and Human Well-being: B i o d i v e r s i t y S y n t h e s i s) Better prediction of the impacts of drivers on biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and ecosystem services, together with improved measures of biodiversity, would aid decision-making at all levels. (p. 16 of Ecosystems and Human Well-being: B i o d i v e r s i t y S y n t h e s i s) Note: These sample sentences are taken from A Report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which was produced by a group of scientists along with an Extended Writing Team and Review Editors.
Note: please skip these (#s) when you first read this Blog. This is probably one of the (#1) hardest questions for even the (#2) native speakers. To find out the (#3) rules, I once took a paragraph from a manuscript and visited three native speakers: a British researcher, an American professor who writes very well, and a newsletter editor who can turn a research abstract into an article for laymen. So, what were the (#4) answers I received? If there are obvious rules about where to include or not to include the, then these people should hand me the (#5) same answer. Well, to my delight, their answers were all different. So, what can we learn from this little experiment? Do not worry too much about the, if you are a non-native author. There are hard (meaning solid) rules, which you can learn from books. However, the (#6) reviewers are unlikely to reject your manuscript simply because you got the(m) wrong at too many places. Pay attention to the six the-s I marked above, and send me your comments if you think I am wrong, which is possible. Send me your abstract if you want to know how many extra the-s you have put in, and how many you might have missed. Happy Blogging! p.s. Here is a useful rule: Leave it out, whenever you can. This rule can also be applied to anything we write, in English or in Chinese. No need to add any feet to a snake :) (Revised on Oct. 13th, 2009)
一、先想先写最后做: 1. 做研究之前，必须想清楚：结果能不能发表？发表在哪里？ 2. 先把文章大框写好，空出数据，等做完实验填完空就可以发了；正所谓心中有沟壑！ 3. 在未搞清写什么、发哪里、自己研究与同类研究有何出色之处之前，就不要动手做！ 4. 继续去看文献，去想；想不清楚就做还不如不做！ 5. 要想这样做，就得先看文献！要知道如何把文章架起来、要知道别人是如何讨论的、要知道自己的数据是不是说明了与别人不同的东东或别人没有做过这个过程就是阅读文献及思考的过程，这些搞清楚了，写就简单了！ 6. 要是先做事，做完发现别人做过，或无法用理论来解释，岂不是冤大头？ 二、如何科学选题: 1. 课题选择和国际接轨。想在国际核心期刊发表文献，就必须了解国际研究动态，选择与国际学术研究合拍的课题。由于多方面因素的影响，我国科学研究选题与国际先进水平还有一定距离。我国一家权威科研机构不久前在国内挑选了许多前沿领域的研究课题，准备参与国际合作，但到美国后发现近三分之二的课题已经不属前沿，在美国很少有人研究。在高校，一些教师治学严谨、基础扎实，但科研成果不突出，重要原因就是不重视有关领域学术动态，不能选得合适的课题。 2. 课题要有可发展性。课题可发展性对高水平论文的持续产出具有极大作用。中国科技大学范洪义另辟蹊径，发展了诺贝尔奖得主狄拉克(Dirac)奠定的量子论的符号法，系统地建立了有序算符内的积分理论，1998年有24篇论文被SCI收录；他对自己论文高产的解释是，研究具有开创性，突破一点以后就可以向纵深发展，使研究工作自成系列、成面成片。我院被SCI收录论文最多的杨新民老师从事凸性理论研究，该理论兴起于 20世纪70年代，90年代进入高峰。作为新兴研究领域，该理论本身有许多尚待研究之处，同时该理论也可用来解决最优化方面的问题。反之，有人由于所接触的问题已处于该研究分支的末端，即使在该点上有所突破，也难持续发展。 3. 借助工具选题：①查阅有关领域的检索工具，这些工具各高校都有；②了解SCI收录期刊所反映的科技动态，ISI期刊信息可从http://www.isinet.com查获，也可从SCI印刷版每期Ａ、Ｄ分册的来源出版物目录(Lists of Source Publications)查找，还可从ISI引用期刊报告 (Journal Citation Reports，简称JCR)了解期刊信息，该文献有印刷版、网络版(JCR on the Web)和光盘版 (JCR on CD-ROM)；③利用ISI提供的选题工具帮助，例如，能对正在开展的工作进行量化分析以保证用户科学研究同科学发展趋向一致的(Essential Science Indicators)，介绍有关最杰出人物研究状况、有关领域研究热点和发展趋向的(ISI Highly Cited.com)；④利用网上数据库了解国际学术研究动态及有关资料。只要有心参与国际学术竞争，选择与国际学术研究接轨的课题并不存在难以克服的障碍。 三、如何获得好的idea 无论是临床还是基础科研，最关键的是idea，idea的出台决定了科研水平和档次。高水平的科学家一听你的科研课题和方向，就能判断你科研水平。因此，获得好的idea是至关重要的。 1. 优秀科学家要具备敏锐的科研嗅觉，而这种敏锐性是经过长期的思考和实践获得的。通过几天或半个月的苦思苦想得到了一个自以为很好的idea，很可能是别人十几年前就做过的工作。但新手上路时重复一些经典实验以获得经验是很正常的。此外，科研要注重质量，千万不要为单纯地追求数量而令懂行的人嘲笑。如何获得 idea呢？ A. 大量地、仔细地阅读文献，多听学术报告、多与同行探讨，从中获得启示，不能急于求成。 B. 总结感兴趣领域内尚未探讨过但很有意义的课题； C. 总结争论性很强的问题，反复比较研究方法和结论，从中发现切入点； D. 善于抓住科研过程中遇到的难以解释的问题，往往会成为思维的闪光点； E. 细致地拟定方案，论证可行性。 2. 获得idea的两种途径：传统途径就是先阅读大量科研论文，弄清目前的研究现状和要解决的问题等；非传统的途径是自己先冥思苦想一段时间，有了自己的 idea后再去查文献。这样不会让以往的研究限制你的思维，不失为一个很好的方法。别人没作过的东西，也许不是因为别人没想到，而是因为没有意义或者没有可能性。 3. 获得良好idea的基础前提： A. 在科研前必须弥补基础知识，这是看懂文献的基础。 B. 广泛阅读文献是支撑。硕士至少查阅600篇，粗看300篇，细看100篇，研读50篇。博士至少再多一倍，并始终关注国际动态。 C. 学会阅读文献，读懂文章。建议先review再article，先中后英；看10－20篇review后看研究性论文。拿到一篇研究性论文，先看标题，立即停住，问自己几个问题：(1)想想别人这文章是怎么做的(可参考材料方法)？会做哪些内容来说明其标题？(2)明白他为什么要做这个吗？(3)如文章是近半年内发表的，该文章解决了什么问题？引出了什么问题(结合你看的综述)？接下来仔细看摘要，就知道你的想法是否与别人吻合？(4)看完实验结果，再思考有什么地方不完善？有没有深入或拓展到底？一般来说，SCI-3分以下的文章只可能做了一部分机理，下面肯定有东西可做，关键是你自己要思考，去发现。 4. 长期作战持之以恒。做好上面所述要求肯定会有所谓idea，但过程艰辛，需长时间磨练，需要patience和passion。有天赋的人能考上海中科院生命科学院，北京中科院那几个所，北大、清华。耐心干5年，这些地方正为中国带来更多本土nature、science文章。 四、博士如何出牛文章？ 1. 几点忠告：多看paper没有坏处；多找非老板的其他人，如其他教授，postdoc，前辈师兄等讨论，借鸡下蛋；可以动手的东西容易上手，比如软件等；找机会去开会，认认牛人，不发paper，做做volunteer，或者参加phd symposium之类。五主动参加seminar，自己讲几次看过的paper，最好自己组织一个topic拉几个师兄弟和postdoc参加，注意找几本教科书看看，打好基础。 2. 如何获得IDEA: A. 需对研究的领域有一个全局性了解，按老板的话说是要有bird eye。 B. 要有bird eye，需比较全面地阅读本领域文章。读文章要其idea，总结成一句话，并用卡片记录好，分类整理。如果把别人文章的idea总结成一句话，就容易理解它的本质，也好作变化。 C. 读了很多文章后，可以写一个special study，将读过的本领域东西系统总结在一起，相当于你的综合理解，也就是bird eye看到的东西了。以后翻阅起来也相当方便。 D. 用心分析别人的idea，任何一个idea都有weakness；想办法解决它，那就成自己idea。最好的办法就是看大牛的paper，无论他有多牛，他的文章总是在说一个方面，总有其他东西没有包括进去，把他的文章认真精读了，总会发现漏洞和不足或不全面之处，然后你就知道怎么做了。记住：每篇文章几乎都有没有考虑完全的东西。 E. 时不时阅读更广泛领域的东西，扩大bird eye范围，对领域外的感兴趣的文章进行copy收藏，这个叫walk around a little bit，很多领域外的东西可以借鉴、学科交叉从而产生new idea。 F. 经常跟牛人、博士后或高年级博士等有思想的人(最好不是相同专业，而是相关专业或交叉学科)讨论，也容易出idea。再有就是，关注其他专业的书籍、杂志等信息，从中获取交叉创新idea 第二部分 SCI论文写作 一、写作框架和各部分要求 Title: Be short, accurate, and unambiguous; Give your paper a distinct personality; Begin with the subject of the study. Introduction: What is known; What is unknown; Why we did this study? Methods: Participants, subjects; Measurements; Outcomes and explanatory variables; Statistical methods. Results: Sample characteristics; Univariate analyses; Bivariate analyses; Multivariate analyses. Tables and figures: No more than six tables or figures; Use Table 1 for sample characteristics (no P values); Put most important findings in a figure. Discussion: State what you found; Outline the strengths and limitations of the study; Discuss the relevance to current literature; Outline your implications with a clear So what? and Where now? References: All citations must be accurate; Include only the most important, most rigorous, and most recent literature; Quote only published journal articles or books; Never quote second hand; Cite only 20-35 references. Formatting: Include the title, author, page numbers, etc. in headers and footers; Start each section on a new page; Format titles and subtitles consistently; Comply with Instructions to authors. 二、英文写作的语言技巧 1. Introduction： A. 如何指出当前研究的不足并有目的地引导出自己研究的重要性？在叙述前人成果之后，用However来引导不足，提出一种新方法或新方向。如：However, little information(little attention/little work/little data/little research)(or few studies/few investigations/few researchers/few attempts)(or no/none of these studies)has(have)been done on(focused on/attempted to/conducted/investigated/studied(with respect to))。如：Previous research (studies, records) has (have) failed to consider/ ignored/ misinterpreted/ neglected to/overestimated, underestimated/misleaded. thus, these previous results are inconclisive, misleading, unsatisfactory, questionable, controversial. Uncertainties (discrepancies) still exist研究方法和方向与前人一样时，可通过以下方式强调自己工作：However, data is still scarce(rare, less accurate)，We need to(aim to, have to) provide more documents(data, records, studies, increase the dataset). Further studies are still necessary(essential) 强调自己研究的重要性，一般还要在However之前介绍与自己研究问题相反或相关的问题。比如：(1)时间问题；(2)研究手段问题；(3)研究区域问题；(4)不确定性；(5)提出自己的假设来验证。如果你研究的问题在时间上比较新，你可大量提及时间较老问题的研究及重要性，然后(However)表明对时间尺度比较新的问题研究不足；如果你的是一种新的研究手段或研究方向，你可提出当前流行的方法及其物质性质，然后(However)说对你所研究的方向方法研究甚少；如果研究涉及区域问题，就先总结相邻区域或其它区域的研究，然后(However)强调这一区域的研究不足；虽然前人对某一问题研究很多，但目前有两种或更多种观点，这种uncertainties或 ambiguities值得进一步澄清；如果自己的研究是全是新的，没有前人的工作可对比，你就可以自信地说根据假设提出的过程，存在这种可能的结果，本文就是要证实这种结果等等。We aim to test the feasibility (reliability) of theIt is hoped that the question will be resolved (fall away) with our proposed method (approach). B. 提出自己的观点：We aim to//This paper reports on//This paper provides results//This paper extends the method//This paper focus onThe purpose of this paper is toFurthermore, Moreover, In addition, we will also discuss C. 圈定自己的研究范围：introduction的另一个作用就是告诉读者(包括reviewer)，你文章的主要研究内容。如果处理不好，reviewer会提出严厉的建议，比如你没有考虑某种可能性，某种研究手段等。为减少这种争论，在前言的结尾就必须明确提出本文研究的范围：(1) 时间尺度；(2) 研究区域等。如涉及较长的时序，你可明确提出本文只关心某一特定时间范围的问题，We preliminarily focus on the older (younger)如有两种时间尺度 (long-term and short term)，你可说两者都重要，但是本文只涉及其中一种。研究区域的问题，和时间问题一样，也需明确提出你只关心某一特定区域！ D. 最后的圆场：在前言的最后，还可以总结性地提出这一研究对其它研究有什么帮助；或者说further studies onwill be summarized in our next study (or elsewhere)。总之，其目的就是让读者把思路集中到你要讨论的问题上来。尽量减少不必要的争论(arguments)。 2. Discussion： A. 怎样提出观点：在提出自己的观点时，采取什么样的策略很重要，不合适的句子通常会遭到reviewer置疑。(1)如果观点不是这篇文章最新提出的，通常要用We confirm that(2)对于自己很自信的观点，可用We believe that(3)通常，由数据推断出一定的结论，用Results indicate, infer, suggest, imply that(4) 在极其特别时才可用We put forward(discover, observe)for the first time来强调自己的创新(5) 如果自己对所提出的观点不完全肯定，可用We tentatively put forward (interrprete this to)Or The results may be due to (caused by) attributed to resulted fromOr This is probably a consequence ofIt seems thatcan account for (interpret) thisOr It is posible that it stem from要注意这些结构要合理搭配。如果通篇是类型1)和5)，那这篇文章的意义就大打折扣。如果全是2)，肯定会遭到置疑。所以要仔细分析自己成果的创新性以及可信度。 B. 连接词与逻辑：写英文论文最常见的毛病是文章的逻辑不清楚，解决方法如下。 (1)注意句子上下连贯，不能让句子独立。常见的连接词有，However, also, in addition, consequently, afterwards, moreover, Furthermore, further, although, unlike, in contrast, Similarly, Unfortunately, alternatively, parallel results, In order to, despite, For example, Compared with, other results, thus, therefore用好连接词能使文章层次清楚，意思明确。比如，叙述有时间顺序的事件或文献，最早的文献可用AA advocated it for the first time.接下来可用Then BB further demonstrated that. 再接下来，可用Afterwards, CC如果还有，可用More recent studies by DD如果叙述两种观点，要把它们截然分开AA put forward thatIn contrast, BB believe or Unlike AA, BB suggest or On the contrary (表明前面观点错误)，如果只表明两种观点对立，用in contrast BB如果两种观点相近,可用AA suggestSimilarily, alternatively, BBOr Also, BB or BB allso does表示因果或者前后关系可用Consequently, therefore, as a result表明递进关系可用furthermore, further, moreover, in addition写完一段英文，最好首先检查是否较好地应用了这些连接词。 (2) 注意段落布局的整体逻辑：经常我们要叙述一个问题的几个方面。这种情况下，一定要注意逻辑结构。第一段要明确告诉读者你要讨论几个部份Therefore, there are three aspects of this problem have to be addressed. The first question involvesThe second problem relates toThe third aspect deals with清晰地把观点逐层叙述。也可以直接用First, Second, Third, Finally当然，Furthermore, in addition等可以用来补充说明。 (3) 讨论部份的整体结构：小标题是把问题分为几个片段的好方法。通常第一个片段指出文章最重要的数据或结果；补充说明部份放在最后一个片段。一定要明白，文章的读者分为多个档次；除了本专业的专业人士读懂以外，一定要想办法能让更多的外专业人读懂。所以可以把讨论部份分为两部份，一部份提出观点，另一部份详细介绍过程以及论述的依据。这样专业外的人士可以了解文章的主要观点，比较专业的讨论他可以把它当成黑箱子，而这一部份本专业人士可以进一步研究。 C. 讨论部分包括什么内容？(1)主要数据及其特征的总结；(2)主要结论及与前人观点的对比；(3) 本文的不足。对第三点，一般作者看来不可取，但事实上给出文章的不足恰恰是保护自己文章的重要手段。如果刻意隐藏文章的漏洞，觉得别人看不出来，是非常不明智的。所谓不足，包括以下内容：(1)研究的问题有点片面，讨论时一定要说，It should be noted that this study has examined onlyWe concentrate (focus) on onlyWe have to point out that we do notSome limitations of this study are(2)结论有些不足，The results do not implyThe results can not be used to determine(or be taken as evidence of)Unfortunately, we can not determine this from this dataOur results are lack of但指出这些不足之后，一定要马上再次加强本文的重要性以及可能采取的手段来解决这些不足，为别人或者自己的下一步研究打下伏笔。Not withstanding its limitation, this study does suggestHowever, these problems could be solved if we considerDespite its preliminary character, this study can clearly indicate用中文来说这是左右逢源，把审稿人想到的问题提前给一个交代，同时表明你已经在思考这些问题，但是由于文章长度，试验进度或者试验手段的制约，暂时不能回答这些问题。但通过你的一些建议，这些问题在将来的研究中有可能实现。 3. Others： A. 为使文章清楚，第一次提出概念时，最好以括弧给出较详细解释。如文章用了很多Abbreviation可用两种方法解决：(1) 在文章最后加上个Appendix，把所有Abbreviation列表；(2)在不同页面上不时地给出Abbreviation的含义，用来提醒读者。 B. 绝对不能全面否定前人的成果，即使在你看来前人的结论完全不对。这是对前人工作最起码的尊重，英文叫做给别人的工作credits.所以文章不要出现非常 negative的评价，比如Their results are wrong, very questionable, have no commensence, etc.遇到这类情况，可以婉转地提出：Their studies may be more reasonable if they hadconsidered this situation.Their results could be better convinced if theyOr Their conclusion may remain some uncertanties. 三、撰写外刊论文的体会 有人归纳了外刊论文撰写的五个基本要求，即5C：正确(correctness)、清楚(clarity)、简洁(concision)、完整(completion)和一致性(consistency) 。只有满足这5点，才算是一篇合格的外刊文章。 1. Introduction： Introduction 是外刊文章最难写的部分之一(另外就是Discussion)。中文文章的缺陷就在于Introduction没有内涵，过于简单，没有真正体现论文的研究起初和创新要素。外刊论文对于Introduction的要求是非常高的，一个好的Introduction相当于文章成功了一半。所以大家应该在 Introduction的撰写上下功夫。要写好Introduction，最重要的是要保持鲜明的层次感和极强的逻辑性，这两点是紧密结的，即在符合逻辑性的基础上建立层层递进的关系。 A. 阐述自己研究领域的基本内容。要尽量简洁明了，不罗嗦；须知看文章者都是该领域的专家，所以一些显而易见的知识要用概括性的而不是叙述性的语言来描述。 B. 文献总结回顾。是Introduction的重头戏之一，要特别着重笔墨来描写。一方面要把该领域内过去和现在的状况全面概括总结出来，不能有丝毫的遗漏，特别是最新的进展和过去经典文献的引用(这是两个最容易出问题的地方，要极力避免；一旦审稿人指出这两个毛病，很可能意味着表明你做的不够深入或全面，负面作用非常明显)。另一方面，文献引用和数据提供一定要准确，切记避免片面摘录部分结果而不反映文献的总体结果；引用的数据也要正确，特别是间接引用的数据(即不是从原文献中查到，而是从别人文献中发现的另一篇文献的数据)；数据出错会导致文章的印象特差！此外，引用文献时注意防止造成抄袭的印象，即不要原文抄录，要用自己的话进行总结描述。如果审稿人正好是文献的引用者的话，原文照抄的结果一定会很糟糕。 C. 分析过去研究的局限性并阐明自己研究的创新点。这是整个Introduction的高潮，因而要慎之又慎。阐述局限性时，需要客观公正评价别人的工作，不要把抬高自己研究的价值建立在贬低别人的工作之上(这是中文文章易犯的毛病)，外刊论文写作万万不可如此，一定要遵循实事求是的原则来分析。在阐述自己的创新点时，要紧紧围绕过去研究的缺陷性来描述，完整而清晰地描述自己的解决思路。需要注意文章的摊子不要铺的太大，要抓住一点进行深入的阐述。只要能够很好的解决一个问题，就是篇好文章；创新性描述的越多越大，越容易被审稿人抓住把柄。中文文章的特点是创新性要多要大，而英文文章的特点恰恰相反，深入系统的解决一到两个问题就算相当不错。 D. 总结性描述论文的研究内容，可以分为一二三四等几个方面来描述，为Introduction做最后的收尾工作。至此，Introduction的写作算是大功告成。但是写完之后，还是要慎之又慎的仔细修改，琢磨每一个句子是否表达得恰当准确，这对 Introduction的修改完善至关重要。 2. Methods： Methods 部分描述论文实验过程，这一过程的写作相对较为简单，但是需注意的问题不少，重要的在于完整和科学。完整就是实验当中的每一个环节都要注意到，不要顾此失彼，遗漏一些重要内容。Methods部分可按实验对象、实验设备、实验材料、实验记录、实验分析方法等来组织行文。只要能在以下4个方面做到完整和科学的描述，相信写好Methods不是主要问题。 A. 实验对象一般是人、动物或一些组织等，它们的基本信息要描述明确；此外要注意国外刊物大多对牵扯到人或动物的实验都有一些特定要求，有些是不允许在人或动物身上进行的实验操作，这需要认真阅读投稿刊物中关于实验的详细规定；如果违反这一规定，可能会不接受评审或发表。 B. 实验设备，要对仪器型号、生产厂家、实验过程中的用途等作详细说明；实验设备之间的连接要科学正确，不要给人混乱或操作错误的感觉。设备使用时一些必要的步骤不可或缺，尤其是可能对实验结果造成特定影响的操作更要详细说明。这样做的好处是为了在Discussion中能够进行对应的分析。比如，一些设备在使用前要校正(calibration)，有的要求每阶段实验之后都要重新校正，以保证结果的正确性；一定要详细说明你的操作步骤或校正过程，便于评审人分析你的结果。 C. 实验材料，不同学科有不同要求。总体上来说要注意说明材料选择的必要性，也就是对为什么要选择这种材料，最好有一定的说明。如果这点描述不清，可能会导致整个实验过程不成立。 D. 实验过程，就是清楚描述实验的整个操作流程，一般要附以实验流程图进行说明。流程图的画法很多，有文字式的，有文字和示意图结合的，不同实验有不同做法。一般来说，可能后者多一些(实验性学科尤其如此)，因为这样能使评审人对实验过程一目了然。如果示意图画得漂亮，还可以增加一些印象分。描述时要有鲜明的层次感，对每个步骤之间的顺序和关联要描述清楚，不要造成实验过程混乱不堪的印象，因为评审人最终判断你的实验是否合理，是从这个过程描述得来的。 3. Results： 有人把Results和Discussion放在一起写，但是大多数论文都是分开的。这两种做法取决于文章的类型。如果你的结果在分析的同时进行讨论更加合适，并不适合单独拿出来分析(或者是那样做很困难，导致Discussion成为鸡肋时)，合在一起是合适的；反之就应该分开写。 A. Results的要求是翔实准确。准确是结果必须是真实的，不能伪造和篡改。翔实是提供最全面的分析结果，把一切从实验中得到的结果都提供给读者，不要故意隐瞒或遗漏某些重要结果。从某种意义上来说，结果不够翔实并不导致论文直接被拒，但结果的真实性被怀疑文章就肯定被拒。 B. 结果提供一般是表和图。不同杂志对图表要求不完全一致，应根据杂志要求分别对待。表格能清晰展示论文获得的第一手结果，便于后人在研究时进行引用和对比。图示能将数据的变化趋势灵活的表现出来，更直接和富于感染力。图表结合，能取长补短，使结果展现更丰富。目前，大家越来越喜欢提供各种各样的图，但杂志却要尽量限制图的个数；因为会增加排版的困难，版面费和出版社的支出也就会增加。因此，建议大家在提供图时，尽量用最少的图提供最多的信息，最多不超过8 个。图片太多显得罗索和累赘，主编不会欣赏；必要时可用表格替代一些图。图片格式要求每个杂志不同，用tif格式较多，不推荐用bmp(jpg更不能用)。有人说用矢量图清楚些，其实和tif没什么区别，只要足够清晰就行。黑白图片可免费，彩色图片绝对要收费，而且价格不菲。 C. Results和Discussion分开写时，Results部分尽量不要涉及对结果的评论，最多是总结陈述结果就可以了。否则造成这两部分的内容重叠，显得累赘，从而对Discussion不利。结果的描述也要注意层次安排，要按照条理性要求分别描述，显得逻辑性较强。不要乱七八糟，降低论文的可读性。 D. Results中大多要提供统计结果。方差分析的结果形式要根据刊物的格式给出，有的要求对分析值、自由度和概率都要详细的给出，有的只要分析值和概率就可以了。概率可以用p=0.02或者p0.03等形式给出，自由度的表达也有特殊要求。这些细节问题虽然关系不大，但是注意格式统一，不要乱七八糟各自为战。统计分析结果过多时，可用表格给出，具体可参照SPSS软件分析之后的结果。如果论文结果部分通篇都是统计分析的数据，会显得凌乱不堪，表格可以避免这种情况。 4. Discussion： Introduction和Discussion是最难写的两部分。Discussion之所以难写，是因为这里面最能够显示一个作者研究问题的深度和广度。深度就是论文对于提出问题的研究到了一个什么样的程度，广度指是否能够从多个角度来分析解释实验结果。要写好Discussion，大概可以分为下面两个步骤： A. 选择要深入讨论的问题。Results中有的结果是重要的，有的则可一笔带过。选择合适的结果在Discussion部分进行深入讨论，是写好该部分首先要面临的问题。一般来说，可根据如下原则来判断：如果你的结果体现了实验的独特性，是其他研究中没有得到的，那这个结果就是要重点讨论的问题；有些结果和前人的研究一致，并没有显著性差异，就应该一笔带过而无需深入讨论。Discussion的一个重要作用就是要突出自己研究的创新性，并体现出显著区别于他人的特点，区别大和小是另外一个问题，重要的是要有区别、区别就是创新。 B. 对选中的问题按一定层次从多个角度进行讨论，说理要有根据、问题要讲清楚、讲透彻。选择的问题有时不只一个(多数情况是2个以上)，因此要按一定层次描述清楚。一般来说，把最重要的放在中间，次之的放开头和末尾。放在中间能将评审人的情绪带至高潮，前面是铺垫，后面是总结。这样的顺序似乎更合适。问题无论大小，是否重要，都要从多个角度展开深入讨论：(1)首先要有类似结果的对比，说明自己结论的独特性；(2)其次要系统阐述为什么会有这样的结果，方法有多种(从实验设计角度，从理论原理角度，从分析方法角度，或借鉴别人分析方法等等)。重要的是将这个问题深入阐述清楚，不能让人有意犹未尽之感(要做到这点的确很困难，因为评审人总会提出新的问题，我们只可能尽量做到这一点罢了)。 C. Discussion部分还要注意保持和Results的一致性！就是结果和讨论要一一对应。千万不要出现按讨论的内容可以推出与实验相反的结论这种情形，那证明你的讨论思路是彻底的失败或你的实验压根儿就是失败的。所以Discussion的文字描述和语言表达的精确性尤为重要。由于中英文表达的不同，在投稿之前要尽量避免出现表达上的误解，如果论文因此被拒是很冤枉的。 5. Acknowledge References： Acknowledge 主要分为两个：第一是表明研究的基金来源，中国一般都是Nature Science Foundation of China(NSFC，国家自然科学基金)，美国大多是National Institute of Health(NIH，美国国家卫生研究院)。写基金时一般要标注清楚基金号码(Grant Number)，只有这样才算是该项基金的研究成果，也可以算做实验室的研究成果。须知没有任何一项研究成果是在没有资金资助的情况下完成的，所以这一点非常必要。第二是对参与人员(没有列在作者中的研究人员)和单位表示感谢，如果通过一审和最终接受发表，还要添上对editor和anonymous reviewers的感谢，这是基本礼貌。 References重要在于格式。不同杂志对参考文献格式要求不一样，具体下来有所区别的可以分为：作者的写法，有的是简写在前，有的简写在后，有的简写有点，有的简写没有点；文章的名字，有的要加上引号，有的没有引号；期刊的写法，有的要简写，有的要全称，有的要斜体，有的则不需要；年和期卷号的顺序，有的是年在前，有的是年在后；期刊论文、书、学位论文、会议论文，四种引用的格式各不相同；文献的排列顺序，有的是按照字母的顺序，有的则是按照在论文中出现的顺序用阿拉伯数字排序。基本上就是这些问题，看来很是琐碎，但是如果你的参考文献排列的乱七八糟，那就会使得评审人对你论文的印象很差，认为你没有认知组织和撰写论文，造成一定的负面影响。所以，事情虽小，影响却大，还是要认真组织为好。 此外，论文在撰写时要自始至终都用英语写，千万不要先写中文再译成英文。这样写出来的文章肯定是中不中，英不英，而且极大浪费精力。宁可一开始写得语法差一些，慢慢修改都比这种写法好。如果有同专业英语比较好的人帮助的话，这样写还会更省事。写作时行文时态要注意，中文没有时态问题，英文有，而且要求还相当严格。一般来说，大多数情况下是过去时态，在Introduction文献回顾，Methods整个部分，Results结果总结，Discussion中的大部分，都用过去时态陈述。其他情况下可以用一般时态来描述。时态之间的界限是比较严格的，最好是仔细的通读国外的论文，好好分析一下，或者让有经验的人帮你把把关，这样比较好一些。 四、Writing Skills in English for Research Paper 写 paper注意九个环节：Preparation, Structure, Title, Abstracts, Introduction, Conclusion, Body of Paper, Recision, Acknowledgement。Preparation就是收集资料，找出灵感和方向，主要依靠的是journal in library。Structure是重点，paper的structure应该是两个triangle组成的：上面一个倒三角，下面一个正三角，意思就是选题要宽(wide)，研究方向要窄，然后最后的conclusion又发散开来。在paper的body前后都必须有declarative statement，用最少的字句表达出自己的观点，吸引读者。 Title必须清晰简短(clear，short)，表达出自己唯一的topic以提升读者的兴趣(promote the interest of reader)，然而title中切记不能出现abbreviation和自己的result。 Abstracts 是paper的一个缩写(miniature of whole paper)，一定要简明扼要(less than 200 words,one paragraph)，按照paper的顺序介绍主要研究对象(subject)、实验设计(design)、实验步骤(procedures)以及最后结果(results)，这种介绍必须让非专业的人员 (non-specialist) 能够看懂。 Introduction同样要保证简短，顺序是一般背景介绍、别人工作成果、自己的研究目的及工作简介，其中介绍别人工作时只需介绍和自己最相关的方面 (very relevant)，而对自己的工作介绍不用说明细节，因为这个要放到body中去。不要忘记在介绍自己工作之前要有一个declarative statement。 Body部分可以分为methods、result和discussion三个部分：①Methods，详尽的介绍自己的实验方案以便于他人能够重复自己的实验过程，对于通用的实验方案可以简略，重点要放到自己的独创方案上面(own procedures)，按照实验的先后顺序介绍，为了文章的阅读方便，不要使用过多层次的subheadings，比如 subsubsubsection等等。②Result，使用text、table、figure等手段表达出来，其中table不要使用过多，而 figure必须保证图线清楚、注解明确，必要的时候还要对于自己的result中的一些结论进行解释说明。③Discussion，这个部分是为了以后的study，在其中提出自己的problem或者是hypothesis，和别人的成果进行比较，暗示自己的主要收获，为后面的conclusion做准备。 Conclusion中不要包含body以外的information，保持brief、neat和concise，一定要舍得结束自己的paper；如果自己的paper只是project的一部分，稍做说明。Revison是在写完之后回头看看是否有逻辑上的错误，是否考虑到了读者兴趣，自己的 declarative statement是否令人满意，Brevity is the soul of literary construction。Acknowledgement，不要忘记，这个反应了一个人的个人品质。 五、撰写论文初稿(writing the first draft)： (1)材料和方法(methods and materials)：做了什么和怎样做？材料和方法是文章开始写作的最理想部分，这部分的内容作者最了解。写作要求：用过去时，尽可能按实验的先后顺序描述。 (2)结果(results)：发生了什么？基本写作要求：可用图、表或文字表达，三者间尽量减少重复。在正文部分叙述主要结果和意义，用图或表给出较详细的数据，用过去时。 (3) 讨论(discussion)：所得结果是否为前言提出的关键问题的答案？结果是如何支持答案的、如何证实假说的？基本写作要求：集中讨论与本结果有关的问题，突出本研究的创新及重要性，；与相关研究结果进行比较分析；给出结果所支持的结论；指出前景、不足和改进。用现在时叙述已知或被证明的事实，用过去时描述本研究结果。 (4)文献(references)：与本研究方法、结果、讨论有关的其它研究有哪些？准确完整规范著录。 (5)前言(introduction)本研究的背景和目的是什么？试图回答的关键问题是什么？基本写作要求：本研究之目的和重要性；简要复习文献。 致谢(acknowledgment)：除了作者，谁协助完成了本研究、分析结果并撰写论文？谁提供了基金和物质帮助？写作要求：仅列出对本工作提供特殊的实质性贡献者姓名；须得到被致谢者同意。 (7) 摘要(abstract)：论文告诉我们什么(通常250字)？摘要是论文要点的浓缩，应在文章各主要部分完成后再写，这样有利于文章要点的提炼。优秀的摘要能有效抓住读者兴趣。写作要求：用含有必要词汇的短的简单句，以使摘要清楚而简洁?避免使用缩写词和晦涩难懂的词句；用小标题叙述研究论文的各部分；用过去时(但问题的陈述和结论可用现在时)；强调研究的创新和重要方面。 文题(title)：本文关于什么？最佳文题的标准是用最少的必要术语准确描述论文的内容。写作要求：准确(accuracy)、简洁(brevity)、有效(effectiveness)和吸引人。 (9)作者(author list)：谁参与了本研究的设计、工作及论文的撰写？ (10) 准备论文最后一稿(preparing the final manuscript)：论文初稿完成以后，必须对内容及格式进行反复推敲和修改，达到投稿须知的一切要求。绝大多数有经验的编辑都认为：不认真准备的稿件绝不是高水平科学研究成果的良好载体(A poorly prepared manuscript is，almost without fail，the carrier vehicle of poor science. Day AR.)。如果希望论文发表，在准备投稿时必须做到打字整洁、无错、符合期刊格式、含有期刊要求的所有材料。该过程一般分三步：再次阅读拟投期刊的投稿须知；用投稿须知中提供的稿件对照检查表(manuscript checklist, author's checklist)与自己论文一一核对；根据期刊要求打印输出，完成最后一稿。 六、英语学术论文写作的几个细节 A. 时态：当提到本文、此图、此表等说明了、表达了什么时要用一般现在时，而不用一般过去时。This paper describes The focus of this paper is Figure 1 shows Most of the common condensation polymers are listed in Table 1-1. B. 数：在学术论文里，有时很难顾及数的逻辑。但一般不将逻辑上的问题视为语法错误。只须注意在一个句子中的数和谓语动词的统一即可。单、复数的选用有一些非定性、但可供参考的趋向： ◆◆ 当含意上强调复数时建议用复数。The catalyst concentrations for the different reactions are different.Our research focuses on the syntheses and characterizations of a series of polycarbonates with different chemical structures.The physical and chemical properties of this compound have been studied.The chain lengths of the oligomers with different molecular weights are different. ◆◆当含意上不强调复数时可用单数或复数。Our research focuses on the synthesis of polycarbonates.The property of the compounds in group 1 is different from the property of the compounds in group 2.The chain length of the oligomers increases with increasing reaction time. ◆◆在标题、小标题中或描述一类事物、现象等，提到具体物质时常用复数。【Polyesters】 Polymers are macromolecules built up by large numbers of small molecules. The small molecules which combine with each other to form polymer molecules are termed monomers.在标题、小标题或描述一类事物、现象等，提到抽象概念时可用单数、也可用复数。【Step Copolymerization】Newer Types of Step Polymerizations. This chapter will consider the characteristics of step polymerization in detail. ◆◆学术论文、有关学术的科普文章中的名词的可数或不可数特性的划分区别于非学术文章《非学术文章中的可数或不可数特性可从字典查到》。以下是在学术文章中通常视为可数名词的单词：《但在一般字典中它们或它们做某种含义解时可能被划归不可数名词》。 application development consideration composition concentration distribution structure length weight ◆◆ 当同时提及几个图、表、方程式时要用复数(分别单个地提及则不用)：The reaction rate constant can be calculated from Equations 2 and 3. The reaction rate constant can be calculated from Equation 2 and Equation 3. Figs. 4 and 5 show C. 冠词： ◆◆单数名词前一般要加冠词：a , the等； 但以下情况可不加：表示不特指的、较抽象的概念： This chapter will consider the characteristics of step polymerization in detail. An understanding of the relative ease of cyclization or linear polymerization comes from a variety of sources.Different polymers are synthesized to yield various mechanical behaviors by the appropriate combinations of crystallinity, crosslinking, Tg, and Tm..但需注意这些单词前加冠词也是经常见到的，这是由它在句中的含义决定的(如有一定的特指意义)：Polyisoprene is a typical elastomer it is amorphous, easily crossed, has a low Tg (-73C) and a high Tm (14C). ◆◆目录、标题中通常省略冠词： 1 Introduction 1-1 Types of Polymers and Polymerizations 1-4 Molecular Weight 1-5 Physical State 图、表的题目中有时可省略冠词：Fig. 2-2 Second order plot of the self-catalyzed polyesterification of adipic acid with diethylene glycol at 166 C.Fig. 8 Dependence of the ease of cyclization on the size of the ring.化学药品、化学物质前通常不加冠词：The polymerization is catalyzed by protonic or lewis acids although a wide variety of base catalysts such as calcium acetate and antimony trioxide can also be used.图中的横、纵坐标的名称前不加冠词。 D. 大小写：请注意以下结构的大、小写：当提及具体第几章、节；图、表；方程式时，首个字母通常要大写。As discussed in Chapter 2, In Section 1.2, we As shown in Figure 1, The results are listed in Table 3.当不指明是第几章、节；图、表；方程式时，首个字母如在句中通常用小写。In the previous chapter, As shown in this figure, E. 缩写：以下全名和缩写在文中通常视为同等，可以互换。 Figure Fig. Figures Figs. Table Tab. Chapter Chap. Section Sec. Equation Eq. Equations Eqs. F. 一些常用词汇用法 ◆◆research, study, investigate：research可做名词、动词，但通常做名词用，很少见到动词的用法。句中需要动词时常用study或investigate来表达。 ◆◆detail/detailed：The properties of this compound were studied in detail.//The detailed properties of this compound were studied.//The details of the properties of this compound were studied. ◆◆follows/following：The results are as follows: //We got following results: ◆◆increase, decrease：均可做名词和动词，We can observe an increase in the reaction rate.//The reaction rate increases. ◆◆focus, concentrate：focus: n. , v. The focus of this paper is This paper focuses on Our study focuses on We focus our study on Our study is focused on concentrate: v. We concentrate our study on Our study is concentrated on ◆◆effect, affect：effect: n. //affect: v. ◆◆compose, consist：A is composed of B and C.//A consists of B and C. ◆◆increase, improve：increase: 主要指数值上的增加。improve: 主要指性质的增加、改善。 G. 名词修饰：在学术文章中，很多时候会用到直接用名词做修饰，而不用s 或 of 的形式。常见的这类词有：reaction rate；reaction rate constant；reaction temperature；reaction condition molecular weight distribution H. 分词修饰：the reaction we studied；the temperature used；the nonlinearity observed。所有格：非人的所有格用of, 而不用s 。 第三部分 投稿 一、拟投期刊的选择: (1)选用SCI收录期刊。目前SCI收录核心刊 3000种，加上增补期刊约 5600种。研究者可事先将SCI中自己感兴趣的期刊找出来备用。 (2)利用SCI收录期刊的影响引子(Impact Factor)来选择期刊。期刊的影响因子是该刊前2年发表的文献在当前的平均被引次数。《科学》、《自然》影响因子很高，SCI收录中国期刊影响因子都在1.00以下。期刊影响因子愈大，有用信息愈多。作者可根据期刊的影响因子排名决定投稿方向。 (3)利用学科带头人的影响或国际学术交流的条件，物色最了解中国学术研究、信任中国学者的那部分期刊投稿。SCI选用的期刊中约 1 / 3为美国期刊，因而要注意选美国期刊。 二、如何准备投稿？ 选择适合刊物投稿：从杂志homepage下载Instruction for Author，按投稿要求，如投稿份数、论文体例、长度、图表、参考文献引法、配图说明(Figure legends)等，逐条遵循。Letter to editor-in-chief : ①声明文稿权转让；②未一稿多投，和在稿件未作出决定前不准备一稿多投；③所有列出作者均对文稿有确切贡献；④文稿内容真实，无作伪；⑤所有作者均已阅读文稿，且同意送稿；⑥通信作者地址、电话、Fax、e-mail；⑦通信作者签名。勿一稿多投。 Title page 的式样如下： Peroxisome Proliferation-Activated Receptor-g Ligands Ameliorate Experimental Autoimmune Myocarditis Zuyi Yuan, MD, PhD; Yan Liu, MD; Yu Liu, MD; Jijun Zhang, MD; Chiharu Kishimoto, MD, PhD*; Yanni Wang, MD; Aiqun Ma, MD, PhD; Zhiquan Liu, MD. Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, First Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710061, China; *Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan First author's surname: Yuan Running head: PPARg ligands ameliorate myocarditis Supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (30170371) Address correspondence to: Zuyi Yuan, MD, PhD Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, First Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, No.1 Jiankang Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi 710061, China Tel: +86-29-532-4021 Fax: +86-29-5263190 E-mail: zuyiyuan@mail.xjtu.edu.cn 三、向国外生物医学期刊投稿需注意 A. 期刊选择： 英文生物医学期刊种类繁多，选择一本恰当的期刊并非一件易事，然而这是论文得以发表的一个重要环节。选择期刊应考虑的因素：论文主题是否在刊物征稿范围内？论文格式是否符合刊物要求？论文是否符合刊物的一贯口味？关于期刊的声望(prestige)问题：期刊学术水平高其声望就高；反之声望则低。生物医学工作者都希望科研成果发表在有声望的高质量生物医学期刊上。选择期刊的方法：如果论文主题在一个很窄的分支学科内，那么选择范围只能限制在几种刊物；如果论文信息交叉了几个研究领域，则可有许多种选择。无论是哪种情况，先列出一个简单拟选期刊表，然后逐一对进行比较筛选，作出最后抉择。 B. 阅读和使用投稿须知： (1)读刊头(masthead statement，通常放在期刊前面的文题页上)，以了解刊名、简单的办刊宗旨、编辑委员会组成、编辑部成员、出版商及其联系地址等。 (2)浏览目录(table of contents)，确定该刊物是否发表你研究领域的文章及发表的比例有多大。 (3)注意栏目设置，确定拟投稿件的栏目。 (4)看拟投栏目文章的范例，了解撰写要求及格式。 (5)某些期刊刊登投稿和接收日期(submitted and accepted dates)，可据此计算论文发表周期。 广告数量可间接判断期刊质量。因为广告公司都愿意将金钱投到质量高、影响大的期刊上。 (7)通过11或12月份出版的杂志最后几页上的所有权、管理和发行声明(statement of ownership，management，and circulation)查找期刊发行量。 核查有无北美和欧洲以外国家作者撰写的文章。 (9)有些期刊还刊登报道计划，作者可依此拟订自己的投稿计划。 C. 投稿注意事项： 当决定了论文主题，确定了读者群，并选定了拟投期刊后，论文文献检索工作即便完成。下一步是确定论文作者、查看期刊的投稿须知，并将研究结果的原始资料收集在一起开始撰写论文。论文撰写是一项艰苦的工作，并非一稿就能完成，往往需要反复易稿(修改)才能使文章达到投稿的要求，即5C正确 (correctness)、清楚(clarity)、简洁(concision)、完整(completion)和一致(consistency)。 D. 投稿：论文的最后一稿准备好后，就可向国外投稿。一般来说，投稿程序分以下三步。 (1)准备投稿信 (covering letter，submission letter)：生物医学期刊的编辑往往需要一些有关作者及其论文的信息，而作者也希望给编辑提供一些有助于其全文送审及决策的信息。这些信息都应该包括在投稿信中。投稿信应包括以下几方面的内容：文题和所有作者的姓名；稿件适宜的栏目；为什么此论文适合于在该刊而不是其它刊物上发表?关于重复或部分发表或已投它刊的说明；不能转让版权的说明(如美国联邦政府雇员)；建议审稿人及因存在竞争关系而不宜做审稿人的名单；通信作者(corresponding author)的姓名、详细地址、电话和传真号码、e-mail地址；能否付出版费(版面费、彩图费)的说明(如果该刊收取版面费和彩图费)；希望核校校样或稿件若不接收退回原稿的要求(有的期刊在投稿须知中约定，除非作者在投稿信中提出要求，否则原稿不退还给作者)。投稿信举例： Dear Dr．： Enclosed are three copies of a manuscript by Rose N ．Dipaola，Donna A．Gallo，and Tom N．Roberts titled Hepatitis C Virus Infection in Long-Term Transfusion Patients. It is submitted to be considered for publication as a Original Article in your journal．This paper is～?Neither the entire paper nor any part of its content has been published or has been accepted elsewhere. It is not being submitted to any other journal． We believe the paper may be of particular interest to the readers of your journal because the study it reports stated the HCV infection rate among long-term transfusion patients is higher than that of the general population and of short-term transfusion patients． Correspondence and phone calls about the paper should be directed to Rose N．Dipaola at the following address，phone and fax number，and e-mail address： Rose N ．Dipaola，MD Institute of Internal Medicine Cleveland Clinic Foundation 9500 Euclid Ave． Cleveland，OH44195，USA Tel：1-216-444-5360 Fax：1-216-444-9580 E-mail：dipao＠cesmtp ．ccf. Org Thanks very much for your attention to our paper． Sincerely yours， Rose N．Dipaola (2) 稿件包装：所谓稿件包装是指将稿件及其拟投期刊所需的伴随资料一并装人信封。一般应按以下顺序备齐资料：投稿信；刊物要求的稿件(包括文题页、文摘页、正文、致谢、参考文献、图注、表及图)拷贝份数，每份图单独装一个信封；版权转让声明；与稿件内容有关资料的拷贝(如学术会议报告论文或已发表的摘要等材料)；通知稿件收到的明信片或有作者地址并贴足邮资的信封(适用于不发收稿回执的期刊)；致谢和使用病人照片或引用私人通信的书面同意材料的复印件；有些期刊要求附稿件对照检查表。以上材料不要用订书钉固定，以免途中因订书钉移动而损坏稿件；但可以用大型曲别针固定，照片可以在信封中夹硬纸片保护。 (3) 稿件邮寄：邮寄稿件应注意：应至少自留一份打印底稿；信封要足够大，并足够结实；正确的投稿地址及收稿人(投稿须知中常有说明，多要求直接寄给主编)；照片不可过大，最大不超过8.5英寸x11英寸?贴足邮票；航空邮寄；以打印稿(hard copy)投稿。几乎所有的英文生物医学期刊均不接受传真(fax)投稿，某些期刊仅允许一些没有图表的短文或给编辑的信通过电子邮件(e- mail)投稿，长篇论著、研究报告等文章决定刊用后方接受软磁盘。以上信息可以从投稿须知中获得、有的期刊在投稿须知中特别指出投稿地址与订刊或订单行本地址不一样，以免造成时间耽搁 。 一、正确对待审稿意见和退稿: 国际核心刊物的审稿人大多是各领域权威学者，杂志出版社经常征询编委意见，选择最佳审稿队伍。审稿是无报酬的，审稿人的工作态度大多极其认真。因此，对审稿意见要十分尊重，对每一条批评和建议，都要认真分析，并据此修改论文。自己认为不正确的意见，要极其慎重和认真地回答，有理有据地与审稿人探讨。如何对待杂志拒文，是作者犯难的问题。这里必须分析被拒绝的理由。第一类拒绝是完全的拒绝，主编通常会表达个意见，对这类文章永远不愿再看到，再寄送这类文章是没有意义的；第二是文章包含某些有用数据和信息，主编拒绝是因数据或分析有严重缺陷，这类文章不妨先放一放，等找到更广泛的证据支持或有了更明晰的结论后，再将经过修改的新文章寄给同一杂志，主编通常会考虑重新受理该文。有审稿人抱怨，个别中国作者在论文被一家杂志拒绝后又原封不动地寄给另外一家杂志，而他们再次被邀请审稿并对此非常反感，论文理所当然地被拒绝。《宇宙物理学》(The，Astrophysical，Journal)的科学主编 Thomas提出：论文被一家杂志拒绝后不经修改，又寄给另一个杂志，这是很糟的错误。通常，审稿人做了很认真的工作指出论文的问题，并建议修改；如果作者忽视这些忠告，是对时间和努力的真正浪费；同时，寄一篇坏的文章，对作者的科学声望是严重的损害。影响因子不同的刊物接受论文的标准和要求差别很大。如果被拒论文不是由于文稿中的错误，而是重要性或创新性不够，作者仔细考虑审稿人意见并认真修改文稿后，可以寄给影响因子较低的刊物。值得注意的是，审稿人由于知识限制和某种成见，甚至学术观点不同，判断错误并建议退稿常会发生。如何处理情况？最近某青年的论文被杂志拒绝，经反复讨论检验，判断审稿人是错误的；为了论文及时发表，我们建议作者礼貌和认真地回信给主编并指出审稿人的错误，要求主编将意见转给审稿人，然后撤回论文再做必要改进，改寄影响因子更高的杂志；结果论文立即接受，并得到很好评价。另篇论文在某重要杂志经两年半才得以发表，主要原因是第一位审稿人对我国向量磁场测量的可靠性提出质疑，不同意发表。通过向权威同事请教和反复思考，我们确认所进行的研究及所采用测量都充分准确可靠；作者花了近两年时间与审稿人讨论，不但论文得以发表，还与审稿者和主编建立了良好关系，论文发表后得到良好的国际引述。 二、投稿后若干事宜： (1)稿件追踪(follow-up correspondence)。如果投稿2周仍无任何有关稿件收到的信息，也可打电话、发e－mail或写信给编辑部核实稿件是否收到。 (2) 稿件退修(revised manuscript)。几乎所有的经审查学术水平达到出版要求的自由来稿，在发表前都需要退给作者修改其表述及编辑格式，如压缩文章篇幅、重新设计表格、改善插图质量、限制不规则缩写词使用等。然而退给作者修改的稿件并不代表文章已经被接受，文章最终接受与否取决于作者对文章关键性重要内容和表述方式的修改能否达到审稿专家及编辑的要求。 通常退给作者修改的材料包括原稿、审稿专家意见、(reviewers' comments)和一封编辑的信(covering letter)。当作者收倒退修稿后，首先应该仔细地阅读退修信(modify letter)和审稿专家意见。然后应考虑能否或愿意接受审稿专家或编辑的意见，修改稿件。 (3)如何处理稿件修回？从主编回信和审稿人 (reviewer)修回意见可看出文章录用的可能性。主编的回信会特别提到你文章的科学先进性 (scientific priority)；审稿人对文章总的评价中会提到对文章是否感兴趣(interesting)等；修回不要仓促，反复阅读、理解审稿人的问题。对每位审稿人提出的意见要逐条回答(response to reviewer1，2，3)；对修回稿中已修改的地方要具体标明(page, lines)；给主编回信，感谢给文稿提出的修改意见，并指出按修改建议已作的修改，未作修改的地方要说明理由。 一、认识SCI论文 罗伯特?戴在其名著《如何撰写和发表科学论文》的序言中指出，对一个科学家的评价，从研究生开始，就主要不是看他在实验室操作的机敏，不是看他对或宽或窄的研究领域固有的知识，更不是看他的智能和魅力，而是看他的著述。他们因此而出名，或依然默默无闻。 A. 原创性和显著性是论文的生命: 在《再论科学道德问题》中指出，国际核心刊物发表的论文，原则上都应当是 在国际上首次描述的新的观测和实验事实，首次提出的概念和模型，首次建立的方程，也包括对已有的重大观测(实验)事实的新的概括和新的规律的提炼。与原创性相联系，任何期刊都不希望发表已见于其它杂志，或由其它语言发表、或以稍有不同的形式发表的论文。太阳物理学权威刊物《太空物理学》(Solar，physics)主编Harvey专门谈到，少数作者主要结果用中文发表后又寄给《太空物理学》，这在过去是可以容忍的，但现在不允许。公认的原则是：作者不能把已在经过审稿的杂志发表的主要结果以不同形式投寄给其它杂志再发表。国际核心刊物的论文，不仅应该是原创的，其结果还必须是显著的，并对学科发展有所推动。用Harvey的话来说，至少有一两个其他研究者会读这篇文章，并利用这些结果发表他们自己的工作。对成果显著性的检验是论文被引用的多寡。作者应当关心自己论文被引用的情况，注意国际学术界对自己工作的评价，包括肯定和批评的方面，特别是注意同行们对自己发表结果的不同的理解；这是提高自己研究水平的重要途径。 B. 充分评价已有工作，体现作者学术水平: 是否客观而充分地评价了以往的工作，常常是审稿人和读者衡量作者学术水准和学术风范的重要方面。部分作者引述国外知名学者的工作，往往有点言必称希腊 的味道，而对国内同行发表的工作重视不够。有时明明是中国学者首先做的工作，却没有得到自己国内同行的充分评价。应当提倡较多并适当地援引国内同行工作。但也不要学习少数日本作者，他们绝少引用日本学者之外的文章。部分同行在论文中引述相当数量公式，但却不列出公式的出处，让读者分不清是作者发展的，还是引自他人以往的工作。原则上：除了教科书上公认的方程和表达式外，对用于特定目的、特定条件和问题的推演，只要不是自己的工作，都要列出出处和适用条件；即便是作者以往的工作，也要列出相应文献，让读者在充分评价作者以往工作的基础上作必要参考，并清晰指出自己当前工作中独创性的贡献。这是作者对科学负责的表现，是一篇好的学术论文开宗明义必须写清楚的内容。 C. 特别重视论文题目、摘要、图表和结论: 每位作者都有阅读大量论文的经验。读者阅读论文的习惯一般是先浏览目录，对题目有兴趣才愿翻到有关论文；题目有兴趣的论文，读者又先读论文摘要；如果对摘要还有兴趣，接着会去看论文图表，因为图表往往最清楚地反映了论文结果。看过图表之后，如还有兴趣，会读论文的结论。通常只有少数读者会读论文的全文。作者应当清晰地知道，论文的题目将被数以千计的读者读到。对题目的每一个字都要审慎地选择，用最少的词语最确切反映论文的内容。 D. 花大力气提高英语写作水平: 英语不是我们的母语。我国SCI论文和引述偏少，除了基础研究水平的限制，语言的障碍不容忽视。每一位基础研究工作者必须把提高英语写作能力作为一个艰巨的任务。中国科技大学胡友秋教授总是把审稿人的英文修改和自己的原稿中被修改的部分单独抄在本子上一一对照，细心琢磨并背下来，一点一滴地提高英语写作水平；他寄往国际核心刊物的论文常被审稿人称为well-written。美国国家太阳天文台有一个内部审稿制度，目的是保证论文的正确性，对研究也有相互影响和砥砺的好处；未经内部审稿的论文不能寄给杂志。资深太阳物理学家 Sara，Martin建议找一些可作为范例的论文精读，学习怎样组织和写出好英语；她特别提到已故著名天体物理学家Zwaan的论文可作范文。论文初稿完后定要检查拼写，避免简单的拼写错误；对英文写作无把握者，请英文好的同事或国外同行把把英文关是必要的。为从根本上提高英语水平，建议对研究生开设英语写作课程。 二、论文进入SCI的影响因素 (Science Citation Index，简称SCI)是美国科技信息研究(Institute for Scientific Information，简称ISI)编辑出版，用来查询科技文献及其引用情况的检索工具，内容涉及科技领域150多个学科，分为数学、物理学、化学、生物学、微生物学、农业、分子生物学与遗传学、临床医学、神经学、药学、计算机科学、生态与环境等，以基础科学研究为主。SCI对其收录期刊采用了多种严格而科学的定量和定性筛选，所收载的均是集中了各学科高质量优秀论文精萃的期刊，全面覆盖了世界最重要、最有影响的研究成果。SCI的研究成果代表着世界基础学科研究的最高水准，科技论文被SCI收录和引用是评价其国际学术地位、基础科学研究水平、科技创新实力和科技论文质量的国际通用依据。 A. 原创性和影响力: 原创性也就是原始性和创造性。原创性不等同于新颖性，新颖性可以是别人研究的延续，而原创性意味着一个新事物、新领域、新问题的开创。原创性研究通常是指对新的观测和实验事实的描述，首次提出的概念和模型，首次建立的方程，以及对已有的重大观测 (实验)事实的新的概括和新的规律的提炼等。任何期刊都不希望发表已经见于其它杂志，或由其它语言发表、或以稍有不同的形式发表的论文，国际核心期刊更是如此。要想在国际核心期刊发表论文，原创性是最基本的要求；原创性课题通常来源于实践或对各种有关信息的研究，而不是来源于现成文献。 影响力以论文被引频率来衡量。引用频率已被科学界公认是衡量特定研究价值的最为客观公正的方法。在 1961-1971年间，SCI一般作者平均引用频率约 50次，而同期诺贝尔奖获得者的平均引用率为222次，并且SCI中某学科被引用次数最多的论文作者获该学科诺贝尔奖的情形也多次发生。高水平的论文不仅具有原创性，还具有影响力，必须对他人的研究有所帮助，并由此推动科学发展。 B. 论文撰写: (1)撰写英文论文。被SCI收录的我国期基本上为英文，英文文种优势是论文进入SCI期刊的重要因素。1997年SCI收录我国论文10033篇，其中 83%发表在国外刊物，国内发表17%。从语种上看，英语论文占总论文数99.78%，中文论文占 0.09%；法、德、俄、日文论文占 0.12%。东西方语言差异是中国科技工作者学术成果走向世界的一个很大障碍。 (2)英文摘要全面深入，反映研究要点，强调自己的独创。论文要进入SCI，除投SCI来源期刊处，另一途径是为国外读者引用。因此，英文摘要的撰写显得非常重要。许多作者的英文摘要较简略，没有注意将文章主要内容体现在文摘内，从而影响论文交流。例如综合多种检索技术优势的数据库检索功能设计的论文摘要，不仅说明采用了什么技术得出了设计方案？还应说明这些技术通过怎样的利用？达到了什么效果？体现实现最终目标的主要过程，这样可增加论文被引用机会。 (3)参考文献应用。论文应清楚地标注引用，完整给出参考文献。原则上，除了教科书上公认的方程和表达式外，特定的目的、特定条件和问题的推演，只要不是自己的工作，都要列出处，并完整给出相应文献。即使是作者自己以往的工作，也要列出相应文献。这样做既对他人研究有充分肯定、免去剽窃之嫌，又能说明自己的论述依据充分，也突出了自己在该研究中的独创内容。 三、如何投稿SCI杂志论文 为什么要鼓励向国外投稿？国内核心刊物版面有限，投稿人多，国内刊物SCI收录杂志发表更难；国内刊物影响因子都较低；大多数国际刊物不收版面费；国际刊物发表周期短。 如何准备稿件？选题新颖、idea好，讲究科学。Title page；Abstract；Text (Introduction； Methods； Results； Discussion)； References；Acknowledgements；Figure legends；Tables and Figures。使用清晰合理的语言，避免修饰词(如最好、第一)和社论性语言(如令人惊异地、令人感兴趣地等)。题目醒目，表达清楚而不含糊。介绍研究背景十分重要，说明为什么要进行研究，长度在1页内，引用文献15条内。方法学一定要做到：临床研究有病人知情同意，通过伦理委员会批准；动物实验符合本大学的动物管理与动物实验的章程等。特别注意方法是否合理，是否目前国际上通用。结果要清晰图、表格，合理的结果解释等；特别注意方法学和结果中可能的小的漏洞，最好请多位同行专家审阅。Discussion部分只对本文结果进行讨论，与同类研究结果进行比较，对结果涉及的可能机制不要展开太多，不要进行推理讨论；结论应客观，不要夸大。参考文献尽量最新；注意格式；如有可能，尽可能引用拟投刊物近2年的文章。成稿后请同行专家反复修改；可请语言专家纠正语法错误。 四、撰写SCI文章的经验 1.首先是大量阅读文献，如果要撰写高水平论文，基础是读很多高水平文献。建议多看影响因子高的国外文献，最好IF3以上。国内综述性杂志还是可以看，特别是刚刚接触陌生的研究领域时。 2.看文献的同时注意随时摘录，好记性不如烂笔头。英语论文的写作实际上有很多现成固定的模式和表达方法，将这些固定用法随时做笔记，并随时复习，加上不断阅读新文献，自己动手写时也就不会举步维艰。 3.课题设计的IDEA十分重要，观点的创新性决定了文章能否受editor和reviewer青睐。 4. 实验完成开写文章，或者自己写，实在不行，就找几篇与你的课题十分相近的文章阅读，有些表述方法可以直接借鉴，当然不可以直接照搬，必须进行适当的修改，如语序，近义词替换等等。最后进行通篇连贯的阅读，总体使其变得通顺。投稿前必须仔细修改，不可仓促投稿，可以先放几天，在回头来看，这样反复多次。最好的话是请英语高手帮你修一修。或者也可以请一般同学看看，从别人的角度来取长补短。 5.投递建议多投网上可以submission的杂志，快又省钱，投之前好好看看guideline for authors。严格按照上面的条例修改，象图片的分辨率等等细节都要十分注意。 6.修回的稿件一般是要求point to point的回复，必须一一进行回答，个人建议是所有问题最好都按要求去做，这样的accept可能性很高，当然审稿人的水平也有不同，有些明显错误的观点应当用详细的理由加以回复，有可能的话附上参考文献增加可信度。 7. 文章基本上accept了，有时审稿人会要求你把文章给专业领域离地英语专家修改，有些人可能未必找的到，那怎么办，呵呵，那就自己来，反复阅读，尽量减少一些低级错误比如拼写和语法，还有就是表述以简洁至上,simple is the best。再就是尽量多改一些地方(这是一滥招，高手就免了)，就算没什么错误的地方可改用别的表达方法，表面上看来编辑部会觉得你很严谨仔细，呵呵，反复多看看，多修，就能成功，我就是这么做的，你也可以。 五、SCI论文写作经验 要写好文章，思路创新性和数据可靠性是两个基本条件。思路创新有两种方法：(1) 如果你个人在某领域进行了多年研究，你觉得某些问题解决的关键应该在于某个方面的深入研究，如果很少有人注意此方面研究而你首先开始，那你的文章就创新。这种方法创新的前提是，你在该领域有多年研究；否则很有可能失败。因为你认为创新的东西可能是人家已经做过的(只是研究失败，所以没有报道)，或者你的思路本身就是错误的。(2) 二次创新。例如最近三年有不同作者发了两篇文章，一篇报道因素A对提高玉米抗逆性有很大影响，第二篇报道因素B对小麦抗逆性有很大影响。那么你就可以参考以上两法，研究因素A和因素B对水稻抗逆性的影响。这样做出来的文章一般也能发在和以上两篇文章档次差不多的杂志。要保证数据的可靠，首先你要选用你的领域中普遍采用的方法，可以找几篇和你的研究类似的SCI文章，参考他们的研究方法。 试验结束后，立即进行总结数据，写文章，主要步骤可参考： A. Result部分。将所有的试验结果整理成图和表，尽力挖掘图和表中的信息，越多越好。在这个过程中尽可能和不同的研究人员探讨你的试验结果，因为不同的人对同一张表和图有不同的看法。这样会给你写文章提供很好的思路。 B. 分析完图表后，寻找你这个试验结果的Key point，一定要保证这个Key point具有较大的新意，或者说一个到这个Key point 有一种振奋人心的感觉。然后从所有图表中找出能够论证你这个Key point 的图和表。合理安排你的图和表，如果可能的话尽可能用图。 C. Result以后是Discussion(一篇文章的精华)，可以将discussion分为若干段落，可以是并列关系或者递进关系。但要保证每一段都有一个主题，即每一段讨论一个主要话题。而且每一段中要说明以下几点：(1)你的研究结果说明什么?有什么意义?(2)你的研究结果和别人的类似研究有什么异同?如果不同，可以讨论一些产生差异的可能原因?(3)如果你在研究结果中出现非常新的东西，用以前别人的理论很难解释，那么你可以提出你的假设理论来解释试验中非常新的东西，一定要做到能自圆其说。在Discussion的最后要总结一下，告诉别人你这个研究的几个主要结果。 D. Materials Methods：你在试验中得到的数据，都要写出相应方法。写试验方法要尽可能详细，保证别人看了Materials and Methods 后能够参考你的方法进行相关研究。看一下你可能要投的刊物中的Materials and Methods是怎么写的，你可以参考。 E. Introduction：简介你这个研究领域的意义；介绍该研究领域的一些人所做的工作，指出它们存在的问题；说明你为什么要做这个试验；可在introduction 中提出你的hypothesis。 F. Reference：最好引用原始文献，不要二次引用；注意文献编排格式，与你要投的刊物要一致；不要漏和多参考文献。Acknowledge：帮助过你做试验，写文章的人；提供资金项目。Title要说明你的研究内容，要有一定吸引力；Abstract包括研究目的，主要研究结果，得出什么重要的结论。 G. 写好以后，最好找个搞相关研究的美国或者英国的科学家看一下，改一下英文，就可投出了。 六、写论文的技巧 优秀论文的要素：1、正确选题；2、合适的切入点；3、简洁明了；4、说清自己的贡献； 5、可靠的/可重现的结果；6、可重复的过程；7、好的文章结构和逻辑流程； 8、精选的参考文献 优秀论文的误区：1、Idea越多越好；2、一味追求革命性的，突破性的成果； 3、数学、理论和公式越复杂越好显示自己的聪明； 4、追求最好，史无前例；5、显示权威性，引文中大量引用自己的论文。 写文章的条件：1、与研究工作相关，确实有了好的想法，不是为了写而写； 2、取得了有价值的成果，对学术界有贡献； 3、实验成熟，经得起检验； 4、已经需要记录下来和其他人分享 写论文的要点：1、写出3~4层的纲要反复修改多次。 2、从Introduction开写，回顾已有的工作。 3、要声明文章结构，不要直接进入细节。 4、声明工作的动机和基本原理，提出潜在的问题，自己进行回答。 5、讲明自己工作与前人的不同，说明自己的贡献及其实际应用前景。 6、最后写Summary和Abstract，反复斟酌后确定标题。 Reviewer Check List: 1、论文是否提出了一个新的问题或者给出了已有问题的一个新的解决方案。 2、论文的主要结果是什么？3、实验结果是否充分？4、论文技术含量如何？ 5、论文是否对所提出的技术/结果的有效性和局限性进行了评价？ 6、论文写作是否清晰，从而令本行业内多数研究人员可读？ 7、论文是否适当地引用和介绍了与之相关的历史文献？ 8、论文是否应该给予嘉奖？ IEEE Transactions on CSVT Review form: 1、在多大的程度上满足本期刊读者的兴趣？ 2、论文所使用的方法的评价？3、结果是否具有新颖性？ 4、主要结果是否正确？5、论述是否清晰？ 6、是否具有一致性（前/后，论述/结果）？ 7、引文是否充足？ 8、 Reviewer的意见：(Accept / Accept after a minor revision / Reject / Reject but resubmit after a major revision / Submit to another journal)。 七、论文写作技巧： 1、宣传自己说明论文的重要性。 流程：a）问题X是重要的；b）前人的工作A、B曾经研究过这个问题；c）A、B有一些缺陷；d）我们提出了方法D；e）对D进行实验，和A、B进行比较；f）实验证明D比A、B优越；g）解释为什么D是更优的，而其他的思路（比如E）是不行的；h）阐述D的有效性和局限性；i）对D进一步发展的讨论。要点：j）简洁最重要；k）不犯粗心的错误，仔细验证结果和适当选择用词。 2、细心修改。 步骤：a）30%的时间细心思考，70%的时间认真写作初稿；b）把写好的论文放一段时间；c）逐字逐句地阅读论文；d）请其他人帮助阅读和修改；e）在修改的时候，从别人的角度来审视论文（Reviewer / boss / colleagues / proof-reader）；f）仔细修改的次数 3；修改的总次数 5。要点：g）自己读自己的论文很乏味，并且不易找到错误；h）为了论文的小的层次提升，要付出大量劳动。 3、优化英语。 步骤：a）自顶向下地组织论文（大纲/逻辑/流程）；b）用其他的优秀论文（尤其是同期刊/同系列的论文，优秀书籍）作为范例；c）请别人帮忙阅读和修改语法和用词；d）记录自己用词和语法的错误，进行积累。要点：e）用词和语法固然重要，但是结构和逻辑更加重要。 八、优秀论文结构范例： 1、Abstract 对自己工作及其贡献的总结：a）阐述问题；b）说明自己的解决方案和结果。 2、Introduction背景，以及文章的大纲：a）题X是重要的；b）前人的工作A、B曾经研究过这个问题；c）A、B有一些缺陷；d）我们提出了方法D；e）D的基本特征，和A、B进行比较；f）实验证明D比A、B优越；g）文章的基本结构，大纲。 3、 Previous Work说明自己与前人的不同：a）将历史上前人的工作分成类别；b）对每项重要的历史工作进行简短的回顾(一到几句)，注意要回顾正确，抓住要点，避免歧义；c）和自己提出的工作进行比较；d）不要忽略前人的重要工作，要公正评价前人的工作，不要过于苛刻；e）强调自己的工作和前人工作的不同，最好举出各自适用例子。 4、Our Work描述自己的工作，可分成多个部分：a）从读者角度阐明定义和表示法；b）提供算法的伪码，图解和相应解释；c）用设问的方式回答读者可能提出的潜在问题；d）复杂的冗长的证明和细节可以放在附录中，这里关键是把问题阐述清楚；e）特例和例外应该在脚注中给予说明。 5、Experiments验证提出的方法和思路：a）合理地设计实验（简洁的实验和详尽的实验步骤）；b）必要的比较，突出科学性；c）讨论，说明结果的意义；d）给出结论。 6、Conclusion总结、前景及结文：a）快速简短的总结；b）未来工作的展望；c）结束全文。 7、References对相关重要背景文献的全面引用：a）选择引文（众所周知的结论不必引用，其他人的工作要引用）；b）与前文保持一致。 8、Others致谢、附录、脚注。 处理被拒：1、理解被国际权威期刊拒稿是一件正常的事情(70%以上被拒)，保持良好心态。 2、感谢编辑和Reviewer的意见和工作。 3、询问副主编，自己可以怎样处理这篇论文最合适(重投/改投/撤回)。 4、继续新的研究或补充修改后改投其他杂志。 常见问题：1、是否可以一稿多投？千万不要！但是一篇会议论文经过修改以后可以再投期刊。 2、是否可以建议副主编如何处理自己的论文呢？不行，但可建议他别让某人评阅。 3、如4个月都未收到副主编回复怎么办？写一封友好的询问信，别催得太紧，别找主编。 4、如和副主编意见严重不和怎么办？可以找主编，但是别经常这样做。 5、如果和主编的最终决定严重不和怎么办？没有办法了。
This article is written for you, if you have been told recently by a journal editor that your manuscript needs to be edited by a “native speaker.” You don’t need to read further, if you understand that here a “native speaker” has its specific meaning: it means a native speaker of English who also has some expertise in what you do and CAN write. We are all Chinese. (Ok, some of us are Chinese xxx, with different nationalities.) Most of us speak fluent Chinese, likely with some regional accent. Does that mean we all can write Chinese articles well? The answer is clearly NO. Not only that, a research paper on life science, written in Chinese by a scientist who is a native speaker of Chinese, often reads like Greek to a layman. It’s true that all “normal” British people are native speakers of British English. Most of them, however, cannot help you with your manuscript even if they have Ph.D. degrees. What you need is someone who knows how to write research papers well, preferably someone who has a good publication record in your field. Most importantly, you can learn how to write well yourself, if you are determined to do so! Updates: I became an English editor of a journal whose chief editor had some concerns about hiring me. This Blog helped him to make his decision, and I was hired.
Follow these steps to refine your figures: Design each figure by highlighting the features you want to share with your readers; Keep only whats necessary (panels, shadings, contours, labels, and writings); Arrange all the figures in a logic way. Test: You should be able to give a 15-min talk using these figures alone. The four goals of an illustration are precise, clear, fluid and familiar. Being Precise: A common mistake is a figure is much more complex than the text. Everything should be as simple as it can be, yet no simpler. --Albert Einstein Being Clear: A good figure has a well-written caption, which begins with a title phrase. Test: A well-written caption should provide enough information to stand alone. Being Fluid and familiar: Match the information in the text with that in the illustration; Use familiar units; Use consistent layout. You may read something like this in a paper: Figure 5 clearly shows (a brief statement). And you look at the figure, and wonder what the heck the authors are referring to Yes, this happens, but make sure it does not happen to your next paper J Do not assume the readers can see through your eyes; describe what you want others to see in words, sentences, and paragraphs if needed. Also see 科技论文的一个关键 by 贾伟 and 任胜利的博客 on 科技论文写作与投稿--PPT Before you submit the manuscript, you should revise it many times . You may feel bored. You may feel you are wasting time. However, revising is the key to strong scientific writing. Follow these steps to refine your manuscript: You need to obtain some distance from the current version. (Go for a long walk, go have a drink) You have to become a good reader, if you want to become a successful reviser. You should solicit criticism of your writing. As for how to revise the manuscript AFTER you have seen reviewers comments, it is a different matter. I hope to discuss this in future. References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996) Zuojun: This concludes the series. I will write about the English language itself next. Stay tuned.
Conclusions generally include a list of the key results from the papers middle, a discussion and a future perspective on the work. Do not define abbreviations again; Do not bring in new results or new ideas; Do not end the paper with a negative statement about the work; Avoid being too long (about 5%-10% of the length of the main text). Exception exists. When you need to have a thorough discussion on an issue, consider devoting an independent section (before the concluding one) and write to your hearts content. Back matter includes appendices and a bibliography. An appendix is a good place to show detailed information for a more technical audience. For bibliography , make sure you list relevant publications, the latest as well as the seminal ones. For detailed information on how to write discussion and conclusions, please visit 任胜利的博客 on 科技论文写作与投稿--PPT. References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996)
When a reader has come this far, he must be very interested in your work. Now, its up to you to keep his interest alive. You should Choose an appropriate strategy to describe your research; Create sections and subsections to guide your readers. Considering parallelism Example: 3.1 Relationship between currents and surface wind 3.2 Surface temperature and surface wind interactionNote: If we write Interaction between A and B, then it is parallel to the title of section 3.1. Provide transition 1. Transition between sections: Map the sections by using a list at the end of introduction. Smooth the entrances into sections by avoiding three common beginnings, namely an empty beginning, a too general beginning, or a too specific beginning. 2. Transition between paragraphs: Do not waste the first sentence to repeat what is said in the previous paragraph. 3. Transition between sentences: Finish describing one thing before starting another. Do not go back and forth. Provide emphasis You can use repetition, wording, illustration, and placement. Repetition: mentioning a particular result in the abstract, result section, and conclusion. Wording: using dependent clauses and infinitive phrases. because, since, as, although, when to filter out the high-frequency signal Finally, avoid writing Our results here are supported by Smith (1998). Its the other way around: These results support (or confirm) those by Smith (1998). References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996)
Introduction is where the author reviews what has been published by himself as well as by other people on the same (or a closely related) topic. To many people, introduction is the most difficult part of the paper to write. Therefore, one may want to outline it first (including a list of papers to be cited) and write it last (after you finish other parts of your manuscript). An introduction should answer the following questions: What exactly is the study about? Why is the study important? What is needed to understand the (new) work? How will the (new) work be presented? Note: If you need an abbreviation, define it first. (The one defined in the abstract does not count.) It is very important to clearly state which result was obtained by whom and when . As a reviewer and English editor of many journal manuscripts, there is nothing more confusing (and sometimes upsetting) when I cannot tell who did what. Many colleagues I talk to share the same view. So, unless you want to confuse (and even upset) your reviewers and readers, please write explicitly and give credit to yourself as well as to your colleagues where credit is due . Avoid introducing too many new citations after the introduction. So, collect as many citations as appropriate in the introduction, and group them using an outline (to make sure the ideas flow smoothly). Before you start the research project, you should have read all is available on the topic (to avoid repeating what has been done). Since some project may take more than a year or two, you need to do another round of quick literature research before you finalize your manuscript for submission. As a reviewer or English editor, I actually check the reference list to see if there is a lack of new publications. For more information, please visit 任胜利的博客 on 科技论文写作与投稿--PPT References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996)
This article is written for you, if you have been told recently by a journal editor that your manuscript needs to be edited by a native speaker. If you think you are paying for editing one manuscript, then you are only half correct. Why? Please let me explain. You can read many books about how to write a research paper, but you cannot write well unless you write it yourself, revise it (many times), and have it edited (either by an experienced co-author or colleague, or by an English editor who has a strong science background in a field close to yours). If you wrote the manuscript yourself, you would benefit most (more than your co-authors who did little writing), if you go over the tracked changes carefully. You should feel the manuscript reads more smoothly after being edited, and as a result your ideas and reasoning are better expressed. (If not, then you should try a different English editor next time.) You should try to understand why the editor made each change. If you don't understand why, you should ask the editor to explain it. (If he refuses, then you should try another English editor next time.) In addition, you should share this edited manuscript with your co-authors so they can learn as well. If you have students, let them study the edited manuscript. If you follow my advice, you will get your moneys worth. Zuojun: This is something I have learned from and shared with my clients. When my clients improve their English, I will receive a much better manuscript next time. Then, I can improve the writing further because revising (including editing) is the key to good writing.
I have never given a true public speech myself; say standing in front of 5,000 people in an anti-Iraq war rally. However, I did have to face 40 undergraduate students (mostly juniors and seniors) in a dimmed classroom many times. Teaching non-major students at U. Hawaii on Global Environmental Change is not an easy task. The experience gained in that classroom helps me to be a serious Blogger, I think. I have two rules for my Blog: one is to do no harm, and the other is to respect my viewers. I see no reason for me to get into a fight with my viewers publicly, though I think public debates are much needed on many issues. I want to write things that may help people in some way, not matter how small, such as learning how to write research papers in English, or recommending a good (either fun or thought-provoking) movie. I try to keep each article short, and I revise it many times before posting it. I think Blogging is like giving a public speech. The counter tells me how many times viewers have stopped by to read (or glance at) a particular article of mine (ok, minus 5 or 10 times since I need to revise it a few times after I have posted it). What you see at my Blog site is what you would hear standing in front of me, except that my English carries some Chinese accent. Happy Blogging!
This article is written for you, if you have been told recently by a journal editor that your manuscript needs to be edited by a native speaker. You may ask: Who are you to write such an article? Its true that I have never used any English editing service myself. My background (including my education and publication records) can be easily checked out if you google my full name. In short, I am writing this article as an English editor (freelancer). I intend to offer unbiased views, and welcome your comments in Chinese or English (email: zuojun@zuojunyu.com). I started my own editing company more than two years ago. Naturally, I pay close attention to what is out there in order to stay competitive. When a journal editor mentioned Liwenbianji ( 理文 编 辑; http://www.liwenbianji.cn/home ), I immediately checked it out. I was quite impressed: What Liweibianji offers is exactly what I wanted to or wish to offer! (However, I am a freelancer, and I am happy doing what I have been doing: one client at a time, expanding my business through word of mouth.) What is so impressive about Liwenbianji ( 理文 编 辑 )? It uses established scientists in various fields (including meteorology and oceanography; so there is a bit of competition with my own business). It lists each editors background in both English and Chinese. I strongly recommend you to use its service, if you can identify an editor in your field. To be fair to my other competitors in the editing business, you should also google search scientific editing, and you will find more than one million links out there. For English editing, you get 45 times that! All you need to do is to check out the links on the first two pages, and you will find a few professional companies. Which one to use? I suggest that you follow these steps: 1) Does the company list its editors with their background information (education and other track records)? 2) What is the cost? 3) Does the company accept payment in RMB (if you have difficulty getting USD)? A friend brought to my attention a company that mainly serves Chinese, called PaperTalks.org ( http://papertalks.org/p/e/Default.aspx ). It uses oversea Chinese as its editors (and clients). Each manuscript is edited first by the International Scientist and Expert Team, and then copy-edited by the U.S. Professional Editor Team. I suspect PaperTalks will have more clients than Liwenbianji, because its Chinese editors can reach out to their classmates and colleagues in China through word of mouth. The weakness is some of its Chinese editors are not yet well established in their fields (since some of them are still students or post docs). In the mean time, take advantage of what these companies offer for free. Go to their websites and learn as much as you can! As for me, if your manuscript is not about meteorology, oceanography, or environmental sciences, I dont think I want to get involved, RMB or USD
How to choose a strong title? A strong title offers two things: 1) the topic of the research; 2) its unique identity that is different from all other papers in the field. Test: Does it stand out from a computer search, say using Web of Science? How to find a strong title for a paper? Being precise (using the right words and appropriate level of accuracy); Using no more than three or four details; Avoiding being too long; Avoiding unfamiliar abbreviations. The abstract is to help readers to decide whether or not they need to read this paper. When you cannot find a concise title to separate your work from others, you can use the abstract to do so. Rules for using abbreviations in the abstract: Define only those that you will use in the abstract, not those you will use in the main text. For example: The sea-surface temperature (SST) in the eastern Pacific Ocean becomes abnormally warm every 3-5 years, known as the El Nino. The authors use SST data derived by satellite to show another El Nino is on the way. Note that the purpose for defining abbreviations is for speedy writing and reading. Avoid using confusing abbreviations, such as AS (just-in-time definition for Arabian Sea), NC (North China), etc. Just-in-time definition is what I prefer; however, most journals in my fields (oceanography and meteorology) still do not accept just-in-time definition. (Its time for evolution.) For more information, please visit 任胜利的博客 on 科技论文写作与投稿--PPT References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996)
This I Believe is an international project engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives . Over 60,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life , are archived here on our website, heard on public radio, chronicled through our books and television programming, and featured in weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow. Source: This I Believe website. Zuojun: I have really enjoyed listening to many programs on the NPR (National Public Radio), where I first heard about this project. If you want to write an essay and submit it to the project, I will be glad to read it and offer my comments. My email is zuojun@zuojunyu.com.
If you know how to swim, you must have learned it in the water. The same is true for writing. You have to keep on writing in order to learn how to write well. If you are writing a paper of more than 3,000 words, you should consider putting together an outline first. An outline defines the logic flow of your paper. If you add titles for subsection, sub-subsection, and even sub-sub-subsection, you should see a well-paved path. If not, you need to revise it. Then, you can add bits and pieces to where they belong to. You may take out the sub-sub-subsection titles when you are ready to submit the manuscript. Here is an example (for a paper using a numerical ocean model and data assimilation technique): I. Introduction 1.0 Opening paragraph 1.1 Background (review publications) 1.1.1 Observational background 1.1.2 Theoretical background 1.1.3 Modeling background 1.2 Present research II. Methodology 2.1 Data 2.1.1 Atmospheric data 2.1.2 Air-sea flux data 2.1.3 Ocean data 2.1.3.1 Data used for assimilation 2.1.3.2 Data used for validation 2.2 Models 2.2.1 Model basics (equations, etc.) 2.2.2 Forcing field 2.2.3 Basin, resolution, and boundary conditions 2.2.4 Initial conditions 2.2.5 Output sampling and averaging III. Results 3.1 Main run 3.1.1 Mean state 3.1.2 Seasonal variability 3.1.3 Interannual variability 3.2 Sensitivity to winds 3.3 Sensitivity to mixing … IV. Summary and discussion 4.1 Summary 4.2 Discussion 4.2.1 Unresolved issues 4.2.2 Future work Remember: Scientific writing is hard work. Scientific writing is not science. Scientific writing is a craft. It is a skill that must be developed through practice, practice and more practice. References: The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley (1987, 1996)
When you think you have obtained enough new results for a paper, you can do what I did using the following three steps. Step 1: Gathering a set of figures. Design these figures with great care so that they can help you to tell a story; say, using them to give an informal, 25-min talk to a small group. This process itself may take weeks, depending on your project. Since I am an ocean modeler, I may have to add a few numerical experiments to make my story more convincing. You put these figures in the order they would appear in your manuscript. Make sure you keep on revising them, namely, by refining existing ones, adding new ones and taking out some old ones. The goal is to bring out the important features that you want your readers to see in each figure clearly. Step 2: Writing detailed captions. Though a picture may be worth a thousand words, a detailed caption is often needed for a research paper. Some people like to use a detailed caption (for a good reason as discussed next) so detailed that a reader can simply look at the figure and read the caption to understand what the author is trying to convey. Other people may prefer to use a brief caption and leave the detail in the main text, which is fine, too. If you prefer a brief caption, you should still try to write as much as you can about each figure at the initial stage of manuscript preparation. You can always move much of the “caption” to the main text later on. The good thing about this practice is when you are done with figures and captions, half of the paper is written! (You may go to Step 3 now, if you prefer a brief caption.) Why should one give sufficient details in the caption? I am sure that I am not the only scientist who reads a new paper in this order: title and abstract, followed by figures and captions (so detailed captions would benefit readers like me, and I am not alone), and finally the discussion and conclusions. After that, I may or may not read the rest of the paper. (Yes, it’s possible that I may not read beyond the abstract, not necessarily because the paper is poorly written, but because I’m simply not interested in the topic at the time.) Step 3: Giving an informal talk (in English, if you can). Though it may take a lot of time for you to put together a ppt presentation, it is worth it. The preparation process itself forces you to think hard about how to convince your audience (and later on your reviewers when you submit the manuscript) that your results are new and worth publishing. You should keep on thinking about how to tell a good story, to the point that you are able to flip through these slides in your mind. Do talk to yourself (in English, if you can), or to a colleague who is willing to listen. It does not matter if this colleague understands you or not; if he does, that is even better. (Some of my colleagues call this practice, the Janitor's Syndrome. I know this works for me when I am really stuck during my research, and I may suddenly get a new idea if I start to tell a friend about my difficulty, who may not even be a scientist.) Talking requires brain power, and may even stimulate one’s brain unexpectedly! (Revised on April 11, 2016) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:20090211_thousand_words-01.jpg Go back to: “科学网大学”英文服务中心: 英文写作小贴士 http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=spaceuid=306792do=blogid=432195
English is not my mother tongue. Today, people say to me:”How did you learn to write so well?” I learned basic English in China, where I had the best English teacher of the whole school (Shangdong College of Oceanography, now Ocean University of China) and graduate school (Zhongshan University). Still, I could barely write (or talk) when I came to US in 1986. Now, I can write research papers with confidence, I have clients from Japan and Korea as well as China. If you are a beginner and want to publish research papers in English journals, please follow me chapter by chapter. I will help you so some day you can write research papers in English with confidence. In order to write (English) well, one must read, read and read. If you don’t have time for novels written in English, read publications in English on the topics you are most familiar with. It is other people’s writing you are reading now, but soon the words, phrases and sentences will become your own. This is how you acquire basic knowledge of English for writing. Remember: Rome was not built in one day, nor is one’s ability to write well in English. (Revised on April 11, 2016)
A Few Points on Scientific Writing Editors are a low form of life inferior to the viruses and only slightly above academic deans (R.A. Day, 1975) Who am I to pretend to give advice on writing to young researchers? After 10 years working with scientific journals as Associate Editor ( Bulletin de Minralogie , Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Chemical Geology ), I became Editor of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (1993-2000) dealing with ~140 manuscripts per year and then Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth from 2001-2004 (650 manuscripts per year). I have put this page on the web because I have the impression that some things simply do not change. The kinds of errors that I made as a PhD student and the types of problems that I have had with reviewers and editors with my own articles keep repeating themselves after 30 years I find myself making the same comments to young authors that drove me up the wall at 25 years of age. As an Editor, and especially as a French Editor, it is a terrible feeling to have to reject a manuscript by a young scientist because the ideas are not expressed clearly, when other criteria indicate that the author is capable of making important contributions. Some easily irritable reviewers will readily reject a poorly written manuscript by a first-time author, even when the manuscript may contain great ideas that the author is simply not capable of expressing. Dont forget that a reviewer irritated by writing faults or by the style will probably lose some of her/his initial goodwill towards the science being presented. Although I had initially listed a number of typical problems for manuscripts written by young and less young French authors, most of these points actually appear in manuscripts written by scientists of all walks of life regardless of their country of origin: In bold , red and underlined : one paper, one point! One idea, one article. Dont write an article containing a number of different overlapping or parallel ideas. If you have two ideas, write two articles and do not write your magnum opus that no one will understand. Papers of the type Part 1, 2, 3, etc. are very unpopular and perceived as arrogant because they are based on the assumption that all of the parts will be accepted in the format decided by the author (in defense, an author purportedly said, why not, Beethoven wrote 9 symphonies, didn't he?) . Put yourself in the position of the potential reader of your paper and ask yourself two questions: is it worth my time to read this paper, and what will I get out of it? Most readers of your papers (who themselves represent a tiny fraction of the scientific community) will perhaps read the abstract and conclusions, look at a couple of figures (without reading the captions) and verify that they have been cited or not. All of this takes about 45 seconds. If you want to be read by more than the five colleagues around the world who work on exactly the same topic as you, make it short and make it readable to a broad readership. English is often a scapegoat: 4 times out of 5, an incomprehensible sentence in English is not translatable in your own language because the basic formulation of the idea is wrong, not the words. In other words, dont blame the language. If you feel that you cant find the proper word to express your idea, try: (1) leave this word out and see whether the sentence reads well anyway, and (2) use an alternate word with almost the same meaning and use a thesaurus to zero on the right term. Spell-checkers and grammar-checkers are part of all word processors (even LaTeX). There is nothing that ticks off a reviewer more than dealing with a large number of errors when a single check can catch them all. Not using a spell-checker or grammar-checker is essentially the same as dropping candy wrappers on the street and expecting someone to pick them up for you. Title: it may look prestigious to be general in the title, but turgid headlines tend to make people shrug. Avoid A model of the world: example of my backyard. Dont write an article entitled A global model for the seismicity of the Earth: example of the Santa Monica event, but rather The moment tensor of the Santa Monica earthquake. Avoid two-part titles that are separated by a colon, they are pompous. Names: Napolon Bonaparte and not Bonaparte Napolon. Even in French, one says pr-nom for first name but nobody listens: North American telephone books are full of Dr Philippe, Pr Jean-Paul, and Mme Georgette, etc. who confused the first name (prnom) and the last name (nom de famille). Putting the last name in capital letters is a waste of time. The Abstract provides a summary of the paper. It needs to be concise, because if it is not, the reader will become discouraged and will go to the next article in the journal. The abstract needs to be informative: writing a theory has been presented and the implications discussed is simply a waste of time for everyone involved. Get straight to the facts! The Introduction introduces the paper: ask the correct scientific question, discuss the current state of the problem in the literature, and explain the reason why you have the key to the problem that others do not. The Results section describes the data, quickly reviews expected regularities and highlights oddities. Use a reasonable number of plots to show how the new results fit with existing knowledge and what makes them distinctive. The section provides a context for comparing the new results with literature data. Save trees, though! As Al Hofmann correctly points out, writing that 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios in samples 5 to 9 vary from 0.702985 to 0.703117, whereas, quite to the contrary, they do vary from 0.703017 to 0.703315 in samples 1 to 4, which most normal people can get from the table, is a total waste of space and time and immensely boring. Telling that Ba increases from sample 1 to 10 while Rb decreases in sample 8 to 15 is uninteresting. The Results and Discussion sections are rigorously distinct. The reader must have all of the available data by the beginning of the discussion. Dont pull out new results or data from your sleeve in the middle of the discussion to support an idea. The verdict on a marble cake of results or discussions is rejection. Presentation style (Part I): go for the algorithmic method and not the Agatha Christie (or Sherlock Holmes) method. Avoid building suspense, because if you succeed in hiding your arguments for too long, the white knight will arrive a few seconds too late to rescue the prospective mother of his children from the villain, your paper will pass away before the end, and your story will fall into undeserved oblivion. The first sentence in a paragraph always describes the motivation of the paragraph dont take the reader down a hidden path. Its better to be understood in 30 seconds than to lose the reader after 15 minutes. Presentation style (Part II): use sub-headers with moderation, they each betray a non-sequitur. The ideal article could have none. My high-school teachers enjoyed the sight of a full table of contents, but a segmented structure rarely serves a strong scientific discussion. Rather that breaking your work into separate pieces, try to streamline the sequence of ideas. Show causal or temporal relationships by rephrasing consecutive sentences to this effect. Words like indeed or in fact do not connect anything, certainly not adjacent ideas, and look like meaningless objects casually dumped in the crack between two unrelated statements. The paragraph! Avoid woolly style, with no memorable beginning, no foreseeable end, and endless sidetracking. Follow the thread of your idea in the most possible linear way. Although a new step in the development of an idea calls for a new paragraph, you should work hard to keep the transition smooth. Samba, two steps forward, one step backward, may help communicate your feelings but not your ideas, and particularly in science. If you develop your idea in the first part of a sentence, do not ruin it in the second part. Such a trick can reassure you when you are not ready to commit, but it will certainly leave the reader confused about what you really meant to say. If a confrontation between ideas is really needed, leave the reader on the idea that you think you should support. Compare the impression left by I like beer, but I really need to watch my waistline versus I know it is not great for my diet, but I could have a cold beer now and make up your mind about which message you wish to send! Dont think that if you explain things clearly, that you will be considered mentally deficient. Obviously you do not want to take the reader for an idiot, but take the time to clearly and simply state your ideas, without embellishments, without insinuations, and without pontificating. The worst thing that could happen to you is that you will be understood. A very common related problem is whether potential readers should be assumed to be on top of the literature, even in their own field. I was taken aback many times by reviewers who considered that their ignorance of papers published 5, 10, or 25 years ago was essentially not their responsibility. Although such an attitude is morally and intellectually flawed, I recommend that you act defensively and do not hesitate repeating --with due referencing-- what you think is common knowledge. Of course, doing this for trendy concepts will be perceived as a lack of taste. Complexity is rarely a virtue: demonstrating that a problem is complex ( i.e., more than one degree of freedom) is the best way to chase away a reader and in any event is not sufficient reason to write a paper. Find a thread (a simple idea) that allows you to unravel the problem so that the author, the reviewer, and the reader remain interested. Occams razor (principle of parsimony), though, is a good topic for parties but has little scientific merit. Dont make smart innuendos to the reader who probably will not understand them. The archetypical example of this kind of behavior is summarizing a particular theory by simply adding the term classic. The notion of the classical dynamo theory is translated by the average reader as I will not waste my time explaining the trivial details of the dynamo that this stupid reader should know and anyhow I dont know what the original references are. This is very, very unprofessional and editorially risky. Dont use empty words (e.g. done, performed, carried out, etc.) and instead use words that have meaning: The Sr isotope compositions of these samples have been measured is always preferred to The measurement of Sr isotope compositions has been performed on these samples. Dont use insults, even unintentional ones: when a reviewer comes across it is obvious that or it is clear that at the beginning of an incomprehensible sentence, he/she will be made to feel like an idiot. And then the reviewer will make you pay for your condescending attitude and lack of communication skills. Avoid using personal pronouns I or we when there is no actual action carried out by the author. We mixed the residual solutions in a 10 ml beaker is OK, but We can see that the points form a linear array is at best is a little absurd, and at worst an insult (see point 18). The solution is simple; just cross-out We can see that! Use you spell checker to hound the unnecessary we. Avoid unnecessary problems related to debatable meaning: quantitatively for completely, to evidence for to attest to, complimentary for complementary, paper for article. Also avoid and/or and split infinitives ( e.g. , to boldly go). The Conclusion section is an essential (and required) part of a paper: it represents what remains after the dust of the discussion has settled. No new ideas can be introduced in the Conclusions. The Acknowledgements should be dignified and include the reviewers, all the reviewers, who have spent time on your work, even if you dont really appreciate their comments. References . Dropping a significant article from your reference list to minimize its importance with respect to your own manuscript is a sure strategy for triggering a hostile reaction from the reviewers. Good Editors pick the reviewers among the most competent scientists in the field but they all unfortunately come with a strong ego. Be a scholar, if only to minimize trouble. Otherwise, the first paper where an idea is introduced should always be cited and a recent review article can also be useful. The absence of old references can indicate a lack of perspective, but too many citations of old papers is pedantic. Fonts. Do not use more than two fonts for the text and avoid non-proportional fonts (Geneva, Courrier) as they are difficult to read in the form of long paragraphs. Use serif fonts (with embellishments, as Time) for the text, and sanserif fonts (Helvetica, Arial) for headings and titles. Be stingy on bold, underlined, and italic style: the human brain does not handle well too many levels of coding. Right justification is pretty but makes the paragraph bulky and unpleasant to read (the eye looses its marks). Hyphenate your text. Never forget to produce a triple-spaced (at least double-spaced) manuscript with wide margins, which will let the reviewer scribble annotations when he/she takes the manuscript on the plane. Pre-formatting a manuscript in the journal print style anticipates acceptance and boasts perfection: this will, most of the time, irritate both the Editor and the reviewers. Figures . Limit their number, but a text with no figures is often unattractive. Limit the number of symbols and colors (5 of each is a good maximum). Use sanserif fonts (Helvetica, Arial) for labels and your figures will have more muscle. Likewise, limit the number of font sizes. It is good policy before submitting a manuscript to print the figures reduced to the size expected from the particular journal and check their readability. Manuscript revisions. Good words break no bones. When a reviewer indicates that he (she) has not understood something that appears obvious to you, seriously consider the possibility that he is sincere. Dont try to reprimand him for his apparent ineptness, but instead work on better expressing your ideas (and test them out on your non-specialist colleagues). When an English-speaking reviewer takes time to correct your errors in English, dont just ignore the suggestions as you wont get a second chance to benefit from this help. Now, please dont check my own papers in too much detail and do not ask how often my own manuscripts get rejected for breaking these ground rules. It so much easier to play the wise guy than to improve ones own behavior!
标签: writing
