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Academic English: Writing a Research Ar ticle (Bioscience) Engineering

Leen De Boom and Katrien Deroey

Academia Press

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Opmaak: Le Pur et L’Impur

Leen De Boom and Katrien Deroey

Academic English: Writing a Research Article (Bioscience) Engineering

Gent, Academia Press, 2011, XII + 335 p. (2nd edition, 2013; reprint, 2017)

This book belongs to a series of five books for doctoral students and researchers from different disciplines:

• Ar ts, Humanities and Law (Catherine Verguts, in collaboration with Marilyn Michels)

• Life Sciences and Medicine (Katrien L.B. Deroey, in collaboration with Dominique Neyts)

• Natural Sciences (Leen De Boom)

• Social and Behavioural Sciences (Catherine Verguts)

• (Bioscience) Engineering (Leen De Boom and Katrien L.B. Deroey)

A teacher’s manual is available upon request.

ISBN 978 94

014 7379 8

D/2020/45/563

NUR 840

Uitgeverij Academia Press maakt deel uit van Lannoo Uitgeverij, de boeken- en multimediadivisie van Uitgeverij Lannoo nv.

Niets uit deze uitgave mag worden ver veelvoudigd en/of vermenigvuldigd door middel van druk, fotokopie, microf ilm of op welke andere wijze dan ook, zonder voor afgaande schrif telijke toestemming van de uitgever.

EXERCISES

INTRODUCTION: YOU AS A WRITER

Fir st, answer these questions individually. Then discuss in groups.

1 What type of te xts have you written so far (e g research ar ticles, letter s and emails, scholarly assignments and progress repor ts)? What type of te xt will you be writing in the near future?

2. What is your attitude towards writing (negative – neutr al – positive)? Do you know why? What e xactly do you (dis)like about writing?

3. What have you been pr aised for or criticized for in the past as a writer?

4. What do you think are the main dif ferences between writing in your mother tongue and in English?

5. What would you like to learn about writing research ar ticles? In other words, what do you e xpect from this cour se?

Unit 1:

AC ADEMIC S T YLE 1

Session aims

• Writing in a suf f iciently formal register

• Adopting an impersonal style

• Writing clearly and concisely

• Structuring paragraphs and sentences

• Clarifying the relationship between points

• Language focus: Relative clauses

To achieve f luent academic discour se, your te xt needs the correct tone, conciseness and a good f low These three criteria will be discussed in more detail in this unit.

1.1. Managing Tone

A . Formality

Exercise 1

Read the following passage which is taken from an Introduction. Underline the formal elements and complete the scheme below the te xt.

(1) Photostability testing of drug substances and products is conducted in order to determine if and to what degree they are likely to under go photodegr adation under the illumination conditions encountered during their manufacture, stor age, and handling. (2) A number of impor tant issues such as loss of ef f icacy and formation of toxic photoproducts are associated with drug photodegr adation. (3) The results obtained from photostability testing are highly dependent upon such variables as choice of illumination source, sample placement, temper ature, and humidity. (4) In order to standardize such testing, a monogr aph describing the guidelines for photostability testing of drug substances and products has been published by the International Committee on Harmonization (ICH)

formal elements examples

Formality is achieved by:

➞ Formal vocabular y

• Avoid colloquial vocabular y (words and e xpressions used in ever yday spoken language) (e xercise 2);

• Limit the use of run-on e xpressions such as ‘and so for th’ and ‘etc.’.

➞ Formal gr ammatical constructions

• Do not contr act words;

• Be careful about using imper atives and direct questions;

• Replace phr asal verbs by single-word verbs (e xercise 3);

• Place adverbs with the verb (e xercise 4);

• Write in a more imper sonal style (e xercise 5).

Reference section: Formality

Exercise 2

Replace the colloquial phr ases in bold by more formal language.

1. Improved analytical approaches are necessar y to meet more and more stringent regulator y requirements for the determination of impurities

2 As far as we know, no data are available to conf irm these f indings

3 The toxic responses dif fer a lot

4 There is not ver y much research on the use of palm oil as cour se aggregate in the production of concrete.

5. We can see that no signif icant changes in the shape or the arrival time of the pulse are introduced by the presence of the foam

6 The system provides a highly automated, turnkey, multi-dimensional approach that we can apply to a variety of comple x mixtures with little user inter vention.

7 This paper is about conditions for the approximation of functions in certain gener al spaces using r adial-basis-function networ ks.

8. The system is put into practice in C using a relational database system.

Exercise 3

Choose a verb from the list to replace the less formal words in bold. You may need to make other changes so that the sentences are still gr ammatical. enhance investigate enable constitute facilitate attribute arise elucidate reduce e xpedite provide describe

1 Molecular beacon probes combined with amplif ication by NASBA make homogeneous, real-time detection of RNA possible.

2 This inter action is made better by other sequence motif s

3. Additionally, greater knowledge of acquired thermotoler ance regulation should make the manipulation of crops easier

4. We looked into the feasibility of applying this approach in our research.

5 The poor response of vegetation growth was put down to the high pH of the inter stitial water s of this substr ate.

6 The visual r ange becomes smaller in the presence of substantial aerosol par ticles.

7 However, they have failed to come up with a satisfactor y e xplanation for this phenomenon.

8 Phase dif ferences in pressure measurements which come from time delays between the structure and the sensor must be taken into account.

9 These elements make up the so-called Platinum Group Elements

10. The new high ef f iciency Chromolith C18 column was found to have the e xcellent per formance char acteristics necessar y to speed up the approach

11. To make the ground state proper ties of Ni–Fe–Al clear, DFT calculations with our ab initio mixed-basis pseudopotential (MBPP) code were performed.

12. The f ir st par t of this ar ticle gives the present situation.

Language focus: Adverbial position

In academic writing, single adverbs tend to be placed with the verb (midposition). If there is no auxiliar y, the adverb in midposition is placed before the main verb

Wheelchair tie-down systems typically use four adjustable-length str aps to secure the front and rear of the wheelchair to anchor ages in the f loor of the vehicle

When the verb ‘be’ is on its own, the adverb comes af ter it

These data are gener ally consistent with those of Moore et al (21) and Parr avicini et al. (25), who used a specif ic antibody to detect relatively high levels of HHV-8 vIL-6 in PEL and MCD, respectively

The adverb is usually placed af ter the f ir st auxiliar y verb, e xcept for the adverb of manner. Compare:

This model was originally developed by Ponten (1977). (af ter the f irst auxiliar y)

The evaluation of structur al integrity using Lamb waves has long been acknowledged as a ver y promising technique [2] and [3]. (af ter the f irst auxiliar y)

It is shown that the low -frequency Lamb waves could be successfully used to interrogate composite structures af ter a repair has been under taken. (af ter ALL auxiliaries)

Reference section: Adverbial position

Exercise 4

Find a single adverb to replace the words in bold and place it with the verb.

1. Measurements of Re and PGE abundances suggest that, as a rule, clinopyroxene has low Re and PGE concentr ations

2 Af ter this, early fr actions cont aining mor e polar compounds wer e analysed using a weaker isocr atic eluent.

3. In essence, in the case of HPLC, separ ations are carried out in one dimension

4 Environmental manager s are faced with having to determine the e xtent of environmental contamination and identifying habitats at risk all the time.

5. Now and then, the water supply must be inspected to prevent blockages.

6. The dif ferent BSE par ameter s that are being used at the present time can lead to signif icant dif ferences in calculated model ages.

7. In our previous study, we have shown that the coordinatively unsatur ated silyl, ar yl osmium(II) comple xes, Os[Si(Oet)3](Ar yl)(CO)(PPh3)2 (Ar yl = Ph, o-tolyl) are resistant to C-Si reductive elimination even at elevated temper atures

8 These tr ansducer s have been used with success to e xcite and capture the A0 and S0 modes at low frequencies in other studies.

9. Bit by bit, minute cr acks develop in the matrix.

10. By using an unequal error protection scheme, the slice group containing the most impor tant macroblocks can be protected in a better way than the other slice group.

B. Impersonal style

Academic style is typically deper sonalised: most f ields favour a style in which the per sonal author disappear s behind ar guments and analysis

Reference section: Impersonal style

Exercise 5

Answer the following questions about using per sonal pronouns in research ar ticles. The following e xamples can help you in your discussion.

1. Are f ir st per son pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we’ used in research ar ticles in your f ield?

2. If they are, in which conte xt and for what pur pose are they used?

3. If they are not, how is their use avoided?

• Since most reader s of this review can be e xpected to be familiar with earlier editions of the te xt, I will summarize the dif ferences between the new edition and the second.

• As we will see in Chapters 5 through 8, nonionic contaminants are sorbed to natur al substances usually either by a par tition process (a solution phenomenon) or by an adsor ption process (a sur face phenomenon).

• We def ined context as information used to char acterise the situation of an entity.

• In summar y, we have discovered that nucleic acid polymer s form a hybrid material with carbon nanotubes.

• We especially acknowledge our editor, Harr y Briggs, for his enthusiastic advocacy and stoic patience.

Reference section: Personal pronouns

1.2. Improving conciseness

The goal of concise writing is to use the most ef fective words. Concise writing does not always have the fewest words, but it always uses the strongest ones. Writer s of ten f ill sentences with weak or unnecessar y words that can be deleted or replaced

Compare the following e xamples:

✗ The test was displacement-controlled with a speed of 2 mm/min and the test was stopped at a maximum midspan def lection of 34 54 mm for a total span of 170 mm.

✔ The test was displacement-controlled with a speed of 2 mm/min and was stopped at a maximum midspan def lection of 34.54 mm for a total span of 170 mm

✗ There are not any data available on the response of these drill cuttings to saline water.

✔ There are no data on the response of these drill cuttings to saline water.

✗ This will allow an assessment of f luctuations in lamp output during the course of the e xperiments.

✔ Fluctuations in lamp output can thus be assessed during the e xperiments

Reference section: Improving conciseness

Exercise 6

A Improve conciseness by replacing the words in bold

1 This will bring more clarity in the relationships between the dif ferent elements.

2. Both thermoplastics have the ability to resist high temper atures.