English for Writing Research Papers Adrian Wallwork

 

Who is this book for?

This book is aimed at researchers in any discipline who wish to write a research paper in English. If your first language is not English, you should find this book particularly useful.

I have never written a paper before. Will this book help me?

This book is intended both for inexperienced and experienced authors. In the Contents page, a (#) indicates that inexperienced writers should pay particular attention to this subsection. You can refer to the other points when you write more papers in the future. The useful phrases in Chap. 19 will help you to structure your paper and give you an indication of the typical coverage of each section.

I have written many papers before. Will I still learn something from this book?

If you have ever had a paper rejected due to poor English, poor structure or poor readability, then this book will certainly help you.

What are the three most important things I will learn from this book?

This book is based on three fundamental guidelines. 1 always think about the referee and the reader Your aim is to have your paper published. You will increase your chances of acceptance of your manuscript if referees and journal editors (i) find your paper easy to read, (ii) understand what gap you filled and how your findings differ from the literature. You need to meet their expectations with regard to how your content is organized. This is achieved by writing clearly and concisely, and by carefully structuring not only each section but also each paragraph and each sentence. 2 read other papers, learn the standard phrases, use these papers as a model You will improve your command of English considerably by reading lots of other papers in your field. You can underline or note down the typical phrases that they use to express the various language functions (e.g. outlining aims, reviewing the literature, highlighting their findings) that you too will need in your paper. You can also note down how they structure their paper and then use their paper as a template (i.e. a model) for your own. 3 write concisely with no redundancy and no ambiguity, and you will make fewer mistakes in your English The more you write, the more mistakes in English you will make. If you avoid redundant words and phrases you will significantly increase the readability of your paper.

What else will I learn?

You will learn how to: significantly improve your chances of having your paper published by thinking • in terms of the referee and the reader reduce the number of mistakes you make in English• plan and organize your paper, and structure each paragraph and each sentence so • that the reader can easily follow the logical build-up towards various conclusions decide what to include in the various parts of the paper (Introduction, • Methodology, Discussion etc.) and what typical phrases to use write a title and an abstract that will attract attention and be read• highlight your claims and contribution• make it 100% clear whether you are referring to your own work or someone else’s• use the minimum number of words required – this does not mean that less  • scientific content will be included, but simply that you find the clearest and most concise way to express this content increase the level of readability of your paper by helping readers to quickly • understand what you are saying identify the correct style - personal or impersonal• choose the correct tenses• avoid ambiguity, for example being very careful that it is 100% clear what pronouns •

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