Transcript Common errors in writing technical English papers

Common errors in writing
technical English papers
Bob Bailey
Outline
 General comments
 Grammar
 Specific words
General Comments
General comments
 The most important goal in writing a
paper is to make yourself understood
by the intended audience.
General comments
 The goal of an editor is first to make
a paper readable. This is usually a
job by itself.
 Correcting errors in the content is the
job of a reviewer, particularly since
technical papers use a lot of jargon
understood only by experts in the
field.
General comments
 For papers that are to be published in
technical journals, it is desirable that
the construction of sentences be
relatively simple since the audience
will consist of people from many nonEnglish speaking countries.
 Don’t try to use fancy words that you
don’t have a good understanding of
how to use.
General comments
 Manuscripts should be double-spaced.
General comments
 Try to write concisely or succinctly.
 Remove unneeded words and
sentences.
 Don’t repeat what you have already
said using different words.
 Eliminate the "fat" in a paper.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/concise.htm
General comments
 Make the paper target the intended
audience.
 If the audience consists of other
researchers, do not discuss introductory
ideas. A research paper does not target
undergraduate students.
 Use references, preferably to books or wellknown journals, so that a reader can learn
about basics somewhere else.
 Again, research papers should be concise.
General comments
 Make sure that you define special
terms, acronyms (e.g., PSNR) and
symbols at their first use in a paper.
 But, don't define terms that the
intended audience should be assumed
to already understand.
General comments
 Spend time organizing your paper.
 Write a rough draft and then revise it,
revise it, and revise it again.
 PROOFREAD your paper carefully
before sending it for editing or review.
 The editor or reviewer is not going to
rewrite your paper for you.
Grammar
Grammar
 Subject and verb do not agree.
 Eliminate all words in the sentence except
the subject, verb and object or adjective
describing the subject.
 Make sure the result is a sentence (with
subject and verb) and not a fragment.
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar
/sentences.htm
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar
/fragments.htm
Grammar
 Make sure both subject and verb are
singular or plural.
 This is easily confused by modifiers
such as proposition phrases which
end in a plural noun when the subject
sentence is singular.
 Similarly for any independent clause.
 Example: ??
Grammar
 Don't run sentences together with
only commas.
 They should be separated by
connecting words: and, so, but.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/runons.htm
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/combining_skills.htm
Grammar
 Don't write sentences that run on for
several lines.
 Break long sentences up into simpler,
shorter sentences.
 See "comma splices" in
www.wikipedia.org/Chinglish.
Grammar
 Start new paragraphs appropriately
when the topic shifts.
 For the most part, a paragraph that is
1/3 page long is getting a little long.
 A paragraph that is a page long is
much too long.
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/paragraphs.htm
Grammar
 Be aware of parts of speech: noun,
adjective, adverb, verb.
 These have different forms of words.
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/definitions.htm#parts
Grammar
 It is usually wrong to use a noun as
an adjective: “the golden rule” not
“the gold rule.”
 But sometimes in jargon, it is
accepted.
 Example: ??
Grammar
 Avoid contractions in formal papers.
 don’t = do not
Grammar
 Active vs. passive:
 Usually active is more direct and
simple.
 “Bob made a presentation.”
 “A presentation was made by Bob.”
Grammar
 Mixing up male and female pronouns
- more a problem in spoken English
Grammar
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
Consistency
Be consistent.
Don’t change the names of things.
Don’t use “procedure” one place and
“method” in another to refer to the
same thing.
Specific words
Besides
 Misuse of Besides as a replacement
for Also, Moreover, Furthermore, etc.
 Best to think of Besides as 除了 in
Chinese.
Besides
 The only time Besides can mean Also
is when one is expressing a very
subjective opinion, feeling, desire,
such as giving an additional reason to
not do something that you do not
want to do.
 "I don't want to go to the park today.
I am very busy. Besides, it is
raining.“
 Not to be confused with “beside.”
respectively
 Respectively must be used only with two
lists of things which are being matched up
one-to-one. If there are not two lists of
things specified, then do not use it.
 When you do use it, separate it from the
sentence by commas.
 “Serena Williams and Roger Federer won
the women's and men's singles titles,
respectively, at the 2008 U.S. Open.”
a, the
 Generally, we use a when introducing
any arbitrary example of a kind of
object: A taxi is coming.
 Then use the to refer to that same
example: OK, now let's all get in the
taxi.
 About 60 percent of the time a proper
noun does not need a or the
 “I go to NTNU.” “I go to the
university on Heping East Road.”
the
 Many nouns need a "the": algorithm,
approach, coefficients, method,
model, process, property, transform
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/determiners/determiners.htm
fewer, less
 Use fewer for countable objects, and
less for uncountable.
 “fewer errors with less water.” “There
are fewer elephants than people.”
 Use more for both countable and
uncountable.
Firstly
 Firstly, secondly, thirdly, etc.
 Number things with first, second,
third, etc. and not with these
adverbial forms.
 However, they are common in British
English.
British or American?
 If you want to use British English,
then do so consistently.
 Do not mix American and British
styles or spellings.
 Target the style for the publisher.
can, could
 can: able to. “When it stops raining, we
can leave.”
 could
1. Simple past of can.

“Before he came to Taiwan he could not
speak Chinese.”
2. Used to show the possibility that
something might happen, or to suggest
something.
“If it is raining tomorrow, we could stay
home, or we could go to a movie.”
as follows
 Avoid using "... as follows:" for
introducing equations.
 “The probability can be computed
by….”
find, find out
 Find an object: “Please find the
money.”
 But “find out where the money went”
for where, why, how, when, what, etc.
 Not: “Find out the parameters for the
equation.”
This means…
 Not: “That means …”, “It means …”
 Use: “This means …” if you must.
input, output
 Traditionally, input and output are
nouns, not verbs: “The output
consists of one image file and two
text files.”
 Inputted and outputted sound very
strange to me. Try to use them as
nouns rather than verbs.
 I prefer to write: “The computer put
out the results” rather than “The
computer outputted the results.”
Prepositions
 Prepositions are a problem for Asians:
for, of, in, on, at, into, up, to
 http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/gra
mmar/prepositions.htm
Examples follow