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 less 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. |