English Solutions for Engineering and Sciences Research Writing: A guide for English learners to publish in international journals

English Solutions for Engineering and Sciences Research Writing: A guide for English learners to publish in international journals By Adam Turner Director, English Writing Lab Center for Teaching and Learning and College of Engineering Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea hanyangwritingcenter@gmail.com www.hanyangowl.org 02-2220-1612 Version 1.4 December 2009 These materials were designed for engineering and sciences graduate students writing for publication in English at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea. However, most of the material is useful for writing in other fields and for new authors from any language background. This edition is a work in progress. Some formatting problems remain. Please use the “bookmarks” function in the upper left panel of the PDF viewer to view the contents. For instructions see http://screenr.com/EK1 Readers using this book should also download files on Computer-assisted writing http://www.hanyangowl.org/media/computerassisted/computerassistedwriting.pdf Common format and punctuation errors http://www.hanyangowl.org/course/view.php?id=26 How to modify the settings of MS Word editing functions http://www.hanyangowl.org/media/computerassisted/2007mswordediting.pdf And MS Word skills http://www.hanyangowl.org/media/computerassisted/mswordskillscombined.pdf Biomedical researchers can download a separate guide to biomedial writing PDF ebook http://www.hanyangowl.org/media/biomedical/handbookbiomedicalwriting.pdf Terms of use These materials may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes under creative commons license English: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ 한글: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.ko If any changes are made to the materials they must also be freely available under this “share alike” license. Credit must be given as follows: 2009 HYU CTL English Writing Lab and Adam Turner http://www.hanyangowl.org Definition of non-commercial use http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/terms/terms/index.htm#noncomm See http://www.hanyangowl.org/ for more materials on writing for publication in English across fields. Please refer others to the original URL of this PDF file at http://ctl.hanyang.ac.kr:8001/writing/engsciresearchwritingbook.pdf Suggestions or corrections are welcome: adamturner7@gmail.com Preface: How to use this book Who is this book for? This book was written primarily for Korean engineering and sciences master’s and Ph.D. students at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea writing their first SCI journal article or conference paper as the primary author. It is also intended to help those students who want to write their science thesis or dissertation in English. However, even non-native speaking faculty may benefit from some of the advanced grammar and writing style advice. Although designed for engineering and sciences, most of the content of the book is useful for writing in other fields. Students in social sciences using quantitative methods in particular will also find it useful. This book was not designed for writing in fields such as law, literature, and other humanities. However, much of the writing advice still applies. Authors in biomedical writing should combine this one with a specialized text at http://www.hanyangowl.org/media/biomedical/handbookbiomedicalwriting.pdf Who wrote this book? It is a project of the Hanyang University Center for Teaching and Learning English Writing Lab and was written by its current director, Adam Turner. The English Writing Lab offers a free consulting service to help Hanyang authors publish their research in English, provides specialized workshops based on original research on writing for publication, and creates specialized online and print materials to support Hanyang researchers writing across a variety of fields. See www.hanyangowl.org. Why was this book written? This book grew out of my own difficulty in finding a textbook suitable for Hanyang graduate engineering students. Although there are many books on scientific writing skills, they are mainly designed for native speakers and usually give only very general advice on writing. Many lack specific information on the structure and grammar of scientific writing needed by Korean researchers. Other books designed for non-native speakers tend to be too basic and not give enough detailed information on paragraph and article structure that is science and engineering specific. In short, the book was written because I couldn’t find one similar to it. A second important purpose is to support Hanyang faculty in their efforts to help their graduate students learn to write in English for publication. In talking to faculty, it was found that a lot of time is being taken up helping with or correcting students’ basic writing problems when revising first drafts of articles written by graduate students. It is hoped that the quality of student first drafts can be improved if students refer to this guide. The book is also part of our wider strategy to integrate Writing Lab face to face writing consulting, workshops, print self-study materials, and online interactive materials into an integrated system to help support Hanyang graduate students, faculty, and researchers to publish internationally in English. Details on the CTL English Writing Lab consulting service can be found at the end of this preface. How is this book different from other books? 1. It is research-based The book uses insights from research in the fields of Applied Linguistics and English for Specific Purposes and the emerging field of English for Research Purposes. These research areas analyze the type of language spoken and written in professional fields like engineering and medicine. Rather than just giving general English writing advice using instructor intuition, this book uses research insights from specialized writing journals to improve the material. 2. It is based on computer analysis of authentic texts All the best practices and examples are directly taken from computer analysis of real published articles. In looking at authentic text, it was found that some general advice on writing like “avoiding the passive” or never using “we” does not apply to fields like engineering. In addition, by only looking at real published papers, some significant differences between fields even within the same discipline such as engineering were found in terms of article structure and writing style. Unlike many other writing books published in Korea, it is not just a collection of example sentences but combines best practices and frameworks for different sections of the paper, such as the introduction or abstract, with advanced grammar tips on the specific sentence structures that are needed for each section of the paper. For example, the grammar to politely but critically evaluate problems with previous research in the introduction is explained. This book takes a general approach inspired by Swales and Feak (1994) that combines higher level genre analysis with grammar support needed for functions in each section of the research article. 3. It is based on a needs analysis of Korean students Language background and education experience are important factors that influence student needs. This book is specifically designed to meet the needs of Korean graduate students and faculty writing in English. How is this one different from the first edition? The chapters on computer-assisted writing and common format punctuation errors were expanded and revised but removed from this book and made into separate files available at www.hanyangowl.org. The first edition was based on engineering writing. However, during my research I found that there were significant differences between fields of engineering, for example, between computer, chemical, and civil engineering. Indeed papers in some fields like computer hardware engineering and applied physics were found to have more in common with each other than with other fields like civil engineering. Therefore, a more general approach to science and engineering writing was taken in this book. Future revisions will focus on single fields or research approaches rather than disciplines like engineering or medicine. The fields of English for Specific, Academic, or Research Purposes are probably overusing the category of “discipline” for genre and corpus studies and course and materials design. How to use this book This book is designed as a self-study guide to help students improve their manuscript before showing their paper to their advisors or seeking help at a Writing Center. Research studies and my own experience teaching graduate engineering students has shown that graduate students are more like busy adult learners than undergraduate students. Self-study materials, study groups in a lab, or feedback from advisors are the ways graduate students seem to learn rather than only through traditional writing classes. The CTL Writing Lab at Hanyang was also designed to help students exactly when they need it most: when they are actually writing their articles for publication. A copy of the first book was given to each professor in engineering and natural science departments at Hanyang University for students to consult the book in the lab while they are writing. Professors could also assign students who are writing their first draft of a co-authored article, thesis or dissertation in English to read chapters of the book. In addition, the book chapters are also being used by study groups organized in a lab and led by a senior student. There are also writing checklists for each section of the article that students can check while editing their papers. Limitations I recognize that good writing materials and Writing Lab help are only a part of the solution. It is only the experience of a professor in the field advising a graduate student that can produce the best co-authored paper. However, the purpose of our materials is only to help raise the quality of the basic structure and level of English of the manuscript from students writing as the primary author, so faculty can concentrate more on what they do best: share their knowledge of their field. Future plans We invite faculty and graduate students from all departments to give feedback on this book and suggestions for materials on English research writing. For example, we have identified the difficulty of replying to reviewers’ comments and the need for more sentence level grammar advice as possible topics. Please email adamturner7@gmail.com with suggestions. To find out more about our writing consulting services for Hanyang students and faculty please see the writing lab homepage at http://www.hanyangowl.org and view the description of the service following this preface. Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of people who have helped to make this book possible. First of all I would like to thank the CTL staff and especially Professor Yeong Mahn You, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, for recognizing that an innovate writing lab approach was required to help faculty and graduate students with advanced English writing skills. I would also like to thank Whoi-Yul Kim, professor of electrical and computer engineering, for giving me the opportunity to teach a prototype engineering graduate writing course that helped to launch me in a new career direction. My former and current assistants especially Juekyung Pae, Jung-min Kim, Tae-kyung Kim, and Soohwan Jung who provided valuable help in formatting and collecting the data for this book. Finally, my colleague and assistant director of the English Writing Lab, Jocelyn Graf, provided valuable editing feedback on the first manuscript. Adam Turner Director English Writing Lab First Print Version February 2007 Current Online PDF Version December 2009 adamturner7@gmail.com ... - tailieumienphi.vn