Chapter 4 Part 1在线视频

English for Writing SCI Papers

Chapter 4

Academic Style

at the Sentence Level

Hello everyone I am Yang Bo

from Capital Medical University

Now we are going to talk about Chapter 4 –

Academic Style at the Sentence Level

Part I Introduction

Academic style at the sentence level

may be best understood through an analysis

of the different elements

within a sentence

in terms of function and grammar.

To tell a good story in SCI papers

you need to write sentences

accurately and elegantly

In this lecture, you are expected to

1) know some guiding principles of

academic style at the sentence level

2) apply the guiding principles in your writing

Part II Guiding principles

Accuracy

When writing a sentence

the first thing you could bear in mind

is accuracy

If a sentence is written incorrectly

the message would confuse the readers

To avoid common writing flaws

here are some guiding principles to help you

Be sure that

the subject and the predicate make sense together

Look at the example

Could you detect some errors

As you know

the basic building blocks of English sentences

are subjects and verbs

Understanding them is an important first step

toward mastering a number of sentence skills

In this sentence

the subject of the sentence

is “Kangaroo mother care”

the verb is "remains"

and the predicate is "remains very low"

Then do you think "kangaroo mother care"

could "remain very low"

No here the subject and the predicate

do not make sense together

You could change the sentence to be

Coverage of kangaroo mother care

remains very low despite WHO recommendations

for its use for babies with low birth weight

in health facilities for over a decade

Actually

here's another way to revise the sentence

You could keep the subject- kangaroo mother care

and change the predicate

Kangaroo mother care remains rare

So remember that to write sentences accurately

Be sure that

the subject and the predicate make sense together

Be sure that the subject and verb agree in number

Then

Let's turn to example 2

In this sentence there are two clauses

In the first clause

the two subjects are "road traffic crashes"

and "falls"

They are all plural nouns

followed by a singular verb

which is confusing the readers

In English grammar

a verb must agree with its subject in number

A singular subject takes a singular verb

A plural subject takes a plural verb

So the revised sentence should be

Road traffic crashes and falls are the main causes

and the incidence is increasing

Look at this sentence

Although "rabbit was" sounds right

the three subjects – "the esophagus

stomach

and duodenum"

need to be followed by a plural verb correspondingly

Then let's turn to another sentence

The noun "bacteria" seems to be singular

In fact the noun "bacteria" is plural

Its singular form should be bacterium

The verb "interact" has to agree with its

subject "bacteria"

So we should use

"interact" rather than "interacts"

We need to note the plural nouns like data

with its singular noun as datum

bacteria with its singular noun as bacterium

fungi with its singular noun as fungus

vertebrae with its singular noun as vertebra and so on

And most importantly

be sure that the subject and verb agree in number

To write accurately

you must be sure that

the tenses are appropriate in each section of the text

Look at this sentence

When describing the thing happening in the past

you could use the past tense

The time phrase

"between enrolment and 28 days"

hints the thing happened in the past

So choose the past tense

rather than the present tense in this sentence

While turning to this example

we can see the adverbial phrase of time

"each year"

hints the predicate "have" and "occur"

should be in present tense

So be sure that the tenses are appropriate

in each section of the text

Be sure to use the restrictive attributive clause

and nonrestrictive

attributive clause in a correct way

Then look at these two sentences

Compare them and think

if they convey the same message

In the Example 7

a restrictive attributive clause modifies the noun

that precedes it in an essential way

It limits or identifies the noun

and cannot be removed from a sentence

without changing the sentence's meaning

This sentence indicates that

only the tuberculosis being not diagnosed

could cause death among HIV-positive people

In the Example 8

a nonrestrictive attributive clause

on the other hand

describes a noun in a nonessential way

It can be removed

from a sentence without

changing the sentence's meaning

This sentence means tuberculosis

diagnosed or undiagnosed

could be the major cause of death

among HIV-positive people

Another common problem

we may encounter

is the dangling modifiers in the sentence

A modifier describes

clarifies

or gives more detail about a concept

A dangling modifier is a word or phrase

that modifies a word

not clearly stated in the sentence

"Having admitted"

is a participle expressing action

but the doer is not the abdomen

the subject of the main clause

the abdomen did not admit the patient

Since the doer of the action

expressed in the participle has

not been clearly stated

the participial phrase

is said to be a dangling modifier

To revise

decide who actually admitted the patient

The possible revision might look like this

Having admitted the patient

the doctor examined the abdomen

Elegance

When writing a sentence

accuracy is not enough

Another thing you would emphasize is elegance

If you could write sentences in a graceful way

the message would have an effect on the audience

Such writing

is effective to potentially satisfy

the reader's need for information

emotional response, or any reaction

Unity

Express a single complete thought

in one sentence

An effective sentence

does not contain ideas

that are not closely related

and does not express a thought

that is not complete by itself

We should not string ideas together

We should try to talk about one thing at a time

In this sentence

the writer intends to combine

two main clauses together by

using a comma and a conjunction "and"

The first clause

indicates the rising trend of the prevalence

of diabetes mellitus (DM) generally

The second clause specifies

how prevalence of DM is

by giving specific figures

It's obvious that

the second clause supports the idea

conveyed in the first clause

Here

we suggest separating a sentence

into two

by giving a general view of the trend of DM first

followed by another sentence

highlighting the prevalence of it

by the use of data