如何进行学术英语写作——文章写作注意要点Part1

没有训练过学术英语写作的同学初初接触全英文的学术写作，要完成学术英文写作，要比接触过英文写作的同学困难得多。很多细节他们都没有注意，写的文章比较口语化，这样的文章，批改作业的老师或者阅卷的老师看到之后，自然会被判为不专业的写作，从而丢失了宝贵的分数。下面我们举几个例子来帮助同学们避免范同样的错误。

1、避免使用反问句、设问句。

例如： What’s the objective of the information? Is it to makepeople more confused and astray? I partly agree with theauthor’s contention that the enormous and otiose information sometimes render people lose their way and fail to consider question penetratingly and originally.

在作文的开头就扔出两个问题，然后接下来的陈述却与问题基本毫无干系。作为读者，首先要考虑那两个问题的答案到底是什么，然后才能往下读。这些在中文里可能会被评作“引人入胜”的好词好句，在英语的论文写作里面，可以说是最大的败笔之一。如果你一定要问问题的话，那就改成陈述句式，例如：Whether this issue is right or wrong? 可以改成：It has been a controversial issue that.....

2、避免集中使用“Be”动词。

避免集中使用"Be"动词，包括is, are, has been, have been, etc.

例如：What is the purpose of education? Some people may say that the purpose of education should be to create a totally academic environment that separates from the outside world, for,they think, this situation allows students to focus on their academic research work without beingdisturbed by practical concerns. In fact, this suggestion is harmful to the scientific research work.

这是某一篇文章的开头。作者除了要注意不要使用疑问句以外，还有很重要的一点：总共两三句话，出现4个"Be"动词。这种写法，在英语里面被称作"non-act"的动词。"Be" 仅仅表示一种状态，例如："i am here", "you are there". 对于母语者来说，"Be"动词其实就是写在纸上，而没有任何感情色彩。所以应该尽量避免成篇累牍地使用。我们的例子可以改为：

Some people argue that the purpose of education lies in its strength in creating a totally academic environment separated from the outside world. They think this situation allows students to focuson academic research by excluding outside disturbance from practical concerns. However, this suggestion in fact does harm to the scientific research work.

我们可以看到，使用了lie in, exclude, do harm to以后，句子更有色彩了。