‘210 1 Academic Writing fr Graduate Students 1. Chinese BFL Students’ Lorning Strategies for Oral Commun '8, Rhetorical Patterns in English and Japanese 9, The Position of Sentence Cannetors in Academic Bnlish Tash Twentyone Bring the title of one of your papers to class and be prepared to Aca ite final form and how it gt there, Abstracts Inthis final section, we wll work on twokinds of abstracts Fist, we will work on abstracts to be placed at the begining of an RE. I ‘most situation, thse will be abstract bad on text that you have already written Second, we will wark on the conference abtrac. thin ease, you may or may not havea ext to work from, ‘There ia a third kind of abstract—the kind that occurs in an ‘abstracting Journal. Such abstracts often use special conventions ‘and are typically written by professional abetractors, Thy wilt esoarch Paper Abstracts RP abstracts usually consist ofa single paragraph containing fram bout four to ten full entenoes. This kind of abstract le more por tant for the reader than forthe writer. By this we mean thet sn unsatisfactory RP abstract isnot likely to afleet whether the paper is finally accepted for puliestion (although the editors may suggest changos to ith Te may however, alfect how many people will read your paper. We know fram many studies that readers of academic Journals emply a vast amount of skimming and scanning. I they ike your abstract, they may read your paper, ora lest part fit I the do not ike i, they may nat. "There are two main approaches to writing RP abstracts. One we shall call the “resu-drven” abstract, because It concentrate on Constructing a Research Paper I! 2th the research fadings and what might be conluded from them, The ether approach isto offer an "RP summary” abstract in which you provid on-ortwo-sentence synopses af each of the four sections. In Toth cases, the abstract willbe ether informative or indicative (ce 1), Most RP abstracts should sim to be informative (i, they should include the main ndings: Homever, this may not be posible ith very long papers or with very theoretical ones asin matherat- fen) Twenty f00 1 the two drafts ofthe abstracts for ovr mini:RP. Then answer questions that fellow. Version A ‘count of sentence connectors in 12 academic papers produced 70 diferent connectors. These varied in frequency from 62 tokens (however to singe occurrences. Seventy-five percent ofthe 467 ‘examples appeared in sentence iil position, However, indivi tual connecters varied considerably in positon preference. Some (ea, in alton) always ocurred initially, in other cases (eg for cramp, therfore) they were place after the subject more ‘than 50% ofthe time. These findings suggest that a search for general rules for connector position may not be frail Version B Although sentence connectors are a wel-recgalzed feature af ‘scademic writing, litle research has been undertaken on thelr Dositioning In this study, we analyze the postion of 467 can- ‘ecto fourd in a sample of 12 research papers. Seventy-five percent of the connectors oscurred atthe begining of sentences However, individual ennectors varied great in positional pre ference Some, such asin addition, only ocurred intaly; others, uch as therfore, ocurred iniQally in only 40% of the cass. ‘Those prelininary findings suggest that general rules for eon- ‘ctor position wl prove elusive‘22 1 Academic Writing for Graduate Students 1. The journal requirements state that the abstracts asompany- ing papers should not exceed 100 words Do versions A and 2 ali? 2. Which version ie “results driven” and which i an “RP surn- mary”? 8. Compare the tense usage in versions A and B. 4. Which version do you prefer? And why? ‘5, Some journal lao ask fo ist of hey ord. Choose three or four stable ey words. Language Focus: Linguistic Features of Abstracts On the base of her research into abstracts from a wide range of fields, Naomi Gractz (1985) gives these linguistic specications = characteristic of abstracts: 1. the se ffl sentences 2. the use of the past tense 3: tho use of impersonal pasive 4 the absence of negatives {the avidance of “abbreviation, argon, symbole and other lan- sue shortuts that might lad to confusion” Despite Graetzs second contusion (abstracts use the past tense), it ecm clear that tense use in abstract i fily complicated. First, the conclusions are nearly always inthe presen. Second, RP sur rary abstracts often use the present or present perfect for theit ‘pening statements, Third, there appears to be considerable disci plinary and individual tense variation with sentences dealing with ella Inthe versions in Task Twenty-two, the results wereall expressed ‘through the past tens, Nevertheless, it snot dificult to find excep- tons to this pattern, Here isa short abstract from the Rapid Commu ications setion ofthe journal Physical Review A (1903). ‘Constructing @ Research Paper 218 [Nuclear Structure Correction tothe Lamb Shift Pachucks,D. Leibtried, and W. Hansch ‘in this paper the second-order nuclearstracture correction to the energy of hydrogenlike systems i estimated and previous reults are corrected Both deuterium and hydrogen are consid- ted, In the cage of deuteriam the eorection is proportional to the nuclear polarizability and amount t about ~19kH: forthe 18 state, For hydrogen tho resulting energy shift is about ~ 00H ‘Our investigations sugges that the sift to the present tense is ‘more likely tooo in physical selenes such a physics, chemistry, land astrophysics and len italy to oceur inthe socal cence, Weal found that phyiits and chemists were—perhaps surprisingly more likely to adopt a personal stance Indeed, we have found ore ‘ional abstract, particularly in astrophysics, which contain se- [quences of sertence openings like the follwing: We discuss ‘We compute We show We argue “We conclude 1 would therefore seem that choice af tense and person may again te party a static matter in abstracts. Choosing the present tense ‘option—if permitted can produce an effect of liveliness and con: femporary reevance. Choosing we can add pace, by making the abotract lide shorter Tash Troenty three “Analyze five abetracs from a contra ournal in our Helin terms of ‘the five charecteristie proposed by Gracte To what extent do your ‘indngs agro with hers? Be prepared to summarize your fndngsin lan, perhaps in the form ofa table.