Turbulent periods and the development of the scientific research article, 1735–1835

Author(s):  
David Banks

Abstract The results of a previous study (Banks 2018) suggest that the development of scientific writing is more conservative in times of great turbulence. In an attempt to verify this, samples were taken from the Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences and the Philosophical Transactions for the years 1735, 1785 and 1835. The development over the years 1735 to 1785 was compared to that between 1785 and 1835. Analysis of the grammatical functions and semantic categories of themes and of process types indicates that there is some evidence in favour of the conjecture that scientific writers are more conservative in times of turbulence. Whilst this is not conclusive, it suggests that further research would be fruitful.

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Daniel Obeng-Ofori

The pressure to publish is a fact of life in academia. Academics are expected to demonstrate that they are active researchersand that their work has been vetted by peers and disseminated in reputable scholarly forums. In practice, however, a numberof critical constraints hamper effective publication of scientific research in most developing countries. These include lackof effective mentoring system, poor facilities and inadequate funding for effective research and heavy workload where toomuch time and effort are spent in teaching, grading, meetings and other non-academic activities. In spite of these seeminglyinsurmountable challenges, with proper planning and commitment, one can still conduct research and publish to advanceones career and exchange of knowledge. The paper discusses the critical guiding principles in scientific writing and publishingin an unfriendly research environment as pertains in most universities in the developing world. The overriding principle isto cultivate the discipline of scientific writing consciously and follow it through religiously. This could be achieved if time isallocated for scientific writing in the scheme of weekly schedule of activities and made to be functional through meticulousplanning and commitment. Equally important is to avoid procedural mistakes in scientific writing. While the quality of theresearch is the single most important factor in determining whether an article will be published, a number of proceduralmistakes can help tip the balance against its publication. It should also be noted that when a manuscript is submitted to ascholarly journal, there are two audiences to satisfy: first the editor and external reviewers, and then the journal’s readers.That first group must be satisfied to create the opportunity to appeal to the second. Thus, familiarity with the style and tone ofthe specific journal is crucial.


Author(s):  
John Blake

Error-free scientific research articles are more likely to be accepted for publication than those permeated with errors. This chapter identifies, describes, and explains how to avoid 22 common language errors. Scientists need to master the genre of scientific writing to conform to the generic expectations of the community of practice. Based on a systematic analysis of the pedagogic literature, five categories of errors were identified in scientific research articles namely accuracy, brevity, clarity, objectivity, and formality. To gain a more in-depth understanding of the errors, a corpus investigation of scientific articles was conducted. A corpus of 200 draft research articles submitted for internal review at a research institute with university status was compiled, annotated, and analyzed. This investigation showed empirically the types of errors within these categories that may impinge on publication success. In total, 22 specific types of language errors were identified. These errors are explained, and ways for overcoming each of them are described.


2006 ◽  
Vol 26 (40) ◽  
pp. 10079-10081 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Cockerill ◽  
V. Tracz

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-79
Author(s):  
Vincentas Lamanauskas

It is obvious that scientific writing is a special and complex part of academic activity. Researchers not only organise and conduct the research but also have to describe and publish them (or to spread information in other ways). Basically, there exist two very close, however quite different processes: scientific research organisation and accomplishment and the accomplished scientific research description. For the first process, the most essential are the abilities to carry out the research (plan, design, conduct, analyse, systematize and so on), whilst for the second process, the most essential are special abilities (find and evaluate print and electronic resources suitable for the academic text and to present original arguments based on academic goal search, to critically think and use the appropriate information while writing articles and so on). It is understandable that such descriptions have to correspond to general requirements of such type of works both in respect of structure, presentation, and content. Qualitative scientific works are written and submitted in a scientific style, correct, clear and accurate English (or other) language.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Sani Yantandu Uba

This paper investigates semantic categories of reporting verbs across four disciplines: Accounting, Applied Linguistics, Engineering and Medicine in research article genre. A general corpus of one million words and sub-corpus (for each discipline) were compiled from a total of 120 articles representing 30 articles from each discipline. In this study, two levels of analysis were conducted. Firstly, I randomly selected five articles from each discipline and read and reread each article identifying what reporting verbs are used, in what context are used and why such reporting verbs are used. This process enabled me to identify semantic categories of reporting verbs. Secondly, on the basis of the identified list of semantic categories of reporting verbs, I used the list in generating concordance output for quantitative textual analysis of each sub-corpus of the four disciplines, as well as the general corpus. The results of the study show that writers from both Accounting and Applied Linguistics are having a high frequency of reporting verbs than writers from Engineering and Medicine disciplines. It also shows that there are certain commonalities and differences between the disciplines. For example, all the disciplines are having frequency of the three semantic categories of reporting verbs but with certain degree of variations. The study recommends raising awareness of students on semantic categories of reporting verbs. The results could also help EAP/ESP teachers in designing course materials for discipline specific reporting verbs. It could also be helpful for textbook course designers in developing textbooks for teaching reporting verbs.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Dipendra Raj Pandeya

<p><span>Our Science and scientific explorations are integral components in the process of research and development. Therefore, keeping abreast of recent scientific knowledge and development is an imper proceativess of a professional scientist. Scientific literature such as publications are among the most popular ways to update and up-skill one’s knowledge in a particular area. One can either become a consumer of scientific publication as a reader or s/he could also contribute to the body of literature through academic publications in quality peer-reviewed journals. </span></p><p><span>Having contributed to academic writing as an author is like your passport to your scientific community, not only to share your knowledge but also to gain professional recognition. Your contribution to publication also helps disseminate your new and foremost findings or techniques among scientific and academic communities. In order to be an accomplished scientist, one needs to have good scientific writing skills and be able to express the scientific knowledge effectively and efficiently to the scientific/academic community. </span></p><p><span>Before you start writing, it is important that you should be aware of the main goals of your publication. Your research should answer the relevant questions of the involved field and should arouse interest in the readers. Furthermore, the researcher should also know whether the research and findings of the work are publishable at the given point or not. If the answers are ticked off positively, then the researcher can start preparing the manuscript. Most research papers are based upon the IMRaD format. The word IMRaD stands for the initial letters of the words Introduction (I), Methods (M), Results (R), and Discussion (D). The Introduction describes the scope and purpose of the research in the light of recent information on the existing research; the Methods explain how the analysis was done; the Results section reports your audience to know what the investigation showed; and the Discussion section should explain the significance of the new information provided by your study and suggestions for future studies. . The IMRaD structure has been followed by a progressively increasing number of academic journals and has been the basis for most researches. It is a very effective approach as it facilitates the literature review and lets the readers understand the research more logically.</span></p><p><span>Good scientific writing with the methodical approach is not the only criteria for getting published in scientific journals. For publishing in a particular journal, it's very important to follow the author guidelines. Every journal has a particular format of writing and it is expected that the particular journal is going to publish the articles in the same particular format. This is very important for the journal to be consistent in all the publications. </span></p><p><span>In addition, writing a good research article can seem challenging at first, however, if a researcher plans it properly, the challenge becomes interesting. Your research may conclude with meaningful answers to the unanswered questions in a particular scientific field and serve as a stimulus for further studies in the future. Well-written papers get published more frequently and can easily attract the attention of the readers. They are highly read, recommended as well as cited. Reviewers are more willing to review a well written research article and give favorable comments to improve the quality of the study. The authors should make every effort to implement the proper use of correct grammar. Poor language quality, including errors in grammar, spelling mistakes, typographical errors could delay the publication or lead to outright rejection of the paper.</span></p><p><span>Ultimately, the readers of your scientific manuscript are your primary examiners. They are going to examine the details of all the appropriate components of your study: purpose, background and rationale, strategies, results|, discussion and conclusions. . The elements of good scientific publishing must certainly be clear, precise, and logical. Finally, scientific work is incomplete until the results are disseminated to the larger community. Thus, effective scientific writing will create information exchange, to improve knowledge progress, ideas and improve your colleague's future work. </span></p><div><span><br /></span></div>


2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (01) ◽  
pp. A03 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leong Ping Alvin

In contrast to past consensus, many authors now feel that the passive voice compromises the quality of scientific writing. However, studies involving scientific articles are rare. Using a corpus of 60 scientific research articles from six journals, this study examined the proportion of passives used, and the contexts and forms in which they occurred. The results revealed that about 30% of all clauses were passive clauses. The canonical form was most pervasive, followed by the bare passive; together, they constituted more than a quarter of all clauses analyzed. Passives were typically used in main clauses, followed by relative and adverbial clauses. Roughly 29% of all passives were located in the methodology section. Based on the results, the proportion of passives in scientific writing may stabilize at about 30%. It is unlikely to dramatically drop any further since the trend suggests that passives are still widely used in the methodology section.


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