scholarly journals Academic Writing for Publication Purposes: The Infelicities of Style

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 38-49
Author(s):  
O. L. Dobrynina
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Russian Scientific ◽  
Scientific Papers ◽  
English Speaking World

Low level of literacy of students, postgraduate students and university staff results in infelicities of style in Russian scientific papers and abstracts that might lead to manuscript rejection for publication in international journals. The author addresses the task of readability improvement of abstracts and scientific papers written by university staff members from technical and natural sciences departments. Sentence and text readability is determined not only by the number of words, i.e. the length of a sentence but also by the sentence structure and its grammar and lexical structure. The infelicities of style are caused by differences in scientific discourse between Russian and English languages. In particular, these might be nominalization, complex sentence structure, and wide use of Passive Voice in Russian sentences. Bilingual education is considered as the process of trainees’ introduction to the English-speaking world culture based upon matching Russian and English stylistic features. As the result the trainees realize the necessity of pre-translation adaptation of their texts. The author suggests some ways of pre-translation preparation of a sentence: shortening the sentence length up to 10-20 words by eliminating non-informative words and splitting a complex sentence into two or three according to the rule: one idea = one sentence. Some examples illustrate how chains of nouns in the genitive case could be substituted with other structures. Special attention is paid to parallel structures usage and eliminating non-informative words. In this way Russian authors will be able to write concise and clear texts in Russian and English in accordance with the accepted international language conventions.

scholarly journals Academic Writing for Publication Purposes and Machine Translation: Is the Symbiosis Possible?

2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 87-101
Author(s):  
O. L. Dobrynina
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Writing For Publication ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Text Quality ◽  
Simple Rules ◽  
Specific Concept ◽  
Effective Use

The abstracts in Russian and in English are written according to certain rules. For articles written in Russian, an abstract in English is the only means of informing the world scientific community about the authors’ research results. However, the quality of abstracts written in Russian and then translated into English does not always meet the criteria for readability and comply with the accepted academic and publication conventions. This situation might result from the intensive usage of machine translation (MT) systems by authors who do not take into account the guidelines for the input text quality and the limitations inherent in MT systems. The author analyzed the requirements for the input texts and some typical errors in the target ones. The article describes the stages of training masters, postgraduate students and university staff in the effective use of MT systems. The training is based on a bilingual approach, which implies a constant comparison of vocabulary, grammar and style in the native and English languages. The author comes to the conclusion that the effective use of MT systems for writing an abstract in English is possible if the authors have the command of Russian and English at the level sufficient for a concise and unambiguous expression of their thoughts and ideas. Self-censoring is a prerequisite for creating a text that is “understandable” for MT systems. Students must follow simple rules: write sentences of 15-20 words; express one thought per one sentence; use more active verbs; choose nouns that express a specific concept; exclude unnecessary words. At the post-editing stage, learners can use the tools available on the Internet, which allow not only editing the target text, but also will enable learners to acquire independent editing skills.

scholarly journals Error Analysis in Academic Writing: A Case of International Postgraduate Students in Malaysia

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 141
Author(s):  
Fatemeh Amiri ◽  
Marlia Puteh
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
English Language ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Intensive English ◽  
Significant Information ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Term Papers ◽  
Term Paper

This paper examines the different types of writing errors performed by 16 international postgraduate students undertaking an intensive English course at a public university in Malaysia. It was mandatory for international postgraduate students who obtained less than IELTS Band 6 to undertake an Intensive English Course (IEC) offered by the University, prior to entering their respective faculties’ academic programs. The students were required to write a 3-5 page term paper assignment on a topic related to their field of study. Mixed methodology approach was employed to examine and analyze corpus of students’ term papers. The errors in the term papers were identified and classified accordingly. The results of the study revealed that four most common English language errors committed by the participants were sentence structure, articles, punctuation and capitalization. This study also shed light on the manner in which students assumed the rules of English to that of their native language. Such insight is useful for both instructors and students because it provides significant information on the building blocks experienced by English language learners in academic writing. 

scholarly journals Welcome to the Regular World! Exploring How Female Doctorate Holders in Education Transition from Irregular to Regular Work in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5347
Author(s):  
Hyosun Kim ◽  
Sooyong Lee
Keyword(s):  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Structural Aspect ◽  
Doctoral Degrees ◽  
Evaluation Procedure ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Adaptation Process ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Regular Work ◽  
Depth Interviews

The purpose of this study was to explore the adaptation process of female Ph.D. holders working in universities who shifted from being irregular employees to regular employees. The study adopted a qualitative approach using in-depth interviews to investigate participants’ experiences and discover any inconsistencies, as well as how they are alleviated. The basic findings of the study indicate that the adaptation process is more feasible when the gap between the personal aspect of job adaptation and the organizational environment and satisfaction with it decreases. The participants in the study joined the labour union to convert to regular jobs. However, after transitioning to full-time positions, the participants did not realize the structural aspect of the contracts they had signed. Although they expected to make their unfair situation more fair through the transition of their job positions, they still faced structural discrimination. As the participants were women with doctoral degrees, their professionalism was considered a cardinal value, and their job satisfaction varied according to the degree of matching between their work and their expertise. Moreover, during the evaluation period, they began to establish themselves as legitimate members of their teams through the employee evaluation procedure of full-time employees, which is conducted mutually rather than unilaterally. Through its in-depth interviews with transitioning university staff, this study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of how female faculty adjust to changes in their life and position in the organization following a change in their status. These findings prove that higher education institutions need focus on career development for female students as well as their faculty and staff members. Such a focus also requires more active actions by university and college members.

Syntactic Abilities of Neurologically Normal and Suspect Preterm Children

1996 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 615-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Holdgrafer
Keyword(s):  
Language Skills ◽  
Preschool Age ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Normal Children ◽  
Preterm Children ◽  
Verb Phrases ◽  
Neurologically Normal

This study examined the syntactic abilities of neurologically normal and suspect preterm children at preschool age to characterize their language skills and to assess specific differences between groups. The Index of Productive Syntax was used to score language transcripts. The children exhibited reduced syntactic performance, particularly in the use of questions, negatives, and complex sentence structure. Children considered to be neurologically suspect had more difficulty with development of verb phrases than did neurologically normal children.

scholarly journals Syntactic complexity in translated and non-translated texts: A corpus-based study of simplification

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0253454
Author(s):  
Kanglong Liu ◽  
Muhammad Afzaal
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Important Variable ◽  
Sentence Length ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Complexity Measures ◽  
British English ◽  
Sentence Complexity ◽  
Comparable Corpora ◽  
Main Effect

This study approaches the investigation of the simplification hypotheses in corpus-based translation studies from a syntactic complexity perspective. The research is based on two comparable corpora, the English monolingual part of COCE (Corpus of Chinese-English) and the native English corpus of FLOB (Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English). Using the 13 syntactic complexity measures falling into five subconstructs (i.e. length of production unit, amount of subordination, amount of coordination, phrasal complexity and overall sentence complexity), our results show that translation as a whole is less complex compared to non-translation, reflected most prominently in the amount of subordination and overall sentence complexity. Further pairwise comparison of the four subgenres of the corpora shows mixed results. Specifically, the translated news is homogenous to native news as evidenced by the complexity measures; the translated genres of general prose and academic writing are less complex compared to their native counterparts while translated fiction is more complex than non-translated fiction. It was found that mean sentence length always produced a significant effect on syntactic complexity, with higher syntactic complexity for longer sentence lengths in both corpora. ANOVA test shows a highly significant main effect of translation status, with higher syntactic complexity in the non-translated texts (FLOB) than the translated texts (COCE), which provides support for the simplification hypothesis in translation. It is also found that, apart from translation status, genre is an important variable in affecting the complexity level of translated texts. Our study offers new insights into the investigation of simplification hypothesis from the perspective of translation from English into Chinese.

scholarly journals Students and young university staff development in the context of e-learning and the fourth industrial revolution

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-54
Author(s):  
Le Doan Minh Duc ◽  
Nguyen Hoang Tien ◽  
Nguyen Thi Hoang Yen
Keyword(s):  
Staff Development ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
University Staff ◽  
International Affair ◽  
Education Management ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Fourth Industrial Revolution ◽  
Current State ◽  
Technology In Teaching ◽  
E Learning

This article aims at presenting the current state of students’ capacity for learning and competencies of young staff members in Vietnamese universities. Then, we imply some orientations to improve students’ capacity for learning and young lecturers’ capacity for teaching in the 4th industrial revolution such as: Application of technology in teaching - education management and international affair.

scholarly journals “Fasten your seat belts”: Investigating learners’ perceptions regarding the implementation of tasks in an English online course

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 228
Author(s):  
Juliane Regina Trevisol ◽  
Leonardo Da Silva ◽  
Raquel Carolina Ferraz D'Ely
Keyword(s):  
Distance Education ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Task Engagement ◽  
Online Course ◽  
Seat Belts ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Cultural Aspects

Considering the growth of distance education, this qualitative study investigated learners’ perceptions of the implementation of traveling-themed tasks (ELLIS, 2003) in a virtual course of English as a foreign language.  The course was offered to university staff members for a semester. Four participants took part in it. Instruments were a consent form, two questionnaires, and a Skype interview. Results suggest learners perceived the course as motivating, noticing their task engagement from the perspective of “l’education integrale” (LONG, 2015) and “learning by doing”. Furthermore, learning was related to cultural aspects noticed, interesting sites, and the connection with previous traveling experiences.

scholarly journals Proposed Model to Assist Saudi Postgraduate Students in their English Academic Writing

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 527-542
Author(s):  
Noof Saleh Alharbi
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Written Feedback ◽  
Mixed Methods Design ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
Sequential Mixed Methods ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
Underlying Causes ◽  
English Academic Writing ◽  
Qualitative Phase

This current research forms part of a broader investigation into the problems Saudi postgraduate students face in English academic writing. The study used the interpretive paradigm to investigate and interpret the perceptions of Saudi postgraduate students and their supervisors in relation to the difficulties they encountered regarding academic writing in English. Therefore, the study adopted a sequential mixed-methods design. The quantitative phase of the research employed a questionnaire whereas the qualitative phase employed semi-structured interviews and document analysis. In total, 275 students completed the prepared questionnaire whilst 15 students, both male and female, and 9 supervisors participated in the semi-structured interviews. The research also used ten samples of written feedback students had received from their supervisors. SPSS descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data quantitatively, and MAXQDA software was used to analyse the data qualitatively. The study identified that Saudi postgraduates encounter a range of difficulties in their academic writing, which were due to several underlying causes. Therefore, to address this issue and to contribute to knowledge in the field, the author of this study devised a theoretical model to assist Saudi postgraduate students overcome their difficulties with English academic writing. The main focus of the current study is to explain this model in detail.

scholarly journals Effect of marital status, gender and job position in smoking behavior and cessation intent of staff members in a Central American public university

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lourdes Arce Espinoza ◽  
Julián Monge Nájera
Keyword(s):  
Secondhand Smoke ◽  
Smoking Behavior ◽  
Economic Cost ◽  
Public University ◽  
Central American ◽  
State University ◽  
Industrialized Countries ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Latin Culture

Smoking is one of the leading worldwide causes of cardiovascular disease and cancer development, and it not only affects the consumer but also those who are exposed to secondhand smoke. The economic cost of caring for the sick affects resources needed for education and prevention of addiction to cigarettes. This topic has been extensively studied in industrialized countries, but the information from Latin America is less available and seldom is based on inferential statistics applied to clear hypotheses, both central aspects in this article. To test several hypotheses on consumption and characteristics of patients we did an email survey to the entire staff of a state university in Costa Rica (N=2 850) in 2012. A 20% responded in a period of ten weeks and we applied a multiple regression to their answers. The results are statistically consistent with the hypothesis that being single, occupying high job positions and being male lead to increased consumption of tobacco and to an earlier start. To our knowledge, this is the first study using this methodology for the staff of any university in Central America.KEY WORDSFactors associated with smoking, Latin culture and smoking, use of tobacco by university staff, legal drugs, addiction.

scholarly journals تحليل محتوى كتاب دروس اللغة العربية الجزء الأول للإمام الزركشى والإمام الشبانى من التراكيب وأثرها في فهم النصوص الإسلامية

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 105
Author(s):  
Hurriyatus Sa'adiyah ◽  
Indra Saputra
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Simple Form ◽  
Learning Objectives ◽  
Sentence Structure ◽  
Complex Sentence ◽  
Question And Answer

<em>Textbooks are one of the things that are very important in the learning process. Therefore, teachers and educators must prepare it very well so that the desired learning objectives can be achieved. The use of textbooks must adapt to the methods, objectives, and learning media. The purpose of this study was to analyze the contents of the book Durus al Lughah al Arabiyah Juz I by Imam Zarkasyi and Imam Syubani from one aspect of the language, namely tarkib (sentence structure). As is known, mastery of tarkib is very important in understanding Islamic teachings, because the source, the Quran, Hadith, and the books of Islamic scholars, use Arabic. Without good mastery, texts that speak Arabic can be wrong and difficult to understand. The method used in this study is the method of content analysis by analyzing this book Durus al Lughah al Arabiyah Juz I. The results of the research are that the author did not find special material on tarkib learning in this book. In accordance with the purpose of writing, namely the application of speech, the tarkib is directly learned in a sentence. This sentence is given from a simple form and gradually changes to a more complex sentence accompanied by exercises on each material. Among the forms of tarkib training are question and answer, word changes, sentence improvement, etc.</em>

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