1. In what field of research are you involved as a part of an advanced university degree? (My present research interests are related to … And I take particular /special interest in …).
2. Have you already published any papers? Where and when did you publish them?
3. What is the purpose of your papers?
4. What are the titles of your published papers?
5. What are you going to prove in the course of your research?
6. Is there much or little material published on the subject of your investigation?
7. What do you give much attention to in your published papers?
8. Are there any shortcomings in your papers, do you think? What are they?
9. How many parts does your paper consist of?
10. How did you begin (finish) your paper? What do you treat in your introductory part? What do you say in conclusion?
11. What is the object of your investigation? (My investigation continued nearly three years/ I tried to find out the cause of / to solve a scientific problem …)
12. What is the subject of your research?
13. What is the subject of your thesis and what is its aim? How is the subject matter of your thesis arranged? (The subject matter of my thesis appears in its title and is arranged in the following way. The aim of my thesis is to investigate this particular problem/to present the basic ideas of…, to analyze the character of … I am engaged in one of the aspects of the broad object of…).
14. What areas of technology does your research deal with?
Exercise 3.1.3
A) Read the text about a scholarly journal and complement it with your own experience in publishing articles by making up a dialogue with your partner. Work in-group of two. The following questions may help you enter into conversation.
1. How does the author submit a paper for publication?
2. Where can the author choose the journal of his interest in which he would like to publish his paper?
3. Can the author visit journal homepages and browse them by title or by subject?
4. What is a Journal Impact Factor (IF)?
5. How is IF calculated?
6. Where can the author find a detailed description (font size, title page requirements, abstract length, etc.) on manuscript guidelines for paper submission?
7. How are submissions peer-reviewed?
8. Can the author know all the details pertaining to the article submission from the journal’s ‘Instructions for Authors’ webpage?
9. What is the foremost priority for the assigned reviewers?
10. Does a reviewer focus on the content quality, study novelty, technical accuracy and excellent presentation of the data in a manuscript?
11. Is there any page limit for writing manuscripts?
12. Are there any publication limits for number of pages in manuscripts?
13. Are colour images free of cost?
B) Read the text and compare the characteristics that distinguish between scholarly journals, popular magazines and trade publications. Answer the questions, and if in doubt, ask your instructor or a librarian for assistance.
What is a scholarly journal?
Three main categories of information resources include newspapers, magazines and journals. Papers written for these resources have different characteristics though all of them contain news. R eporters who write for newspapers and magazines may or may not be experts in the certain field, and consequently, articles may contain unreliable information. Moreover, articles published in journals and written by “experts”, such as academics and professionals, may also have some ideas that are “out there!”
Typically, a scholarly journal is a professional, refereed, or peer-reviewed one. Articles in these journals are written by experts and undergo a "peer review" process before they are published. Each article reaches reasonable conclusions and becomes scientifically valid. A primary difference between other types of periodicals and scholarly journals is that papers accepted for publication meet the discipline's standards of expertise. The editors send manuscripts out to several recognized scholars (the author's peers) in the same field to evaluate them and to get their opinion on the quality of the scholarship, to consider a paper relevance to the field, as well as its appropriateness for the journal. Peer review certifies a widely accepted indicator of quality scholarship in a discipline. As each publication must represent the best scholarship currently available, the experts may recommend a manuscript for publication or decide whether the submitted paper should be rejected or revised. The paper may succeed or fail on its own merit, as in most cases, the author is unknown to the reviewers.
Many academic journals are indexed in the Journal Citation Reports for reflecting their impact factor (IF). IF typically defines the relative importance of any scientific journal within its field. Scientists deem journals with higher impact factors to be more appropriate for publications. IF is calculated by dividing the number of the yearly average quantity of articles published in a journal and the number of citations that particular year in the Journal Citation Reports by the total number of articles published in the two previous years.
Look through the following characteristics of scholarly journals, popular magazines, trade publications, given according to various criteria (underlined words), and tell whether you can recognize peer-reviewed journals.
1. Who is the author of an article or paper submitted to a scholarly journal?
a) An expert (scholar, professor, researcher, etc.) in field covered. The author is always named.
b) A journalist; nonprofessional or layperson. Sometimes the author is not named.
c) A business or industry representative. Sometimes the author is not named.
2. Are there any notes in an article or paper submitted to a scholarly journal?
a) Usually includes notes and/or bibliographic references.
b) There are few or no notes or bibliographic references.
3. What do an article or paper contents in a scholarly journal contain?
a) News and research (methodology, theory) from the field.
b) Current events; general interest.
c) Business or industry information (trends, products, techniques).
4. What are the style peculiarities in a scholarly journal?
a) Written for experts using technical language.
b) Journalistic; written for nonprofessional or layperson.
c) Written for people in the business or industry using technical language.
5. Which audience is interested in scholarly journals?
a) Scholars or researchers in the field.
b) General public.
c) People in the business or industry.
6. Who can write a review for submitted articles or papers in scholarly journals?
a) Usually reviewed by peer scholars (referees) not employed by the journal.
b) Reviewed by one or more editors employed by the magazine.
7. What does a submitted article or paper in scholarly journals look like? Describe its appearance.
a) Plain; mostly print, sometimes with black and white figures, tables, graphs and/or charts.
b) Glossy, with many pictures in color.
8. Is ADS (Adverticement System) used in scholarly journals?
a) Few or none; if any, usually for books or other professional materials.
b) Many, often in color.
c) Some, often in color.
9. What is the frequency of scholarly journals?
a) Usually monthly or quarterly.
b) Usually weekly or monthly
10. Is there a maximum or minimum article length in scholarly journals?
a) Usually several pages long.
b) Usually good many pages.
c) Usually few pages.
11. Are there style requirements for articles in scholarly journals?
a) Abstract is required.
b) Accuracy and consistency.
c) Special fascination.
12. Can you choose the examples of scholarly journals?
a) Journal of Nanomaterials & Molecular Nanotechnology (published by the University of Texas at Dallas).
b) The Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (JEDC) (edited at the University of Amsterdam and published by Elsevier).
c) JITTA: Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application (published by the University of Nevada at Las Vegas).
3.2. How to write an abstract?
Abstracts are widely used not only in research papers, but also in thesis, reviews, conference proceedings, journal articles, and other academic documents. Abstracts should be rather concise and contain from 50 to 300 words. They extract key points from each section and condenses them in successive revisions, so the readers can grasp main objectives without specific details or information that is not relevant to the article. The effective abstract does not include references to figures, tables, or sources but states what is the article about, describes methods, summarizes the most important results and states major conclusions and significance.
Read the text to find out how to write each part of a scientific article or paper.
An abstract foregoes the article and introducing your topic, it includes the methods and results. Before you start writing an abstract, write your paper and look at other abstracts in similar publications to have the idea of specific guidelines and style requirements and stick to them. If you do just that, you will write a much more accurate summary because you can summarize what you have already created.
Writing an abstract for a scientific paper, you should consider your audience and write a short summary of the entire text for an overview by the readers who have some understanding of your field. Readers can quickly grasp the main argument and essential points of the research without reading your full paper. Keep the needs of your readers in mind because the abstract should help them searching for information which is relevant to their own interests in today's overabundance of information. Selecting required documents by deciding what to read and what not to read, your readers save their time.
If youwant people to find your article easily,use 5 - 10 key phrases and words. Your abstract will be published in a journal, and readers will search for certain queries on online databases looking for terms relevant to your subject.
Abstract is typically a paragraph or two and describes what you do in your scientific experiment. It is typically no more than 10% of the full article length. Your abstract must provide answers for specific questions keeping the following general order - ‘introduction’, ‘body,’ and ‘conclusion.’ Moreover, keep in mind that your abstract, like any other piece of writing, should be revised before being completed.
Typically, scientific documents have specific style for abstracts and follow a set of rules or guidelines. You must comply with a rule and follow these guidelines to the letter.
To determinethe style of abstract, you should keep in mind, that there are two primary abstract styles, descriptive and informative. All abstracts accomplish the same goal, and the basic information written in both styles of abstract is the same except the results. The results are included in an informative abstract, so a descriptive abstract is much shorter than an informative one. Informative abstracts give an overview of your research and can be either single paragraph or a whole page long. Descriptive abstracts include the purpose, goal, and methods of the research but leave out the results section. They are best for shorter articles, and contain about 100-200 words.
Other type of abstracts include a critical abstract, which is an evaluative summary of the document describing the strength and weakness of the paper. It accomplishes the same goals as the other types of abstract, but can compare the research with other works in the field by analyzing the research design or methods.
Starting your descriptive writing, identify your purpose to show your readers why your research and your findings are important, and what the purpose of it is. You should write considering the reasons for conducting this study; the tools and methods for conducting your research; and your findings. Do not confuse the problem and your motivation. Explaining the problem that needs better understanding or solving, keep in mind the scope of your study and show whether it is a general problem, or something specific, and do not forget your main claim or argument.
You should not need to explain or define any terms. Do not use up precious writing room for wording ambiguous phrases, but provide helpful explanation of your research. To make sense to the reader avoid being too specific, using long quotations, jargon or other specialized vocabulary such as direct acronyms or abbreviations which may not be understood by general readers in your area; don’t be too explicit including figures and tables, just reference the names of people and focus on the places that your paper discusses. You should also avoid direct quotes from yourself as well as paraphrasing your own sentences from elsewhere in your works. Use completely new real information, vocabulary and phrases to keep your abstract redundancy-free, interesting and encouraging your audience to continue reading your article. To draw your readers in with your abstract do not cite material or reference studies and ideas that are not included in your article. Be careful not to misuse scientific terms and repeat them in your paper unless you have a clear understanding of their meaning. Keep in mind that some words, like "significant result" have very specific meanings in the science world. Make sure to avoid any wording that can take up too much room, cause confusion and ultimately mislead your readers.
Discussing your own research, you must give an overview of how you accomplished your study and explain your methods and approach by describing the evidence you have and giving an overview of the most significant sources. Writing an informative abstract provide the results of your study and describe what is found by you. Show the readers whether your hypothesis or argument is supported by your research and findings.
To finish your summary and give closure to your abstract you should write your conclusion that addresses the significance of your overall research based on your findings, and the importance of your paper. The implications of your work should be described only in an informative abstract. This format of abstract can highlight whether your results are general or very specific.
To do basic revisions and to know whether you have summarized your research well, getfeedback from your professor or a colleague in your field. Having someone else read your abstract will also help you to check it over for misprints, style or spelling and grammatical errors. Let your consultants tell you what they understood from your abstract. Having finished the abstract the author must state his name, department and the date of writing.
Exercise 3.2.1
Following the annotation plan and using most appropriate clichés write an annotation for your supervisor’s article.
Table 7 Annotation plan
| № | Section information | Clichés | Translation |
| 1. | The title | The article is called / headlined… The title (headline) of the article is… | Статья озаглавлена … |
| The article I’m going to give a review of is taken from… | Статья, по которой я собираюсь делать критический обзор, взята из … | ||
| The article under discussion is … | Рассматриваемая статья … | ||
| The headline foreshadows… | Заглавие статьи предсказывает … | ||
| 2. | The author, publishing house, date of publishing. | The author of the article is… The author’s name is... The article is written by… | Автором статьи является … |
| It was published in … (on the Internet) on March 10, 2012 / in 2010). | Статья опубликована … | ||
| 3. | The topic (main idea) | The main idea of the article is… The topic of the article is… The article touches upon the issue of… The key issue of the article is… | Основная идея статьи заключается в … |
| The article deals (is concerned) with… The article is about… The article under discussion is devoted to the problem… | Содержание статьи связано с … | ||
| The purpose of the article is to give the reader some information on… The aim of the article is to provide the reader with some material on… | Целью статьи является предоставить читателю материалы … | ||
| It is spoken in detail about… | Подробно излагается… | ||
| The author raises the problem of… Reader’s attention is drawn to… | Автор привлекает внимание читателя к … | ||
| First, it is stressed that… At first, it is depicted that… Secondly, it is revealed that… | Во-первых, выделяется то… Во-вторых, обнаруживается… | ||
| The author in the article touches upon the problem of.. | Автор статьи затрагивает вопрос | ||
| I’d like to mention briefly that… I’d like to make some remarks concerning… I’d like to comment on the problem of… | Я хотел бы кратко упомянуть … / сделать некоторые замечания относительно … / дать комментарии по вопросу … | ||
| The author (of the article) writes / Further the author reports / In conclusion the author states (stresses,thinks, notes, considers, believes, analyses, points out, says, describes) that… / draws reader’s attention to...) | |||
| It is reported (shown, stressed) that | Показано (подчеркнуто) … | ||
| Much attention is given to … | Много внимания уделяется … | ||
| 4. | The contents (facts, names, figures). | The article consists of… The article under discussion may be divided into several logically connected parts, which are… | Статья состоит из нескольких взаимосвязанных разделов, которые … |
| The author starts by telling (the reader) that... | В начале статьи автор сообщает о … | ||
| In the introduction the author points out… | Во введении автор обращает внимание | ||
| At the beginning the author … (describes, depicts, explains, introduces, makes a few critical remarks on, mentions, recalls, touches upon) The paper begins (opens) with a (the)… (the analysis of a summary of, author’s opinion of,author’s recollections of, the characterization of,description of,the enumeration of, introduction of, the mention of, statement) | В начале статьи автор описывает, | ||
| The article contains the following facts…./ describes in details… | Статья содержит следующие факты …. / подробно описывает | ||
| The article contains statistics about… | Статья содержит статистические данные о … | ||
| In conclusion the author… (dwells on, exposes, generalizes, gives a summary of, points out, reveals) | В заключение статьи автор … | ||
| In the concluding paragraphs it is pointed out … | В заключительных параграфах указывается на … | ||
| The main (sufficient) part of the research work contains… | Существенная часть работы содержит … | ||
| 5. | The author’s attitude to different issues | The author gives full coverage to… | Автор полностью охватывает |
| The author outlines… | Автор описывает | ||
| The author starts with the statement of the problem and then logically passes over to its possible solutions. | Автор начинает с постановки задачи, а затем логически переходит к ее возможным решениям. | ||
| The author asserts / suggests /considers / emphasizes / underlines / characterises that… | Автор утверждает / предлагает / считает /подчеркивает / что... | ||
| The author resorts to … to underline… | Автор прибегает к …, чтобы подчеркнуть... | ||
| Let me give an example… | Позвольте мне привести пример... | ||
| I fully agree with / I don’t agree with … | Я полностью согласен с/ Я не согласен с... | ||
| 6. | The conclusion The author’s opinion | I think / In my opinion / I found the article (rather) interesting (important, useful) as / because… | Я считаю, что статья довольно интересная, важная, полезная … |
| As far as I am able to judge… | Насколько я могу судить | ||
| According to the article… | В соответствии с содержанием статьи … | ||
| My own attitude to this article is… | Мое личное отношение к... | ||
| From my point of view… | С моей точки зрения... | ||
| In conclusion I’d like to… | В заключении я хотел бы … | ||
| I found the article too hard to understand / rather boring as / because | Я считаю, что статья слишком сложная для восприятия / достаточно скучная, т.к. | ||
| Taking into consideration the fact that … | Принимая во внимание тот факт, что … | ||
| In conclusion, the author says / makes it clear that…/ gives a warning that… The following conclusions are drawn... | В заключение автор говорит / проясняет, что … / дает предупреждение, что... | ||
| At the end of the story the author sums it all up by saying … | В конце рассказа автор подводит итог всего этого, говоря... | ||
| The author concludes by saying that../ draws a conclusion that / comes to the conclusion that… | В заключение автор говорит, что.. / делает вывод, что / приходит к выводу, что... | ||
| The following conclusions are drawn... | Автор приходит к заключению, что … | ||
| I have found the article dull / important / interesting /of great value … | Я нахожу статью скучной / важной/ интересной/ имеющую большое значение (ценность) | ||
| Back to our main topic… | Вернемся к нашей основной теме | ||
| To come back to what I was saying… | Чтобы вернуться к тому, что я говорил | ||
| It is hard to predict the course of events in future, but there is some evidence of the improvement of this situation. | Трудно предсказать ход событий в будущем, но есть некоторые свидетельства улучшения. | ||
| Summing up the information it is important to say that … Generalizing the information it is necessary to say that … | Подводя итог, необходимо отметить … | ||
| Expressive means of language | To emphasize … the author uses… | Чтобы акцентировать внимание … автор использует … | |
| To underline … the author uses… To stress… | Чтобы подчеркнуть … автор использует … | ||
| In addition… / Furthermore… | Кроме того... | ||
| On the one hand…, but on the other hand… | С одной стороны …, но с другой стороны... |
Exercise 3.2.2
