Passive vs. Active voice Carolyn Brown Taller especializado de inglés científico para publicaciones académicas D.F., México de junio de 2013 PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH-LANGUAGE ACADEMIC PUBLICATION Background and Basics in Academic Researching and Publishing

A different language, a different culture Publishing in a different language is also publishing in a different culture In giving this course, we have discovered cultural differences in the approach to an academic paper What are the features of English-language papers? ▫Clear ▫Concise ▫Focussed ▫Structured ▫Attribution:  What is the contribution of the authors?  What is being cited from other authors?

A different language, a different culture English-language academic writing: clear and concise All statements must be very clear, without ambiguity or vagueness The relationship of one idea to the next idea must be clear (and, however, therefore) Paragraphs and sections must be concise They must contain all of the information needed to understand the context, but no more Is any information unnecessary? Can it be stated more simply?

A different language, a different culture Content of a paper is focussed ▫The paper has a hypothesis or objective, usually stated at the end of the Introduction ▫All of the information needed to explore this objective is included in the paper ▫But no extraneous information is included ▫For example: the Methods must be complete so that the reader can understand exactly what you did. Common laboratory procedures can be cited (“according to Dilman”) ▫Results include only the results pertinent to the objective. Tables and graphs are a good way to present results ▫Full data may be provided on the journal Web site, but is not part of the paper

A different language, a different culture The focus of a paper is different from the focus of a PhD (doctoral) dissertation Dissertation is much broader, treating many aspects of a research area A paper has one objective (hypothesis) only See other papers in your area to see how other authors have defined their objective Choose the focus of your paper, and include only the background, methods, and results relevant to that objective

A different language, a different culture English-language papers must be structured Scientific papers generally follow Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion (sometimes separate Conclusion or Interpretation) — IMRaD Different structures for review papers Even if the paper does not use IMRaD, there must be a structure that is clear to the editors and readers The same structure is followed in the abstract Literature review is usually in the Introduction, although sometimes in the Discussion. It should be brief, containing only what you need to understand the objective. It answers the question, Why did you do this research?

A different language, a different culture Attribution ▫What is the authors’ original, unique contribution? ▫What did you do that is novel and different? Why? ▫It should be clear what your contribution is:  “This paper contends that...”  “We found that...”  “Our team discovered...” ▫Acceptable to use the first person “I”, “we”, “our team” to make this clear

A different language, a different culture ▫Conversely, make it clear when you use another researcher’s ideas or data ▫Cite all ideas taken from other papers ▫Personal communications or unpublished data can be cited in the sentence  “but a recent report has found the sooty tern on adjacent islands (P. Cormorant, unpublished data).” ▫Ideas that are not cited are assumed to be your ideas ▫Ensure it is clear where an idea comes from:  “To test the skin samples, we used the method of Hicks and Johnston (2003)”  “Eberlee (2005) believed that such large fungi constituted one organism. However, we found that DNA of one putative fungal organism differed over large distances. Therefore, the organism has adapted enough to be considered different organisms.”

This course We developed this course for UNAM-Canada It was given as a pilot in the summer of 2011 We have improved and refined the course each time we give it We are interested in your ideas and experiences in the course Significant progress will depend on your starting point and your level of English language knowledge We wish to apply our instruction to your manuscripts Let us know what difficulties you are experiencing It is a pleasure to meet you and learn about your research