English for Academic Research: Grammar, Usage and Style

This guide is based on a study of referees' reports and letters from journal editors on the reasons why papers written by non-native researchers are rejected due to problems with English usage, style and grammar. It draws on English-related errors from around 5000 papers written by non-native authors, 500 abstracts by PhD students, and over 1000 hours of teaching researchers how to write and present research papers.

English for Academic Research: Grammar, Usage and Style covers those areas of English usage that typically cause researchers difficulty: articles (a/an, the), uncountable nouns, tenses (e.g. simple present, simple past, present perfect), modal verbs, active vs. passive form, relative clauses, infinitive vs. -ing form, the genitive, noun strings, link words (e.g. moreover, in addition), quantifiers (e.g. each vs. every), word order, prepositions, acronyms, abbreviations, numbers and measurements, punctuation, and spelling. Due to its focus on the specific errors that repeatedly appear in papers written by non-native authors, this manual is an ideal study guide for use in universities and research institutes.

Other related books in this series:

• English for Academic Research: Grammar Exercises
• English for Academic Research: Vocabulary Exercises
• English for Academic Research: Writing Exercises
• English for Writing Research Papers
• English for Academic Research: Teacher's Guide

Adrian Wallwork has written over 30 books covering General English (Cambridge University Press, Scholastic), Business English (Oxford University Press), and Scientific English (Springer). He has trained several thousand PhD students from all over the world to write and present their research. Adrian also runs a scientific editing service: English for Academics (E4AC).

Auteur

Adrian Wallwork is the author of more than 30 English Language Teaching (ELT) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) textbooks. He has trained several thousand PhD students and researchers from 40 countries to prepare and give presentations. Since 1984 he has been revising research manuscripts through his own proofreading and editing service.

Contenu

Introduction.- 1. Nouns: plurals, countable vs uncountable.- 2. Genitive: the possessive form of nouns.- 3. Indefinite article: a / an.- 4. Definite article: the.- 5. Zero article: no article.- 6. Quantifiers: any, some, much, many, each, every etc.- 7. Relative pronouns: that, which, who, whose.- 8. Tenses: present, past, future.- 9. Conditional forms: zero, first, second, third.- 10. Passive vs active: impersonal vs personal forms.- 11. Imperative, infinitive, gerund (-ing form).- 12. Modal verbs: can, may, could, should, must etc.- 13. Link words (adverbs and conjunctions): also, although, but etc.- 14. Adverbs and prepositions: already, yet, at, in, of etc.- 15. Sentence length, conciseness, clarity and ambiguity.- 16. Word order: nouns and verbs.- 17. Word order: adverbs.- 18. Word order: adjectives and past participles.- 19. Comparative and superlative: -er, -est, irregular forms.- 20. Measurements: abbreviations, symbols, use of articles.- 21. Numbers: words vs numerals, plurals, use of articles etc.- 22. Acronyms: usage, grammar, plurals, punctuation.- 23. Abbreviations and Latin words: usage, meaning, punctuation.- 24. Capitalization: headings, dates, figures etc.- 25. Punctuation: apostrophes, colons, commas etc.- 26. Referring to the literature.- 27. Figures and tables: making reference, writing captions and legends.- 28. Spelling: rules, US vs GB, typical typos.- Appendix 1 - Verbs, nouns and adjectives + prepositions.- Appendix 2 - Glossary of terms used in this book.- Index.