Academic Writing for Non-Native English Speakers English has been called the language of modern science, and top-tier journals in many other scholarly fields also publish their content in the English language. Since the publication of advanced research is an important…
The Moving Parts of Speech in English: Verbs and Conjunctions
The Moving Parts of Speech in English: Verbs and Conjunctions Many educational programmes drill the parts of speech into the minds of young students, but it is all too common for such details of language to slip right back out…
Tricky Situations for Subject-Verb Agreement
Tricky Situations for Subject-Verb Agreement English can be a tricky language to write at the best of times, but certain grammatical aspects of the language are particularly perplexing, especially for those who are not native speakers. Academics and scientists who…
Using the Colon in Citations, References and Quotations
Using the Colon in Citations, References and Quotations Among the uses of the colon (:) in punctuating scholarly prose are its applications when citing sources, quoting the words of others and providing complete bibliographical references. Usage patterns are often based…
What is Grammatical Parallelism and Why It Matters
What is Grammatical Parallelism and Why It Matters Academics and scientists who publish their research probably do not need any reason beyond professionalism to ensure that they always write clearly and correctly. They are professional researchers, professional authors and, in…
The Modifying Parts of Speech: Adjectives, Adverbs and Prepositions
The Modifying Parts of Speech: Adjectives, Adverbs and Prepositions Among the various parts of English speech are those with the particular function to modify other parts of speech. Such elements of language are extremely useful for academic and scientific authors…
Using the Comma in Formal English Prose
Using the Comma in Formal English Prose The comma is used in English prose in a wide variety of ways. Personal preferences, document content and reader needs are often concerns when making decisions about comma placement, but so too are…
Varying Sentence Structure with Embedded Clauses and Phrases
Varying Sentence Structure with Embedded Clauses and Phrases Writing in a fashion that is interesting and elegant for readers is certainly the hope of most academics and scholars, but it is also imperative that scholarly prose be clear, accurate and…
Grammatical Agreement in the Scholarly Prose of a Thesis or Dissertation
Grammatical Agreement in the Scholarly Prose of a Thesis or Dissertation Establishing agreement between the subject of an English clause or sentence and the verb that tells the reader what that subject is thinking, doing, feeling and so on is…
Constructing Compound Sentences
Constructing Compound Sentences Simple sentences rarely present a problem for authors because they are commonly used in informal speech and are, well, simple. The following sentence is just such a simple sentence: ‘Teachers are worried about the rising illiteracy rates…
Grammar, Punctuation and the Danger of Global Changes in Academic Writing
Grammar, Punctuation and the Danger of Global Changes I was recently reading a novel that uses an unfortunate and incorrect punctuation pattern throughout the entire text. Well, to be honest, it uses far more than one incorrect punctuation pattern, but…
Punctuating Adjectives before a Noun
Punctuating Adjectives before a Noun Some of the best writers in the English language will advise aspiring authors to avoid adjectives as much as possible when aiming for a clear and elegant writing style. The argument runs that the right…
Punctuating Embedded Lists in Academic and Scientific Documents
Punctuating Embedded Lists in Scholarly Documents Lists are often used in academic and scientific writing to present information in a clear and orderly fashion for readers. Whether the material a scholarly author wants to communicate is short and relatively simple…
Tips on Punctuating with a Colon in Academic and Scientific Prose
Tips on Punctuating with a Colon in Academic and Scientific Prose It is comforting to think that the association between scholarly writing and colons is based more upon the excellent use to which academics and scientists tend to put the…
Scholarly Uses of the Semicolon | Grammar Tips for Academic Writing
Scholarly Uses of the Semicolon Although some writers would do away with the semicolon, arguing that it serves no useful purpose in English prose, there can be no doubt that the semicolon performs many important functions for scholarly authors. The…
Logical Help for Clarifying Sentences in Academic and Scientific Writing
Logical Help for Clarifying Sentences in Academic and Scientific Writing When a scholarly author receives the message from readers, whether they are colleagues, mentors or acquisitions proofreaders, that his or her sentences simply are not communicating the research behind a…
Using the Full Stop in Academic and Scientific Prose
Using the Full Stop in Scholarly Prose Although the use of the full stop in English prose is relatively straightforward, it is essential to understand and use the correct patterns to ensure clear and professional communication when writing scholarly text….
Helpful Tips for Using Coordinating Conjunctions: Or, Nor, For and So
Helpful Tips for Using Coordinating Conjunctions: Or, Nor, For and So There are seven coordinating conjunctions in the English language. Alphabetically, and in full capitals for clarity here, they are AND, BUT, FOR, OR, NOR, SO, and YET. As their…
Subject-Verb Agreement in the English Language: Basic Grammatical Concerns
Subject-Verb Agreement in the English Language: Basic Grammatical Concerns One of the most primary of concerns when writing successful prose is maintaining agreement between the subject of a clause or sentence and the verb that tells the reader what the…
Basic Parts of Speech in English: Nouns, Pronouns and Articles
Basic Parts of Speech in English: Nouns, Pronouns and Articles Although many academics and scientists who conduct advanced research and publish their writing in the English language are familiar with the parts of speech, many are not. Scholars who are…
Basic Sentence Patterns for Variety in Academic and Scientific Prose
Basic Sentence Patterns for Variety in Scholarly Prose When writing academic and scientific prose, the main goals tend to be the thorough and accurate communication of research-based information and the effective construction of a persuasive scholarly argument. The highest standard…
Complex Sentences Simplified in Academic & Scientific Writing
Complex Sentences Simplified Academics and scientists tend to write about difficult problems and complex research. No wonder, then, if they often need to express complex ideas and arguments with the utmost clarity. Doing so in English can be challenging, however,…
Using Appositive Words, Phrases and Clauses in English
Using Appositive Words, Phrases and Clauses in English An appositive is a word, phrase or clause that is used in juxtaposition to a noun or pronoun to identify, explain or describe that noun or pronoun. The appositive is itself a…
Coordinating Conjunctions in English: And, But and Yet
Coordinating Conjunctions in English: And, But and Yet The English language boasts seven coordinating conjunctions that are immensely useful to scholars who write to disseminate their research. In alphabetical order they are AND, BUT, FOR, OR, NOR, SO, and YET,…
Those Tricky Transitions in Scholarly Text
Those Tricky Transitions in Scholarly Text | Tips on How to Get Your Research Published Creating smooth and effective transitions is among the most challenging aspects of writing well. In fiction or poetry a transition might aim to startle or…
Using the Right Words in Academic and Scientific Writing
Using the Right Words in Academic and Scientific Writing | Tips on How to Get Your Research Published Mark Twain, in keeping with both his personality and his writing style, claimed that ‘the difference between the almost right word and…
Helpful Tips and Advice on Using Parenthetical Clauses Effectively
Helpful Tips and Advice on Using Parenthetical Clauses Effectively Contemporary advice about writing tends to prioritise simplicity, even for academic and scientific writing, so simple sentences are preferred by many publishers and online venues, including scholarly ones. As a reaction…
Using Prepositions to Specify Place with Accuracy in the English Language
Using Prepositions to Specify Place with Accuracy Prepositions may tend to be rather short words, but their functions within English sentences are extremely important. They tend to indicate grammatical and semantic relationships, often of a spatial or temporal nature. A…
A Few Tiny but Tricky Words with Similar Sounds but Different Spellings
Similar Sounds with Different Spellings and Meanings: A Few Tiny but Tricky Words Many a word in the English language sounds, when spoken, exactly like or at least deceptively similar to another word. When such pairs are spelled out in…
Miscellaneous Uses of Hyphenation in the English Language
Miscellaneous Uses of Hyphenation in the English Language In my earlier posts on the use of hyphens, I discussed patterns for hyphenating compounds and adding prefixes and suffixes to words. In this post I would like to describe a number…
Using Pronouns Clearly & Effectively In Academic & Scientific Writing
Using Pronouns Clearly and Effectively It is difficult to imagine writing scholarly prose in the English language without using pronouns. Were academic and scientific authors forced to use nouns repeatedly instead of substituting pronouns at times, their books and articles…
Using Prepositions Correctly to Specify Time in the English Language
Using Prepositions Correctly to Specify Time Prepositions are a class of words that indicate grammatical and semantic relationships, often of a spatial or temporal nature. A preposition is usually combined with a noun, pronoun or noun phrase, which is referred…
Forming and Using Present Participles in the English Language
Forming and Using Present Participles in the English Language Present participles perform more than one important function in the English language. They can, for instance, act as adjectives to modify nouns, as nouns themselves or as aspects of compound verbs,…
Notes & Advice on Mastering the Future Tense in Academic Writing
Mastering Tense in the English Language: The Future In my earlier posts on mastering tense I discussed the present and past tenses of English verbs. In this post I would like to provide some advice on the four basic future…
Mastering Tense in the English Language: The Past
Mastering Tense in the English Language: The Past | Tips on How to Get Your Research Published As a continuation of my earlier posting on the present tenses of verbs in the English language, I would like to provide some…
The Tiniest Points of Punctuation
The Tiniest Points of Punctuation There are many authors these days who would argue that fussing over punctuation with the goals being precision and consistency is simply a waste of time. The point, they might argue, is to get the…
Using Hyphens in Compound Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs
Using Hyphens in Compound Nouns, Adjectives and Verbs Hyphens are often used to form compound nouns, adjectives and verbs in the English language, but not in all cases. In fact, the appearance of hyphens in compound constructions can seem unpredictable…
The Hyphenation Associated with Prefixes & Suffixes in Academic Texts
The Hyphenation Associated with Prefixes & Suffixes in Academic Texts There are many different uses of hyphens in the English language, and some authors might argue with justice that there is a great deal too much unpredictability in the principles…
Using Apostrophes in Contractions and with Letters, Numbers and Symbols
Using Apostrophes in Contractions and with Letters, Numbers and Symbols Although the most common use of apostrophes in the English language is to form the genitive or possessive case of nouns, there are other valid uses of this tiny but…
Mastering Tense in the English Language: The Present
Mastering Tense in the English Language: The Present Writing in the English language is far from an easy task, especially for those academics and scientists who are not native speakers of the language. Among the many challenges faced by authors…
Odd or Particularly Troublesome Possessives in the English Language
Odd or Particularly Troublesome Possessives in the English Language Most possessive or genitive nouns in the English language are relatively straightforward to form and use, but there are some constructions that are odd or simply difficult to use correctly. The…
Three Tricky English Verbs and How To Use Them Correctly
Three Tricky English Verbs and How To Use Them Correctly English presents many challenges for academic and scientific authors who aim to communicate with precision and sophistication. This is obviously the case for scholars who are not native speakers of…
Forming the Possessives of English Nouns by Adding an Apostrophe Alone
Forming the Possessives of English Nouns by Adding an Apostrophe Alone When forming the possessive or genitive case of English nouns, an apostrophe (’) is almost always necessary. For singular possessive nouns the general rule is to add an ‘s’…
To Hyphenate or Not To Hyphenate? No Simple Question
Navigating the Challenges of Effective Hyphenation There is no set of straightforward rules to govern the use of hyphens in the English language, which means that a consistent system of hyphenation can be incredibly tricky to establish in a scholarly…
British vs. American English: Spelling Differences in Academic Writing
British vs. American English: Spelling Differences in Academic Writing There are two main forms of written English – British and American – and most scholarly journals will indicate a preference or requirement for one or the other in their instructions…
Creating En Rules and Em Rules in Microsoft Word
Creating En Rules and Em Rules in Microsoft Word En rules (–) and em rules (—), which are also called en dashes and em dashes, are used with considerable frequency in scholarly prose. Each type of rule can be used…
Possessive Nouns in English and How To Use Them Well
Forming and Using Possessive Nouns Correctly in Academic Prose Apostrophes are used to form the possessive or genitive case of English nouns, with the standard singular possessive of a noun usually formed by adding an apostrophe and an ‘s’ (’s)…
How To Punctuate and Format When Using Round Brackets
Punctuating and Formatting Correctly in Relation to Parentheses Parentheses (or round brackets) are used with considerable frequency in academic and scientific writing, but the punctuation and formatting that some scholars use in relation to parentheses are inappropriate, inconsistent and sometimes…
Affect or Effect? A Question for Academic and Scientific Authors
Affect or Effect? A Question for Academic and Scientific Authors Among the many words in the English language that prove tricky for even the most highly educated authors to use well are ‘affect’ and ‘effect,’ both of which are used…
Rules, Dashes and the Punctuation of Parenthetical Clauses
Using En Rules and Em Rules To Punctuate Parenthetical Clauses An em rule or em dash, which is about as wide as an uppercase M, is longer than an en rule or en dash, which is about the width of…