Addams moring 2010-masters-thesis-in-english_tkk-lib_apr-23

Master's thesis - scientific / scholarly writing in English

(and Swedish)

Ronja Addams-Moring

Course Eri-0.6100 Tools for Master’s Thesis

23rd April 2010, TKK Main Library

223rd April 2010 Ronja Addams-Moring 2

Outline

• Is writing in English different? Why [not]?

• Where are you in your project -> current issues

• Good engineering English

• Typical issues for Finnish and Scandinavian writers

• Traditions, tips and tricks

• Resources for further learning

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In English – or not?

23rd April 2010 Ronja Addams-Moring

4Ronja Addams-Moring 4

The decision

• What influences the choice of language?

• Who decides?

• Where or when is the point of no return?

• How can one prepare?

• Discussion

23rd April 2010


Does it matter, really?

• Are there differences between writing in• English or Finnish/Swedish?

• primary or secondary/tertiary language?

• What differences?

• For whom do they matter?

• What stays the same?

• Discussion

23rd April 2010

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Earlier comments

• In English as a second/third language– Often easier to find literature– Often slower to read literature– Analytical reading may be easier than

physical acting to directions– Harder to start writing or to continue after

a break – or not!– Easier to find concepts, vocabulary– Harder to find one's own style / tone -

“my ears fail me!”Ronja Addams-Moring23rd April 2010

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Where are you now?



Different stages & writing

1. I know my major & minor, no topic yet -> ideas

2.Tentative topic / supervisor / job / boss -> READ!

3.Topic / job official ; started on literature -> notes

4.Literature mostly found, partly read / topic clearer, detailed / some text / work -> snippets

5.Literature read, introduction mostly written / practical work underway -> ”lab diary”

6.Practical work done -> the major writing

7.Revising, comments, finalizing, official part23rd April 2010


Different issues

1.What I can / want – what is available

2.Clarify, dare to ask, first literature, working environment, backup system, ”speed books”

3.Literature search, reading, note-taking routines ; supporters (later: commentators)

4.Write something every day!

5.Ensure quality of practical work, keep ”lab diary”

6.Starting writing, keeping on writing, illustrations

7.Revising, getting comments; official part correct23rd April 2010


Major risks

1.Topic: being too choosy or too meak

2.Client / boss knows too exactly what is needed

3.Found literature or notes lost; no project glossary for concepts; no supporters

4.Putting off writing or not taking backups

5.Shoddy quality of practical work, no ”lab diary”

6.Weak writing routine, too much or few illustr.

7.Too little revising time, no plan for getting comments; mistakes in official part

23rd April 2010

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Break for coffee / tea, Swedish writers please stay



Specifikt för svenska

1a principen: Var på din vakt + självkritisk• “Modersmål” garanterar inte kompetens

– Ofta: skola på finska, svenska bara hemma• Satsa på ett bra verktyg (Svefix, integrerar sig i

MS Word) och/eller språkgranskning– MS Word är nära på hopplös med svenska– Finlandismer förekommer (alla syndar)– Rikssvenskarna kan inte svenska heller

• Tro enbart på sådant du själv har checkat + antäckna källorna till termer + språkbruk

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Reoccurring big issues



Olde Stile or New Skool?

• Olde Stile = Russo-Finno-German / Oxbridge– Traditional scientific / scholarly writing ; passive voice– ”Deductive”: introductions, base, assumptions,

premises etc. in detail first– Main point / conclusion last in sentence / paragraph /

section / work (compare with: German verb last in sentence / Finnish, Russian suffixes last in word)

• New Skool = Anglo-American / Journalism– Inverted pyramid structure ; active voice (we)– ”Inductive”: main issue first, then elaborations and

justifications– Main point first in (almost) every sentence / paragraph

/ section

23rd April 2010


Choosing a style

• Few readers have time to read Olde Stile texts today!

• What style(s) do you like to read?• Legitimate differences between

– natural sciences and hard engineering– arts and qualitative humanities– soft engineering and other semi-quantitative

• Can one write in a personal style? – Yes, but...

23rd April 2010


Style: no Marketroidish, please

• Use adjectives sparingly– famous - great - quick - poor - rich

• No comparatives without comparisons– more - less - lower - stronger - shorter

• No superlatives (maybe in comparisons)– most - fastest - highest - cheapest - latest

• As few adverbs as possible– very - truly - exceedingly - highly

23rd April 2010


Style: no Tabloidish, please

• Aggressive – rival - war - territory - enemy - mob - attack

• Sensational– unprecedented - imaginable - adventure

• Inexact– "ordinary mobile phone“ - "traditional bridge

construction“ - "at broadband speeds"

• Absolute– always - never - all - none - first - last

23rd April 2010


Cultural issues• Guiding the reader with meta-text

– first ... second ... finally / as we saw in section X– in contrast / consequently / in summary / moreover

• Is meta-text a service - or an insult?– Finno-German (Sino-Japanese, too?): rich meta-text

-> writer thinks the reader is dumb, needs ”crutches”

– Anglo-American (French-Canadian, too?): little meta-text -> writer is lazy, dumb or unprofessional

• Do use meta-text when writing in English!

23rd April 2010


Vocabulary -> concept coherence

• What is standard vocabulary in my topic area? How do I find out?

• If many standards (or none) – how do I choose?– your professor & boss should be able to help

• Work for concept coherence from day one! – tool: project glossary – start early & use it

• One concept = one wording / one phrase• Shorten phrases in a standard manner

23rd April 2010


Spoken vs. written language

• all/many kinds of• big• if need be• like / alike• looks like• lots of• so• pros and cons

• several types• large / major• if needed• such as• seems as if• many / large amount• thus / therefore• advantages and

disadvantages

23rd April 2010


Good engineering English

• As simple as possible, but not simpler– Clear, direct, active, unambiguous– Written language, yet unpretentious– Correct vocabulary, systematic concepts– Coherent, neutral enough style (neither Old

Oxbridge nor Nokia Pidgin)– Comfortable information density– Natural use of meta-textual elements

23rd April 2010

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Native language related



Finns, pay attention to

• Articles! (relevant also for the Chinese, Estonians, Hungarians, Turks...)– a / an (U and Y act as consonants)– the / -– count nouns vs. mass nouns (= countable vs.

uncountable nouns) – ”the ... of” rule

• Word order – mostly direct & fairly free -> meaning may change!

23rd April 2010


Scandinavians, pay attention to

• Old Norse based languages partly alike English (Dutch, German also)

• English subclauses: direct word order

• Archaic and sound-alike (Norse root)– baere, bära / bear -> support, carry; tolerate– spare, spara / spare -> save; protect– vende, vända / vend -> turn, flip; sell– barn / bairn; barn -> child; shed, stable

23rd April 2010


All non-native speakers

• Unintentional wordiness / terseness– can you get a native speaker to comment?

– preferably early! (not too many pages)

• Never translate an idiom word for word!

• Everybody should - also native speakers– use (on-line) dictionaries and thesauri

habitually– use spell-checkers!!

23rd April 2010

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Central traditions and handy tricks



Honesty

• Admitting own shortcomings and mistakes– “These results were unexpected because previous

experiments by...”– “We found our preliminary results too optimistic:

current GSM networks should not...”– “The system only partially fulfilled the robustness and

performance requirements, due to...”

• Hedging (making uncertainties visible)– usually, likely, probably, in this case, possibly...– “Based on the results with titanium dioxide, it should

be possible to use also...”

23rd April 2010


Global and gender-neutral

• Actively describe where your work could be used– climates, ecosystems, cultures, languages...

• Find examples: Asia, Africa, South-America...• He, she or – what?

– use the plural they– use they as singular (becoming fairly standard)– assign roles in examples, alternate women and men

in roles (note: role balance!)

– write around in some other way (beware of accidental passive voice)

23rd April 2010


Often mixed up

• amount vs. number– amounts are measured, numbers are counted

– The amount of water...– The number of glasses...

• shortly vs. briefly– shortly = soon ; briefly = for a short time– ”We will shortly arrive in Helsinki.”– ”We will briefly visit Helsinki before...”

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Some free writing resources



The OWL at Purdue

• One of the oldest on-line resources• HUGE! Yet fairly easily navigable, if you start here:• Non-Purdue College Level Instructors and Students

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/679/01/• Useful for Master’s Thesis and related work:• Writing Engineering Reports (presentation)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/647/01/• Writing Scientific Abstracts (presentation)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/706/01/• Reverse Paramedic Method (for revising)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/721/01/

23rd April 2010


The Mayfield Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing

• Also large and fairly navigable• http://www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/tsw/home.ht

m

• The Writing Timeline http://www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/tsw/wt.htm

• Common Writing Problems for Non-Native Speakers of English http://www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/tsw/esl-link.htm

23rd April 2010


Merriam-Webster Online

• http://www.merriam-webster.com/– dictionary

– thesaurus– word-of-the-day– and more

• Used to be congested during Americas’ daytime – not so much 2008-2010

• US English spelling dominates

23rd April 2010


Multilingual terminology

• IATE = Inter-Active Terminology for Europe – the EU inter-institutional terminology database– http://iate.europa.eu/

• TEPA-termipankki (term bank)– Sanastokeskus TSK’s responsibility– has Finnish, Swedish and English user

interfaces– http://www.tsk.fi/tepa/

23rd April 2010


For LaTeX users

• Oetiker: The Not So Short Introduction to LaTeX 2 / Pitkänpuoleinen johdanto LaTeX 2e:n käyttöön (PDF - do save a local copy)

• http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/LaTeXPrimer/• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BibTeX• http://www.hep.manchester.ac.uk/u/jenny/jcwdoc

s/latex/bibtexbasics.html• http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne/latex/

BIBTEX.HTM23rd April 2010


For OpenOffice users

• OOoForum.org• OpenOffice.org Writer• http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewforum.phtml?f=2• “I need help regarding the structure and the table of

contents of a master's thesis...” http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=73469

• “Is there an american dictionary file that I can overwrite with an English one...” http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=80123

• and some 12.000 more messages in this subforum

23rd April 2010

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Miscellaneous, free or (semi-)commercial resources



General tools

• Dropbox for backups (basic version is free)• Freemind for mindmaps (open source)• What others can you recommend / have heard

positive comments about?

If you need to choose project management software (unlikely), start e.g. here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_management_software

23rd April 2010


(Some) books are worth buying

• Robert A. Day & Barbara Gastel “How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper” (5th or 6th ed.)

• William Foddy: “Constructing Questions for Interviews and Questionnaires...” (? ed., 2008)

• Colin Robson: “Real World Research...” (2nd ed.)

• One good British English dictionary (CD!)• One good British English thesaurus (CD?)• Own field specific word list(s) / dictionary(ies)

23rd April 2010

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Buying language checking?

• Get an independent assessment early

– Is your English / Swedish OK enough?

– Checking cost? Payment timetable?

• Form a group, if possible (2-4 people)

• Find a language professional familiar with (your field of) engineering, test their competence!

• Work iteratively (group & professional)

• Pay for strategic checking only (Introduction, Conclusions, chapter beginnings & ends)

Ronja Addams-Moring23rd April 2010

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Almost finally



Use and share these slides, please!

• This work (= these slides) is licensed under the Creative Commons license Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

• The license terms are available via: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en

• Attribute e.g. like this: “Ronja Addams-Moring: ‘Master's thesis - scientific / scholarly writing in English (and Swedish)’. Presentation 23rd April 2010 at Helsinki University of Technology (TKK), Espoo, Finland, EU”

23rd April 2010


Ronja’s contact information

• http://www.iki.fi/~ronja/• http://www.linkedin.com/in/addamsmoring• http://www.proz.com/translator/853646• http://www.slideshare.net/AddamsMoring• http://www.facebook.com/ronja.addamsmoring

• ronja [AT] iki [DOT] fi• Skype: ronja-am• Mob: +358 (0)40 502 8050

23rd April 2010

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Finally: demonstrations of some tools and work methods

+ questions


Addams moring 2010-masters-thesis-in-english_tkk-lib_apr-23

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