留学资讯 一手掌握

今天小编给大家带来留学生论文写作的几个要点。

1 引述的内容不同，用不同的词来指代

无论是写什么类型的学术文章，我们都需要引述别人的观点的观点。在英语里有很多引述观点的词，如find，suggest, discover, support, show, indicate, cite, confirm等等，除了他们用于引述不同的内容，意思区别，有很多词还隐含作者本身的观点，甚至有褒贬义，所以用的时候并不是完全通用的，下面就让我们来分别看下吧。

1. reporting research activities: （引述研究活动）

这类词有discuss, look at, examine, study, investigate, consider (+noun phrase)，一般后面加名次词组，引述的内容一般是别人做了一个什么样的调查。

2. reporting findings: （引述研究的发现）

这类词有discover, find, suggest, indicate, show (+that…)，后面一般加that引导的宾语从句，引述的内容是别人做了研究以后得出的结论或者发现。

3. reporting arguments: （引述论点）

这类词有suggest, indicate, argue, point out, claim, note (+that)，右面一般也加that引导的宾语从句，引述的内容是别人的论点。

2 不同的词不可以进行互换

第二个问题就是reporting arguments的时候，并不是所有的词都是可以互换的，很多词在潜意识中就已经隐含了作者本人的观点。具体来看一下：

1. argue：中文里这个词翻译成“争论”，感觉肯定不是中性的（想一下，面红耳赤，像两只公鸡 ）。但是argue在英文里恰恰就是个非常中性的词，describing somebody’s reporting idea。所以引述别人的论点，比如“某某认为…”“某某的观点是…”，不掺入任何作者的感情色彩。

2. claim和assert这两个词慎用！如果你说“某某claims/asserts…”往往表示了你的反对的观点。claim比assert稍稍好些，claim表示你不认同某某的观点；而assert在中文里就翻译成“宣称”，也就是说你不仅不认同某某人的观点，还认为某某人简直就是无稽之谈，胡扯八道，毫无理由。如果你用了这两个词，你就要举出强有力的反对理由去反驳这个某某人的观点，否则…我觉得还是不要那么强烈的把人家否定了。

3. cite, refer, 和state。Cite和refer后面都要加引用的原文，也就是要用引号引起来的，而state则要paraphrase，也就是转述，但不能用人家原来的语句。

3 时态问题要注意

中国的语法教育，从来都是为语法而语法，语法正确，一切正确，事实上并不是这样的。时态也能表现你的观点。

引述一般有三种时态：过去时，现在时和现在完成时。

一般来说，过去时是最客观的，因为发生在过去，你也用过去时来陈述，跟你有一定的距离，所以是比较客观。可以用来支持，也可以用来反驳。

如果你用了现在时或者现在完成时，就跟你扯上关系了，一般来说或多或少表示你赞同这个观点。The research findings may correspond to the writer’s own opinion, the current state of knowledge or the research itself may be close to the writer’s own research.

记住一个问题：虽然写argument的文章我们需要表达自己的观点，但是你的观点一定要客观分析而来，而不是主观的个人的观点。老外是很奇怪的，他们又希望你能表达出自己的看法，但是又要你的看法是要大家都能接受的，又要把你个人的观点巧妙的隐藏起来。

4 人物指代要清晰

中国学生写作最大的问题，就是一篇短短200－400字的论文中，各种人物粉末登场，I，we，you轮番上阵，走马观花象跑龙套的，搞的老外头昏脑涨。在formal writing中，为了使argument有说服力，最好不要出现太多的人物——因为你不是在写小说。下面就I，we，you的问题分别讨论一下。

We

Avoid ‘we’, because it is often unclear who ‘we’ refers to. You and your marker? You and a co-author? The whole world???

It is also very bad style to refer to yourself as ‘we’—writers sometimes do it when they have problems with their essay and they want to ‘distance; themselves from it, saying in effect, ‘Do not blame me for this result’.

Avoid ‘we must teach like this’ or ‘we should concluded that…’. If you do this, you are making two mistakes. First, you are telling your marker what to think and do (not a good idea) and second, you are limiting your own position. You are saying ‘things are defined and clear cut’, whereas they are often NOT!

You

Avoid ‘you’. It is too personal and conversational. That the ‘expert talking to learner’ style used in textbooks and handbooks is NOT appropriate in formal writing, since you are still a learner.

I

You can use ‘I’ at several points, but making certain the sentence refers to something you are, as a student and as the author of the assignment, responsible for. Thus you could put ‘I shall divide the argument into two main sections’ (you could also write ‘the argument is divided into two main sections’). On the other hand, you do not want to write, ‘I have argued elsewhere that adults learn grammar faster than children’, as this makes you sound like a world expert with 30 books published!

Try and avoid ‘I think X is a good idea’. We want you to argue the case WHY X is or is not appropriate, rather than simply assert(=state) that you think it is. This is one of the big differences between conversation and university assignments. In an assignment, you have to make sure you give the evidence for opinions and you need to use impersonal verbs like ‘seem’.

Thus you would write, ‘Smith would seem to be wrong in arguing that…’ or ‘This seems incorrect’, rather than ‘I think Smith is wrong’.

5 一些注意事项

1 Aviod "can","should"

大概是媒体语言看多了，中国人说话自然而然带了一种官腔。西方人同我们不同，他们希望看到的是你有什么具体的方法解决具体的问题，而不是每天拿着小旗帜挥，喊slogan——我们应该怎么样，我们必须怎么样——but HOW？

You can use 'can' to describe yourself as in this sentence: 'It is hoped that the essay CAN...'. However, you had better not use 'can' as in 'The teachers can do something...', which sounds like an order. The same or we say even worse with 'should'.

If you say 'the government should...', it would be a very bad style. You are learners but not policy makers--the only thing you can do is to argume or make suggestion but not ORDER/DEMAND/FORCE. What you can do is to argue convincingly and try your best to persuade others but not force them to believe. Don't make yourself so important--as you are, in fact, not important! You can try 'may''had better''might' more.

2 Avoid emotional and poetic words

避免诗情画意的用词。在formal writing中，人就是人，没必要说a famous writer，也没必要出现一些过于情绪化的词语。

Avoiding emotive words can be difficult in a foreign language, but it is very important to try. Avoid words like ‘My dream is to answer this question’ or ‘I am starting this fascinating essay with a wonderful, and deeply enriching, tantalizing comment by the highly celebrated and world famous expert R. Smith’. You may personally think that Smith is wonderful and justly famous, but in an academic assignment, PEOPLE ARE JUST PEOPLE! Your argument depends on the content of your points, not on the fame or excitement of the topic, the author or your opinion.

3 Avoid ‘some’

formal writing中，要使你的论据占的住脚，就避免模糊用语，例如some。

The British use ‘some’ in conversation all the time. BUT it does not have the same effect in writing. There, it appears weak; this makes you look as though you are not in control of your own argument. Try and use more positive expressions, like ‘a number of Ws’, ‘a series of Xs’, ‘several Ys’, ‘a range of Zs’.

4 Aviod 'as we all know' 'it can not be denied' 'there is no denying that...' 'everyone knows'... 'only by doing this, can we...'

无论是什么考试的阅读理解，大家应该都有一个印象，就是如果出现“all” “only”这类极端词汇的选项，99.999999%肯定是错的。

Then why most of you keep using this kind of phrases in your essay? Remember, most likely, there is no single standard answer in social science--since people have different understandings towards different phenomena. Also, remember, the one you can represent is YOU yourself, but no one else. So you CAN'T say 'as we all know'! As I often DON'T know!

5 Aviod 'as far as I am concerned' 'I think' 'in my opinion'

有人也许会奇怪，怎么这些也不能用？

The marker knows clearly that YOU have written this essay--so they know clearly that it is YOUR opinion! So why keep repeating these 废话？记住，写作千万不要凑字数。

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