Wallwork

Adrian Wallwork has authored a growing series of books based on his 30+ years of experience working with people around the world who are writing research articles in English as multilingual people whose native language is not English. (To be honest, many native speakers of English do not necessarily know many of the things he discusses either, because they are often different from everyday English.) The first in the series, English for Writing Research Papers (Springer, 2016, 2nd edition), is especially useful, because it has detailed sections on the sections of a research paper that explore in detail some of the considerations for what to include in each section and how to express it in English while avoiding common errors. (See the attachment Resources below for more information.)

Tips:

Be sure to see the section “Review of the Literature” with important information on accurately and fairly describing the research of others, which is crucial and often a special challenge for non-native speakers of English. There is additional information and examples in several of Wallwork's other books, as well. In fact, be sure to read all the sections on the sections of a research paper! And be sure to note the considerations for and examples of titles, key words, and abstracts.

Tools

Nowadays (a favorite word of many people!) there are a number of tools that can make writing well more “do-able.” These include the Spelling and Grammar feature in Microsoft Word, which can be set to US or UK English and has a dictionary that can be customized. They also include newer sites such as Grammarly (grammarly.com) (free), which so far is very well regarded and very useful.

This is the good news, especially because scholars know that they don’t have to know everything (it would be impossible): they simply need to know what they need to know and how to find it reliably and habitually. The bad news, so to speak, is that because it is so well known, using MS Word's Spelling and Grammar (especially Spelling) is in practice mandatory. If an author submits an article with spelling errors that would have been detected by it (most but not all of them are), it is perceived that the author did not use a known, obvious tool and therefore may have been careless with his or her research as well. (Errors not detectable by Spelling are not good but not judged as strictly.) Authors must train themselves to notice the words underlined in red by the feature and determine whether they are misspelled. These can include words not actually used in English (for example, “methodics”), because the dictionary won’t recognize them, and so this can be a clue to reexamine that word choice. Authors can and should customize their dictoionary to include names and technical words they will be using frequently.

Tips:

Sometimes instead of checking the dictionary, authors write an English word that they spell according to how it sounds to them...don't do it!  It can result in errors that are sometimes humorous (or embarrassing) that may not be detected by Spelling. For example, "cross-talk" can refer to communication between cancer cells; "crass-talk" means rude, improper speech between people!

Finding words on iPhone translators or the Internet in general is a risky business, at best, even if it is a “good” site such as multitran. When writing an article, take the time to check all sources, including the Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries (see more comments in our materials), and then find the words in articles that have been written in journals known to be reputable. Then, especially if they are crucial terms, you are welcome to check with native speakers of English at the Center for Academic Writing. Some words may seem very fitting but be different in the way that they may actually be used or in what they connote or imply. Some may be “false friends” (words that seem to be the same in Russian and English but are used somewhat differently, for example “territory” and “actual”), words in English that are common translations but don’t connote the same thing (“peculiarity” and "till"), or words that are close in sound or meaning in English but not the same (“relation” and “relationship,” “because” and “as” or “since,” among many, many others).

And—if you have composed a phrase that describes a key concept in your article, or really any phrase (for example, “systematic graphical description”), check on it using Google or Google Scholar and see if it is being used in your field in good journals to denote the same meaning. There should be hundreds and usually many thousands of Google “hits” and not only from one country. If not, there is a problem with it; it will not be understood correctly and needs to be reformulated. (Wallwork’s book contains more information on this extremely helpful technique.)  Often, it is not possible to come up with a two- or three-word phrase that perfectly describes something and that everyone understands—therefore, often it's more important to explain your idea and use internationally-used terminology when needed.