Sentences

A paragraph consists of sentences (units of text which serve to express a complete idea and are constructed in a definite grammatical order).

1) A simple sentence is a group of words that makes complete sense, has the subject and the predicate and fits one of the communication conditions: it makes a statement; it is a question or is a command. Note: A sentence fragment is a part of a sentence lacking either the subject or the predicate of the sentence.

2) A compound sentence consists of two or more independent simple sentence or clauses, connected by way of coordination. A compound sentence divides into independent clauses whereas a simple sentence cannot divide and have each part make sense by itself.

3) A complex sentence formed by subordination consists of one independent (principal) clause and at least one dependent (subordinate) clause. Note: A run-on sentence runs together two or more thoughts that should properly be expressed in separate sentences.

Some Guidelines for Writing Effective Sentences

1. Do not use sentence fragments.

2. Break run-on sentences. Place different ideas in separate clearly constructed sentences.

3. When elements in a sentence are of equal weight, show the equality by placing them in a compound sentence. Only clauses closely connected in thought should be joined.

4. Make clear the relation between clauses in a compound sentence with the help of coordinate conjunctions.

5. When one element of a sentence is dependent upon another element, the relationship is shown by connecting the two with a subordinating conjunction or conjunctive adverb.

6. Do not put the main idea of the sentence in a subordinate construction because the resulting “upside-down” subordination makes the sentence weak.

7. English favours shorter sentences than many other languages. Try to keep sentences to less than 40 words, but vary their length.

Some Guidelines for Writing Compressed Sentences

1. Express a given piece of information in a short and clear form.

2. Be careful with pro-words. The words, which are substituted by pro-words, may be repeated.

3. Remember that careless usage of pro-words may lead to misunderstanding.

4. Use complexes with non-finite forms instead of subordinate clauses if possible.

5. Hyphenate elements in long word-combinations.

(Derived from Korneeva, M [25])

APPENDIX E

Self-check questions

1. What are the lexical peculiarities of the scientific prose style?

2. And the syntactical peculiarities of the scientific prose style?

3. Which functions does the scientific prose style realize?

4. Can you enumerate the key characteristics of a scientific article?

5. What types of scientific articles do you know?

6. How does one identify the topic, the subtopics and the key words of a scientific article?

7. Which components of a scientific article may be called regular and which - optional? Which functions do the regular components perform?

8. How does one distinguish key sentences / paragraphs from supporting sentences / paragraphs?

9. What types of paragraphs do you know?

10. What are the functions of a plan / scheme of an article or its fragment?

11. Which information could be considered essential and vital and which not in the text, part of the text, paragraph, sentence?

12. Can you enumerate ways / strategies to compress text information? When do they use them and how?

13. What is the difference between an abstract, a summary, a resume, a précis, an annotation?

14. What types of abstracts do you know? What is the difference between them?

15. What flaws should one avoid while writing an informative abstract?

APPENDIX F