Academic Names

The names of English academic authors normally consist of the first (given) and last (family) names, the given name always being placed before the last name (but, certainly, not in bibliographies), for example, "Richard Winkler." Sometimes a middle initial is added, e.g. "Dwight K. Stevenson." Academic names are considered to be formal, although shortened versions of the first names may sometimes be met, e.g. "Bob Jordan" (instead of "Robert Jordan") or "Liz Hamp-Lyons" (instead of "Elizabeth Hamp-Lyons"). Such a naming practice may not be acceptable for Ukrainian academics accustomed to a more formal style of self-presentation. On the other hand, the Slavic tradition of using patronymics is not generally known to English and international audiences. Ukrainian authors writing in English may be advised, therefore, to use their full first and family names with the observation of appropriate rules of transliteration.

Titles

Titles are important components of academic and research writing, "responsible" for gaining readers' attention and facilitating positive perceptions of any kind of written research.

Titles may have quite different syntactic structures. The main structural types of English titles are as follows:

1. Nominative constructions, that is titles with one or more nouns as principal elements. E.g.:

Non-verbal Communication and Language Teaching

A Script of Today's Russian Feminist Biography

2. "Colon"-titles consisting of two parts separated by a colon. E.g.:

Gossip and Insecure Workplace: Look before You Speak

Academic Writing for Graduate Students: What Do They Really Need?

3. Verbal constructions, that is titles containing a non-finite form of a verb as a principal element. E.g.:

Analyzing and Teaching Research Genres

4. Titles in the form of complete sentences. E.g.:

Language is not a Physical Object

Proxemics is Relevant in Foreign Language Teaching

There are also some other types of titles, which are, however, less widespread in English academic discourse (than, for example, in Ukrainian and Russian ones):

1. Titles beginning with the prepositions on, to, toward(s):

Toward a Sociocultural Theory of Teacher Learning about Student Diversity

On the Reproductive Behavior of the Seal in Atlantic Canada

2. Nominative titles with the conjunction as:

Writing as Language

Political Speech as Discourse

Sometimes, articles in the titles may be omitted, e.g.:

Clinical Aspects of Modeling Cancer Growth

Titles of books, plays, movies, music should be capitalized. But do not capitalize articles, conjunctions, or prepositions unless they are the first word of the title, e.g.:

How English Works (a book)

The New Yorker (a magazine)

The Marriage of Figaro (an opera)

My Fair Lady (a movie)

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements, that is expressions of gratitude to colleagues, sponsors, supervisors, etc., have become a standard part of English academic papers and research publications. They are usually placed at the end of the paper, or, in case of books, at the beginning before the main text. Acknowledgements also allow the author to demonstrate that he/she is a member of a certain academic community. They are usually written in the first person – I for a single author and we for co-authors.

Below are several patterns of the most widespread elements of acknowledgements:

1. Financial support. E.g.:

This research was supported by a grant from … (e.g., International Fund…)

The work of … was supported by …

2. Thanks to colleagues. E.g.:

I would like to thank Prof. X for his invaluable commentary and guidance.

3. Thanks to editors and reviewers. E.g.:

I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

We are grateful to the (…) publishers for the permission to use copyright material

English Academic Genres. Summary

A dictionary definition of a summary is “a presentation of the substance of a body of material in a condensed form or by reducing it to its main points”. In terms of academic writing a summary (Ukr. розширена анотація, sometimes реферат) is a shortened version of a text aimed at giving the most important information or ideas of the text. Summarizing is an important part of writing academic papers, which usually include extensive references to the work of others. At Ukrainian universities, writing summaries of professional and scientific texts in English is often an examination assignment.

Requirements for Summaries

A good summary satisfies the following requirements:

1. It condenses the source text and offers a balanced coverage of the original. Avoid concentration upon information from the first paragraph of the original text or exclusively focusing on interesting details.

2. It does not evaluate the source text and is written in a generally neutral manner.

3. The first sentence of the summary contains the name of the author of a summarized text, its title, and the main idea.

4. In the summary the logical relationship of the ideas is shown.

5. It satisfies the requirements set to its length (which may be quite different; however, for a rather short text, the summary is usually between one-third and one-fourth of its length).