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Файл:Английский язык для аспирантов = English for Postgrаduate students. Учебное пособие
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16. ... is proposed.
17. ... are examined
18. ... are discussed
19. An option permits...
20. The method proposed ... etc.
16. Предлагается...
17. Проверяются (рассматриваются...)
18. Обсуждаются...
19. Выбор позволяет...
20. Предлагаемый метод ... и т.д
HOW TO WRITE A POPULAR SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE
Most scientific workers desire to spread knowledge of their subject and to
increase their own incomes. Both can be done by writing on science for the
general public. In what follows I shall give some hints on how to do it. But let
no reader suppose that my method is the only one. Literary synthesis is like
organic chemical synthesis. The method to be adopted depends on the product
required, the raw materials, and the apparatus available. As my brain is my
apparatus, and different from yours, my methods will also differ from yours.
The first thing to remember is that your task is not easy, and will be
impossible if you despise technique. For literature has its technique, like
science, and unless you set yourself a fairly high standard you will get nowhere.
So don't expect to succeed at your first, or even your second, attempt.
For whom are your writing? This is even more important than the choice
of subject. For you will not get an article on the history of 18th-century physics
into a daily newspaper. Moreover the length of your article will depend on
where it is to be published.
Now for the subject matter. You may take a particular piece of research
work, or a particular application of science. Or you may choose some general
principle, and illustrate in from different branches of scientific work. For example
an excellent article could be written on fruitful accidents. Priestley broke a
thermometer, and the fate of the mercury from it led him to the discovery of
oxigen. Takamine spilled some ammonia into a preparation from suprarenal
glands, and crystallized out adrenaline. Probably you will do better to begin on
some specialized topic, unless you are a student of the history of science.
Remember that your treatment of it must be highly selective. So far you
have probably written two main types of article. Firstly answers to examination
questions in which you tried to show how much you knew about some topic.
And secondly scientific papers or technical reports which dealt very
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exhaustively with a small point. Now you have to do something quite different.
You are not trying to show off; nor are you aiming at such accuracy that your
readers will be able to carry out some operation. You want to interest or even
excite them, but not to give them complete information.
You must therefore know a very great deal more about your subject than
you put on paper. Out of this you must choose the items which will make a
coherent story. A number of the articles which are submitted to me from time to
time are far too like examination answers. They give the impression that the
author has looked his subject up, and tried to give a condensed summary of it.
Such a summary may be all very well in a text-book. But will not hold the
attention of a reader of popular articles, who does not contemplate severe
intellectual exertion.
This does not mean that you must write for an audience of fools. It means
that you must constantly be returning from the unfamiliar facts of science to the
familiar facts of everyday experience. It is good to start from a known fact, say a
bomb explosion, a bird’s song, or a cheese. This will enable you to illustrate
some scientific principle. But here again take a familiar analogy. Compare the
production of hot gas in the bomb to that of steam in a kettle, the changes which
occur in the bird each year to those which take place in men once in a lifetime at
puberty, the precipitation of casein calcium salts to the formation of soap suds.
If you know enough, you will be able to proceed to your goal in a series of hops
rather than a single long jump.
If you try to write an article in this way, you will probably discover your
own ignorance, especially of quantitative matters. What is the maximum
temperature in an exploding bomb? It may take you twelve hours reading to
produce an intellectually honest article of a thousand words. In fact you will
have to educate yourself as well as your public.
When you have done your article, give it to a friend, if possible, a fairly
ignorant one. Or put it away for six months and see if you still understand it
yourself. You will probably fond that some of the sentences which seemed
simple when you wrote them now appear very involved.
In a scientific, and still more, a mathematical paper, elegance of presentation,
which often means the hat-and-rabbit method, is always great fun, and sometimes
desirable. How delightful to produce some wholly unexpected function at the last
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moment by contour integration, to damn a suggested mechanism by an appeal to
Hearnshaw's theorem, or to label a plant which won't breed true as just another
case of balanced lethals. By doing so you may help the serious student to short cuts
in thinking, but you will merely dazzle the ordinary reader. Go slow, and show him
as many steps as you can in your arguments or causal chain, even if, in your own
thinking, you skip some of them or take them backwards.
A popular scientific article should, where possible, include some news. I
try, as a general rile, to include one or two facts which will not be familiar to a
student taking a university honours course in the subject in question, unless his
teachers keep well up with the periodical literature. As there is often a lag of
five years between the publication of a discovery and its inclusion in a textbook
this is not very difficult in peace time. But it is not very easy at present, in view
of the number of libraries which have closed down, and the absence of many
European and some American periodicals. Of course some care is needed in
appraising new work. A very large number of alleged discoveries of this kind
for announcement to the public. If, like myself, the writer is actually engaged in
research, and has seen a number of his own bright ideas go west, he is less likely
to fall into this particular trap.
In the early stages of popular writing it is well to write out a summary of
the article. Here is a possible skeleton for an article.
Introduction.
Central theme. Why it is important.
Connections with other branches of science.
Practical suggestions.
Conclusion.
Everyone must write popular scientific articles in his own way. I have only
described one way, and I do not claim that it is the only way, or even the best
possible way.
Exercises:
1. Read the text consulting the dictionary.
2. Divide the text into main parts and suggest a title for each part.
3. Make up a summary of the whole text.
4. Write down the main suggestions of the author.
5. Try to write your scientific article.
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SECTION V
МОЯ НАУЧНАЯ РАБОТА
I. About myself.
1. What is your full-name?
2. How old are you?
3. What are you?
4. What University (department) have you graduated from?
5. What subjects did you study at the University?
6. What special subjects were you especially interested in?
7. Where are you working now?
8. What are your duties?
9. Are you satisfied with your speciality?
10. What are you responsible for?
II. The corresponding branch (field) of science and industry.
1. In what field of science are you conducting your scientific research?
2. What is the present state of things in your field of science?
3. What authors (scientists) are best known in your field of science?
4. What branch of industry (knowledge) corresponds to your field of
science?
5. What methods are in wide use in your research?
6. What foreign publications on your subjects are available in our library?
7. Who is your scientific supervisor?
8. Is your research of any importance for science?
9. What is the aim (purpose) of your research?
10. Have you made a lot of experiments?
11. Do you often consult with your scientific supervisor?
12. What methods (theoretical, practical) do you use in your work?
13. How many stages does your research work consist of?
14. hat modern equipment is installed in your department (lab)?
15. How did you overcome difficulties in your research work?
16. What are your future plans?
17. What is the topic of your investigation?
18. What part of work have you already done?
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19. When are you going to defend your theses?
20. Have you any publications on your research work?
21. Have you any difficulties while reading the English articles (journals)?
22. Did you take part in scientific conferences?
23. Are there many (any) papers on the subject of your research?
24. What scientific degree are you going to get?
FIELD OF SCIENCE AND RESEARCH
Active Vocabulary
to do/to carry on/to carry out/to conduct research
to contribute to/to make a contribution to
to influence/to affect / to have an effect on/upon
to study/to make studies/to investigate/to explore
to put forward an idea
to suggest an idea/a theory/a hypothesis
to advance/to develop/to modify a theory
to predict/to forecast/to foresee
to accumulate knowledge
field of science/research
a new area of research
current branch/field of research
latest/recent achievements/ developments/advances
a(an) outstanding/prominent/world-known scientist/researcher
Tasks
1. Answer the questions.
1. What is your field of science/research?
2. What are the current issues in your field of science/research?
3. Have new areas of research appeared in recent years?
4. What is your particular area of research?
5. What are the latest achievements in your field of science/research?
6. Have many fundamental discoveries been made in your field of
science/research?
7. Can you name some outstanding researchers in your field of science?
What contribution have they made?
95
8. Do achievements in your branch of science/research influence everyday
life? In what way?
9. What further developments can you predict in your field of
science/research?
2. Complete the sentences which contain the words from the Active
Vocabulary Section. Speak about your field of science/research.
1. I do research in the field of ... .
2. It is the science/a comparatively new branch of science that studies ...
3. The field of science/research that I'm concerned with gathers
knowledge about ... .
4. Major developments include advances in ... .
5. Remarkable advances have been made in ... .
6. The branches of science contributing a lot to progress in my field of
research are ...
7. My current field of science/research is ... .
8. It's difficult/not difficult to foresee/forecast/predict ... .
3. Work in pairs.
Ask for and give information on your field of science and research.
4. Act out the situation.
Two students are discussing the progress made in their fields of science
and its influence on life today.
to be due to
RESEARCH PROBLEM
Active Vocabulary
to arise from
to increase considerably
to be the subject of special/particular interest
to be studied comprehensively/thoroughly/extensively
to be only outlined
to be mentioned in passing
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tо be concerned with/to be engaged in the problem of
to deal with/to consider the problem of
to be interested in
to be of great/little/no interest/importance/significance/value/use
to take up the problem
to work on the problem
to follow/to stick to the theory/hypothesis/concept
to postulate
to differ/to be different from
a lot of/little/no literature is available on the problem
the reason for the interest in the problem is...
Tasks
1. Answer the questions.
1. What is your research problem?
2. What is of special interest in the problem of your research?
3. What is the subject of your research?
4. Why has the interest in this problem increased considerably in recent
years?
5. Do you follow/stick to any theory/hypothesis/concept? What is it?
6. What concept is your research based on?
7. How does your research differ from other studies of the same problem?
8. Is there much literature available on your research problem?
9. Is your research problem described comprehensively/thoroughly/
extensively in literature?
10. Is the problem only outlined or mentioned in passing?
11. What are the main aspects of the problem that have been considered?
2. Complete the sentences which contain the words from the Active
Vocabulary Section. Speak about your research problem.
1. At present/now/currently I am studying the problem of ... .
2. The problem I am studying is concerned with ... .
3. There is a lot of/little/no literature on the problem of ... .
4. The literature available on the problem only outlines/mentions in
passing/ thoroughly/extensively/describes such aspects as ... .
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5. We have taken up the problem of... to ... .
6. In solving our problem we follow the hypothesis that ... .
3. Work in pairs.
Ask for and give information on your research problem.
4. Act out the situation.
Two students are taking part in an international conference. There they get
acquainted and talk about their research fields and research problems.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
Active Vocabulary
at that time/in that period/as early as 19 ...
by that time
since that time
in recent years/recently/lately
over the last/ past few years
in the I970s/throughout the 70s/in the early 1970s/
in the late 1970s/from 1970 to 1980
the first studies/investigations on the problem
to be the first/to pioneer/to initiate
to date back to/to go back to
to pay attention to
to observe/to consider
to find/to discover
to show/to demonstrate
to assume/to suppose/to make an assumption
to explain/to account for
tо confirm/to support
to give rise to
to believe/to think/to expect
to remain unsolved
to be poorly/well understood
to require further effort/study
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to point out the shortcomings/weak points/drawbacks
to stimulate interest in
to add greatly to our knowledge of
tо lay the foundation for
1. Answer the questions.
1. Has your research problem attracted much attention in recent years? Has
it been widely studied?
2. What aspects of the problem have been considered over the last few
years?
3. Who was the first to recognize/point out the problem?
4. What aspects of the problem did researchers concentrate on at that
time?
5. When were the first studies on the problem made? In what years?
Tasks
6. What time/years do the first studies/observations/investigations date
back to?
7. When was the problem first studied intensively?
8. When did the interest in this problem increase?
9. Is the problem well understood at present?
10. What aspects of the problem still remain poorly understood/unsolved?
11. Could you point out the gaps or shortcomings in the earlier studies of
the problem?
2. Complete the sentences with the words from the Active Vocabulary
Section. Speak about the historical background of your research problem.
1. In recent years ... has greatly increased.
2. Over the past few years the interest in the problem has been due to the
fact that ... .
3. During the last 20 years interest in ... has considerably ... .
4. X. was the first to ... the problem of ... .
5. The first studies/observations/experiments ... .
6. At present, research is concentrated on ... .
7. Many aspects of the problem still remain ... .
8. It is difficult to point out ... and ... of the problem.
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3. Work in pairs.
Ask for and give information on the historical background of the research
problems under study.
4. Act out the situation.
Two students are talking about their fields of research, their research
problems. They share information about new approaches, contributions,
developments in these areas, and also talk about the literature available on the
problem.
CURRENT RESEARCH. PURPOSE AND METHODS
Active Vocabulary
purpose/aim/objective/goal/target
a method/a technique/a procedure
detection/identification/observation
measurement/calculation/computation/approximation
consideration/generalization/deduction/assumption
modelling/simulation
advantages/merits
disadvantages/shortcomings/limitations
accurate/precise
accuracy/precision
reliable/valid/conventional/effective/useful/valuable
data/results/method
to make an experiment/analysis
to reveal/to find /to confirm/to prove evidence
to study/to examine
to collect data
lo refine the results
to create
to improve
to work out/to develop/to design
tо verify/to check
to approve/to disprove an assumption
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