Language Conventions

The following recommendations on using grammar and vocabulary in writing are mainly based on suggestions advanced by Hamp-Lyons& Heasley (1993) and Weissberg & Buker (1990).

1. To indicate the beginning of Stage III special signal words are usually used. Connectors such as however, but are used for this purpose. The connector is followed immediately by a gap statement in the present or present perfect tense, which often contains modifiers such as few, little, or no.

Examples.

2. To signal Stage III subordinating conjunctions like although and while can also be used. If you use these kinds of signals, you must write a complex sentence, using modifiers like some, many, or much in the first clause, and modifiers like little, few, or no in the second clause.

Examples:

Note: nouns like literature, research, and work are uncountable and are therefore followed by singular verb forms.

3. The statement of purpose can be written from either of two points of view, a research or a report orientation. If you choose the research orientation you should use the past tense, because the research activity has already been completed.

Example.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of computer-assisted instruction on the computer literacy of fifth grade children.

On the other hand, if you choose to use the report orientation, use the present or future tense.

Examples.

The present research examines the relationship between television watching and fear of crime

In the present paper the attention will center first and foremost on news selection and presentation by editorial departments of the daily press.

Note: in both research as well as report orientation, phrases like this study and the present paper reinforce the fact that Stage IV refers to your work, not the work of the other authors mentioned earlier.

4. Your statement of purpose (Stage IV) should be directly related to the research question upon which you based your study. Although you may not need to include the research question explicitly in your report, the statement of purpose should be written so that your reader can infer the research question behind your study.

If the implied research question is a yes or no question, the connecting words whether or if are used in Stage IV, and a modal auxiliary like would or could accompanies the verb.

Examples.

The purpose of this study is to examine Canadian daily press coverage of the Middle East to establish what impact, if any, the character of this coverage has had on the shaping of Canadian foreign policy.

The goal of this paper is to examine whether the members of the two major linguistic groups of New Brunswick (French and English) differ in their use of various news media to obtain political information.

When the implied question is an information question, if/whether is omitted and an infinitive or noun phrase is used.

5. The statement of value is usually written in a way that suggests an attitude of tentativeness or modesty on the part of the author. When reporting your own study, you should not sound too sure of the benefits, either practical or theoretical, of your work. It is conventional to sound more cautious. This is accomplished in Stage V by using modal auxiliaries, principally may.

Examples.

The application of the strategies described here may (should) increase the proportion of drug abusers who can be identified.

The system described here could serve as the basis for further research into the relationship between gender and communication.

This study may lead to a better understanding of correlation between language use and ethnic identity.

6. Selecting the most appropriate modal auxiliary is often a problem because the meanings of some of these words differ only slightly from one another. Weissberg & Buker (1990) recommend using the following chart to help you choose the best modal auxiliary when you are writing these stages. The modals are listed here in order of their degree of tentativeness.

MODAL AUXILIARIES: Degrees of Tentativeness
	(SURE)
WILL STAGE IV: no doubt about the future			EXAMPLES: The data contained in this report willsupplement that presented in our earlier publication.
WOULD no doubt about the future, assuming certain conditions			The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of home computers would improve the math scores of third grade children.
SHOULD STAGE V reasonable expectation about the future			This alternative method shouldsimplify the analysis procedure.
MAY some doubt about the future			Both of the factors studied heremay be of importance in explaining the occurrence of this disease.
COULD more doubt about the future			Results of this study could have considerable impact on estimates of land values.
	(TENTATIVE)

4.3. Write with Style: Guidelines

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 874