Academic English Writing Common Errors — Language & Style

學術英文寫作常見錯誤 Tilburg University

The content of these notes is partly from the CIS Premaster Academic English Course of Tilburg University. The instructor is Dr. Simone Ashby & Diana Schmalzried (coordinator). Please inform me if there is any copyright infringement.

這篇文章會講到學術英文在「寫作語言和風格」的部分的寫作常見錯誤，希望對一些在外奮鬥的中文母語者有點幫助。這些筆記的內容部分來自蒂爾堡大學的CIS Premaster 學術英文課程，講師是 Simone Ashby 和 Diana Schmalzried。純粹教育目的並無盈利，如有侵權請告知。

Hedging

• Lack of hedging 缺少委婉。學術英文要避免過於武斷直接的語句，這樣在往後會造成麻煩：）我到目前還沒找到類似的翻譯，但你可以想像這是一種寫作手法或注意事項。想知道更多可以用英文去查詢。但有問題的是，這往往要和「含糊不清」的語句劃分清楚（可以看 content 那篇）。
  e.g., “The most common view is that rap music is listened to by the younger generations”; (最普遍的看法是說唱音樂是年輕一代聽的。這裡使用的hedging 是「最普遍的」)
  “Unfortunately, this has been proven in the past (Daily Mail Reporter, 2006).”

Naturalness 語調自然性

• Awkward language 有點奇怪的語句使用。底下使用 Coming studies，但一般來說英文並不會這樣寫，這也是非英文母語者會常犯的錯誤。
  e.g., “Coming studies might examine this effect”; “Researchers might use the mentioned implications for further research on this topic.”
• Awkward tense 奇怪的時態。底下的例句前面是claimed，但後面變成plays。這句話過於武斷，缺少hedging。
  e.g., “Mosharafa (2015) claimed this by saying that the age plays a big part in the heaviness of the influence”
• Awkward sentence structure 詭異的句子結構。
  e.g., “Just like other satirical news shows, ‘The Daily Show’ is a television program that is broadcast on television (in America) and has its own YouTube channel on which clips of the show are available”; The research question, due to this gap, is…”
• The sentence could be more clear/active (less complex/passive) 句子必須要更清晰和使用主動句（不要讓句子複雜或使用被動時態）。這裡可以使用 Grammarly 或一些句子檢查網頁去檢視你是否寫出太多被動語句。
  e.g., “Taking this angle, one of the main societal actors that have been experiencing a constant form of interdependence are nonprofit organizations.”

Sentence formation 句構

• Choppy sentences (lack of connectors) 避開斷斷續續的句子。最常見的像是缺少連結詞，導致一大堆小句子，雖然有前因後果，但讀起來非常不順。
  e.g., “The usage of social media has increased incredibly together with its technical development. The use of social media has doubled ten times in the past decade.”
• Stringy sentence 避開太長的句子。不要一口氣寫一大堆但全部連結在一起，導致閱讀困難。這應該比較常發生在母語人士身上，至少我寫不出來這種冗長句子。
  e.g., “When considering possible solutions to tackle the general tendency toward plant blindness, an individual’s appreciation of plants, for example, their attitude towards plants, is of paramount importance because of the strong link between attitude and behaviors.”
• Repetitive sentence types/structures 不要頻繁使用重複的句子類型/結構。這個我不太能參透。
  e.g., “Smartphone use has been linked to procrastination, which is the delay of starting or finishing an intended action. However, most studies to make this link rely on self-reporting, which has been shown to be inaccurate. Another limitation of these studies is that they predict procrastination at the between-person level, which does not explain how procrastination can vary within individuals.”

Concision & precision 簡潔和精確性

• Use of redundant language 盡量減少冗字。像是底下提到In addition & second，重複使用序數是個不恰當的用法。
  e.g., “In addition, the second important factor is age.”
• Vague quantity 不要使用模糊的量詞。底下這個句子應該是說不要使用 small number，但我不確定這樣使用 small amount是可以的嗎？
  e.g., “Unfortunately, there is a small number of studies that have directly focused on Married at First Sight […]”
• Vague temporal reference 不要寫出模糊的時間，像是「很久之前」這種
  e.g., “The user can obtain these items by playing the game for a long time (McCaffrey, 2019).”

Tone 語調

• Lack of an objective, academic tone 檢視是否缺乏客觀的學術語調。底下的句子更像是記敘文而非學術文章。另外，在第三個例子也使用了一個模糊的代詞，要盡量避免。
  e.g., “Like when you are a singer, and you compare yourself to Justin Bieber”;
  “So when people saw MTV with this type of music and videos connected to it at that time, it could’ve made them more violent”;
  “ They are given the opportunity to participate in a strange survival game in which they must risk their lives […]”
• Use of slang, clichéd, colloquial, or idiomatic language 不要使用俚語、陳詞濫調、口語化用詞或慣用語。這種在荷蘭本地生好像會比較常發生。另外，像是 ‘nowadays’ , ‘besides’這種太不正式的也要避開。
  e.g., “All in all, playing violent video games comes with many dangerous side effects […]”;
  “Rap music has always been one of the bad boys in music”;
  “Nowadays, Disney produces more progressive princess movies which do not show these behaviors and appearances as much”;
  “Besides, the stereotypically feminine behaviors the princesses show in these movies, their appearances are also questionable”
• Hyperbole 不要過於誇張。像是底下使用 increased incredibly 就太誇張了。
  e.g., “The usage of social media has increased incredibly together with its technical development.”
• Unnecessary use of metaphorical language 有些文句不需要使用譬喻法，因為我們不是在寫小說或文學。
  e.g., “The player steps into a life of crime, to earn money and enjoy luxury (Polasek, 2014).”
• Unnecessary use of an intensifier 不必要地使用增強的語句，像是actually, quite等等。陳述要盡量簡潔有力。
  e.g., “This is actually quite contradictory since most video games have age restrictions”;
  “Results of a recent experimental study (Stein, Krause & Ohler, 2019) show that this content can cause serious eating disorders.”

Language plagiarism 語言抄襲

• Paraphrasing or summarizing that is too close to the language of the original source 你寫的東西過於接近source，要記得更改句構。