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This is not academic writing 學術文章不是這麼寫的
【寫作技巧】
並非所有與學術議題相關的文章，就能稱之為「學術文章」。本篇專欄將節錄不同學術議題的內容，分析常見的寫作錯誤，並分享潤修與寫作的技巧。
Not all articles written on academic topics are written in proper academic English. In this "This is not academic writing" column we examine short excerpts from academic texts to illustrate common writing errors and explain how to correct them.
Unacceptable 不被認可的文章
“Chief astrologer Zhang Heng’s wonderful seismograph measured earthquakes and also gave scores on how well a government was working. Why was that? A common belief held that an earthquake was punishment of the gods for bad governing. Consequently, Zhang’s great job gave him lots of influence. His stock rose in the year 138 when he was the only one in the capital to discern a quake a long ways away. Days later, reports of a big earthquake were received.”
One of the weaknesses of the paragraph above is the use of vague adjectives, including “wonderful” and “great” and “big.” While the seismograph probably did elicit wonder in observers, that’s not the usual definition applied to “wonderful.” To say a job is “great” is mostly to exclaim about it without describing it. And is a “big” earthquake calibrated horizontally or vertically? That is, was it a mile-wide ripple or a narrow upheaval? Also, rhetorical questions can be effective; the one in this example is just wordy. The paragraph below is a better rendition.
本篇文章的缺點是使用空泛不明的形容詞，如wonderful、great、big等。測震儀的確能讓觀察員大為驚嘆，但wonderful通常不是用於形容這樣的情境。Great主要是用來抒發說話者心中的感嘆，也非具體明確的形容詞。用big形容地震，究竟是指水平影響範圍大還是垂直影響深度深？從文章中無法推斷這場地震究竟是震波長達一哩，或僅是小幅震盪。此外，使用疑問句法有時的確有助於行文流暢，但本文中的提問卻略顯多此一舉。這段文章改寫如下：
Acceptable 認可的文章
“Chief astrologer Zhang Heng’s seismograph measured earthquakes—and graded the quality of governance. This was possible because a quake was believed to be divine punishment for poor governing. The commingling of science, politics and religion gave Zhang outsized influence in public life. His standing increased in the year 138 when he reported a quake not felt in the capital. Reports filtered in days later confirming the magnitude and location of the tremor.”
Not all articles written on academic topics are written in proper academic English. In this "This is not academic writing" column we examine short excerpts from academic texts to illustrate common writing errors and explain how to correct them.
Unacceptable 不被認可的文章
“Chief astrologer Zhang Heng’s wonderful seismograph measured earthquakes and also gave scores on how well a government was working. Why was that? A common belief held that an earthquake was punishment of the gods for bad governing. Consequently, Zhang’s great job gave him lots of influence. His stock rose in the year 138 when he was the only one in the capital to discern a quake a long ways away. Days later, reports of a big earthquake were received.”
One of the weaknesses of the paragraph above is the use of vague adjectives, including “wonderful” and “great” and “big.” While the seismograph probably did elicit wonder in observers, that’s not the usual definition applied to “wonderful.” To say a job is “great” is mostly to exclaim about it without describing it. And is a “big” earthquake calibrated horizontally or vertically? That is, was it a mile-wide ripple or a narrow upheaval? Also, rhetorical questions can be effective; the one in this example is just wordy. The paragraph below is a better rendition.
本篇文章的缺點是使用空泛不明的形容詞，如wonderful、great、big等。測震儀的確能讓觀察員大為驚嘆，但wonderful通常不是用於形容這樣的情境。Great主要是用來抒發說話者心中的感嘆，也非具體明確的形容詞。用big形容地震，究竟是指水平影響範圍大還是垂直影響深度深？從文章中無法推斷這場地震究竟是震波長達一哩，或僅是小幅震盪。此外，使用疑問句法有時的確有助於行文流暢，但本文中的提問卻略顯多此一舉。這段文章改寫如下：
Acceptable 認可的文章
“Chief astrologer Zhang Heng’s seismograph measured earthquakes—and graded the quality of governance. This was possible because a quake was believed to be divine punishment for poor governing. The commingling of science, politics and religion gave Zhang outsized influence in public life. His standing increased in the year 138 when he reported a quake not felt in the capital. Reports filtered in days later confirming the magnitude and location of the tremor.”
