Common English Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

1. Common English Mistakesand How to Avoid Them Patrick Fleisch Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics

2. Goals of This Presentation • Help you avoid some of the mistakes that Chinese writers make very often • Give you a better understanding of the complications of the English language • Improve your scientific English • Give you some English tips • Get your feedback

3. Part I: Common Mistakes Verb Tenses • Past Tense • Description of the materials/methods used in the experiment • Attributing work to another author • Present Tense • Background/accepted information • Description of figures • Discussion of results and drawing conclusions

4. Part I: Common Mistakes Verb Tenses (cont.) • Example 1 • Incorrect: “…has been shown in Fig. 1.” • Correct: “…is shown in Fig. 1.” • Example 2 • Incorrect: “…are impregnated over silica particles…” • Correct: “…were impregnated over silica particles…”

5. Part I: Common Mistakes “the” and “a” • This is often a difficult distinction to make even when you know the rules. • Always use “the” when referring to something specific or previously mentioned in the paper. • Use “a” • Talking about a general class of something • Mentioning something for the first time • Singular count nouns

6. Part I: Common Mistakes “the” and “a” (cont.) • Examples: • Based on the previous research mentioned above… • The resulting membranes had a somewhat lower permeance than the ones prepared… • During the 10-hour stable run time… • Ethyl nitrite first dissociates into an adsorbed ethoxy radical…

7. Part I: Common Mistakes Active vs. Passive Voice • Passive voice is sometimes appropriate, but should not be used often. • If the sentence can be rewritten with the subject performing the action, do it! • Example: • Active: I ate all the dumplings • Passive: All the dumplings were eaten by me.

8. Part I: Common Mistakes Active vs. Passive Voice (cont.) • More recently, a new catalyst system for the synthesis of higher alcohols was designed by introducing FT-elements (Fe, Co, Ni, etc.) to a CuMnZrO2 catalyst. • In the 1980s, the interest in the direct conversion of methane to methanol was renewed by the “energy crisis” and the demand for the efficient utilization of abundant natural gas reserves.

9. Part I: Common Mistakes Sentence Length • Look at each sentence individually to determine whether it is too long or too short. • Too short – try to combine two adjacent sentences using a conjunction • Too long – look for conjunctions in the sentence and split the sentence at those conjunctions

10. Part I: Common Mistakes Sentence Length (cont.) • Example: • Original: The crystal species were characterized by XRD. The morphology of the supports subjected to crystallization was characterized by SEM. • Modified: The crystal species were characterized by XRD, and the morphology of the supports subjected to crystallization was characterized by SEM.

11. Part I: Common Mistakes Sentence Length (cont.) • Particularly bad example: • The result of measurement of the apparent activation energy predicted that doping of a minor amount of the CNTs into the CuiZnjAlk did not alter the reaction pathway of hydrogenation of CO/CO2 to form methanol, however, led to a considerable increase in the active Cu surface area of the catalyst and pronounced enhance of the stationary-state concentration of active hydrogen-adspecies on the surface of the functioning catalyst, as well as 10~20 degrees dropping down of optimum operation temperature required for methanol synthesis; all these would contribute considerably to an increase in reaction activity of methanol synthesis.

12. Part I: Common Mistakes Sentence Length (cont.) • Improved • Measurements of the apparent activation energy predict that doping of a minor amount of CNTs into the CuiZnjAlk does not alter the hydrogenation of CO/CO2 reaction pathway to form methanol. However, this did lead to a considerable increase in the active Cu surface area of the catalyst and a pronounced enhancement of the stationary-state concentration of active hydrogen-adspecies on the surface of the functioning catalyst. In addition, the optimum operating temperature required for methanol synthesis drops 10~20 degrees. All these factors greatly contribute to the increase in the methanol synthesis reaction activity.

13. Part I: Common Mistakes “And” and “But” • Don’t begin a sentence using the word “and” or “but.” • This construction almost always indicates that a sentence belongs in a combination with the previous sentence or that the first word can be removed. • Supports with a high surface area produced high Co dispersions and highly active FT catalysts. And The nature of the higher hydrocarbons…

14. Part I: Common Mistakes Multiple Adjectives • adjective1, adjective2 noun • Both adjectives modify the noun. • Put “and” between the two adjectives to test if you need a comma. • The friendly, helpful English teacher • adjective1-adjective2 noun • Adjective1 modifies adjective2 and that phrase modifies the noun. • World-wide web

15. Part I: Common Mistakes Multiple Adjectives • adjective1 adjective2 noun • Adjective2 modifies the noun (creating a noun phrase) and adjective1 modifies that phrase. • Linear low-density polyethylene • Stainless-steel fluidized-bed reactor

16. Part I: Common Mistakes i.e. vs. e.g. • i.e. means “in other words” or “that is” – use it when you are trying to clarify a portion of a sentence • e.g. means “for example” – this is always used followed by a list of one (and often more) things used as an example

17. Part I: Common Mistakes Number vs. Amount • “Number” is always used with something that can be counted. • The number of water molecules • “Amount” is used with something that can be measured. • The amount of water • Example • the conversion of methanol is determined by the amount of acidic sites - wrong

18. Part I: Common Mistakes Other Mistakes • What word comes after “increase?” • “of” is for an amount – “an increase of 35%” • “in” is for the thing that is increasing – “an increase in selectivity” • Removing extra instances of “increase” • “the water content increases with increasing temperature” • “the water content increases with the temperature” • Instead of “the content of the O was 2” say “the O content was 2.”

19. Part I: Common Mistakes Other Mistakes (cont.) • Be careful when you use the word “of.” It can often be eliminated by changing the order. • surface atoms of copper and nickel enriched during the crystallization • with a ratio of O/H of 2

20. Part II: General Tips Simplicity • Make something difficult sound easy! • Don’t use 10 words when 1 will do. • Sentences that start with “It is obvious that…”, “It can be seen that…”, or “It is evident that…” are a telltale sign that you are using too many words. • It was found that Only manganese and tin oxides were stable…

21. Part II: General Tips Repeated Words • Some papers use a single word or phrase (“shows,” etc.) many times in the same sentence. • Use a thesaurus (http://thesaurus.reference.com) to find words that mean the same thing. • Change the structure of some sentences to introduce variety.

22. Part II: General Tips Reading Over A Paper 1) Read each sentence individually 2) Read each paragraph as a whole 3) Check the entire paper

23. Part II: General Tips “Flow” • Find a partner and read your paper aloud to them. • Are there any strange breaks or pauses? • Things that are awkward to say? • Might be difficult at first.

24. Part III: Improve Your English Reading and Vocabulary • Keep a vocabulary book! • Read online news (http://news.google.com) • Browse the web • http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/ • http://slashdot.org/ • http://www.wired.com/ • http://www.scientificamerican.com/ • Many more… just look around • Read scientific journals for the English

25. Part III: Improve Your English Speaking and Understanding • Watch English TV (CCTV 9) • Go and buy DVD/VCDs and try to watch them without the subtitles! • Listen to English Audio/Video streams on the internet • http://news.yahoo.com/ (click on“Audio/Video”) • http://www.cartalk.cars.com/Radio/Show/ (hilariously funny weekly radio show) • http://www.npr.org/ (great news radio site) • Try to find a language partner

26. Thank You • I welcome any comments you might have about this presentation (pfleisch@dicp.ac.cn) • This entire presentation is available on the web at: http://pfleisch.dicp.ac.cn/presentation/