英語論文の書き方 第35回 QUARTERLY REVIEW (Issue No. 25)

2017年2月1日 12時00分

前回の第34回では、
(1)論文の参考文献で日本語論文を挙げるときの書き方
(2)地理的な固有名詞(山・川・湖など)をどう表記するか
(3)”respectively”の用法
を取り上げました。

今回の3つのテーマはこちらです!

(1) Avoiding words such as good and bad except in certain situations
”good” "bad" などの主観的な表現について。


(2) A common mistake when writing abbreviated terms out in full
略語を書き出すときによくある間違いとは?


(3) Beware of the word trouble.
”trouble” という単語について。
日常的にはよく使う単語ですが、論文で使う時の注意点とは?



QUARTERLY REVIEW (Issue No. 25)

Welcome to another edition of Quarterly Review. This time, we look at words expressing personal judgments such as good and bad, which should be avoided in scientific writing except in certain situations. We then focus on a mistake often made by Japanese researchers when writing abbreviated terms out in full, and conclude with some advice about the word trouble.

(1) Avoiding words such as good and bad except in certain situations

Words such as good, bad, excellent, inferior, and so on are not used very often in scientific writing, except in certain limited situations such as “X showed good agreement with Y” or “X showed poor agreement with Y.” The reason is that these words generally represent a subjective judgment; that is, the personal opinion of the writer. Who has the power to decide whether something is “good” or “bad”? This can be a delicate issue in scientific circles.
 
To avoid the appearance of making a subjective judgment, it is usually best to use a more neutral expression. Let’s say, for example, that you have developed a new magnet that you believe has better magnetic properties than currently existing magnets. Rather than writing that the newly developed magnet has good coercivity or better coercivity than existing magnets, I would recommend using a more neutral-sounding expression such as high coercivity or higher coercivity than existing magnets.
 
To give another example, let’s imagine that you have developed a new algorithm that you believe will be an excellent tool for researchers in your field. Here, rather than referring to the new algorithm as good or excellent, I would recommend a more neutral term such as useful; that is, a useful algorithm. Of course, the word useful itself could also be considered to be a personal opinion (i.e., who decides whether something is “useful” or not?), but it has more of a rational, scientific nuance, and the usefulness of a technique, etc. is usually clearly shown by the results of the relevant study.
 

(2) A common mistake when writing abbreviated terms out in full

As you know, most abbreviations are formed from the initial letter of each word in the term concerned (for example, the term light-emitting diode is abbreviated LED). In some cases, however, this is not true.
 
As an example, the abbreviation EPMA stands for either electron probe microanalysis or electron probe microanalyzer (this is a case in which an abbreviation can stand for either of two closely related expressions). The key point here is that the words microanalysis and microanalyzer are each usually written as a single word. Even when we have an abbreviation in which each word or prefix is represented by a letter (e.g., MA = micro + analysis or micro + analyzer), the word is still written as a single word if that is its normal style; we don’t have to separate the words or use hyphens in order to match each letter of the abbreviation.
 
To give another example, the word multiplexer is often abbreviated as MP, but we don’t have to write multi-plexer to match the two letters in the abbreviation MP. As a further example, the expression superconducting magnet is often abbreviated as SCM. The word superconducting is normally not hyphenated; we don't have to write super-conducting magnet to match the letters S and C in the abbreviation SCM. That is to say, it’s perfectly OK to use the two-letter abbreviation SC to represent a single word, superconducting. There are many cases like this, especially when one element is a prefix such as micro, super, semi, etc.
 
Many Japanese researchers mistakenly add hyphens when spelling out terms in full to match the related abbreviations; such as writing electron probe micro-analysis to match the abbreviation EPMA. Please remember that there is no need to do that; even though the abbreviation MA seems to represent two words at first glance, in fact the correct term in this case is microanalysis (or microanalyzer); that is, a single word.
 
As mentioned above, there are cases in which an abbreviation can stand for two closely related expressions. This is especially true for pairs of expressions in which one term represents a scientific technique and the other term represents the device used to implement that technique; for example:
 
*FM: frequency modulation or frequency modulator
*TEM: transmission electron microscopy or transmission electron microscope
*XPS: X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy or X-ray photoelectron spectroscope
 
There are many other examples of such pairs of terms. In your scientific writing, feel free to use whichever term you believe is most appropriate in any given situation. For example, you could write “We used frequency modulation (FM). . . .” or “We used a frequency modulator (FM). . . .”; either of these expressions would be fine, depending on the context. 

(3) Beware of the word trouble.

The word trouble is rarely used in scientific writing (although it is often used in general contexts including technical manuals, etc., especially in the troubleshooting section). Rather than trouble, it is better to use another term in your papers such as problem, issue, malfunction, difficulty, etc. Here are some examples showing the use of such terms instead of trouble:
 
* “The slow reaction speed caused troublea problem in the process.”
* “The lack of a suitable technique is highly troublesomea serious issue.”
* “Mechanical troubleA mechanical malfunction occurred.”
* “We experienced troubledifficulty in repairing the device.”
 
I hope that the above comments are helpful to you in your work.
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Bob Gavey
For World Translation Services, Inc.

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