写在前面

最近正在写学术论文，无意间拜读到了一篇国外大牛的文章，里面详细的讲解了如何去组织、撰写一篇学术论文。我把这个文章原文放在这里，也加入了一些自己的理解，希望对看到这篇博客的人能有所帮助吧。。。

Writing Introductions

There are many ways to introduce an academic essay or assignment. Most academic writers, however, appear to do one or more of the following in their introductions:

• establish the context, background and/or importance of the topic
• indicate a problem, controversy or a gap in the field of study
• define the topic or key terms
• state of the purpose of the essay/writing
• provide an overview of the coverage and/or structure of the writing

Introduction的结构：背景，问题，目的，结构

Examples of phrases which are commonly employed to realise these functions are listed below. Note that there may be a certain amount of overlap between some of the categories under which the phrases are listed.

Introductory sections for research dissertations, are normally much more complex than this and, as well as the elements above, may include the following: a synopsis of key literature/current state of knowledge, synopsis of methods ,lists of research questions or hypotheses to be tested, significance of the study, recognition of the limitations of the study, reasons for personal interest in the topic.

Establishing the importance of the topic

One of the most significant current discussions in legal and moral philososphy is ......
It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the .....
X is the leading cause of death in western industrialised countries.
X is a common disorder characterised by ......
X is an important component in the climate system, and plays a key role in Y.
In the new global economy, X has become a central issue for ......
In the history of development economics, X has been thought of as a key factor in .......
Xs are one of the most widely used groups of antibacterial agents and ......
Xs are the most potent anti-infammatory agents known.

Recent developments in X have heightened the need for ......
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in ......
Recent developments in the field of X have led to a renewed interest in ......
Recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in ......
The past decade has seen the rapid development of X in many .......
The past thirty years have seen increasingly rapid advances in the field of......
Over the past century there has been a dramatic increase in ......
One of the most important events of the 1970s was ......
Traditionally, Xs have subscribed to the belief that ......
X proved an important literary genre in the early Y community.
The changes experienced by Xs over the past decade remain unprecedented.
Xs are one of the most widely used groups of antibacterial agents and have been extensively used for decades to .......

Highlighting a problem or controversy in the field of study

研究领域有争议，有问题的写法

However, these rapid changes are having a serious effect ......
However, a major problem with this kind of application is ......
To date there has been little agreement on what ......
More recently, literature has emerged that offers contradictory findings about .....
There is increasing concern that some Xs are being disadvantaged ......
Despite its long clinical success, X has a number of problems in use.
Despite its safety and efficacy, X suffers from several major drawbacks:
Concerns have been raised by several relevant bodies about the poor ......
One of the most significant current discussions in legal and moral philososphy is ......
One observer has already drawn attention to the paradox in ......
In many Xs a debate is taking place between Ys and Zs concerning ......
The controversy about scientific evidence for X has raged unabated for over a century.
The issue of X has been a controversial and much disputed subject within the field of .......
The issue has grown in importancein light of recent ......
One major theoretical issue that has dominated the field for many years concerns ......
One major issue in early X research concerned.......

研究领域有问题被忽视

So far, however, there has been little discussion about ......
However, far too little attention has been paid to ......
Most studies in X have only been carried out in a small number of areas.
The research to date has tended to focus on X rather than Y.
In addition, no research has been found that surveyed .......
So far this method has only been applied to ......
Several studies have produced estimates of X (Smith, 2002; Jones, 2003), but there is still insufficient data for .....
However, there have been no controlled studies which compare differences in......
The experimental data arerather controversial, and there is no general agreement about ......

Focus and aim

This paper will focus on/examine/give an account of ......
This paper seeks to address the following questions: .....
This essay critically examines/discusses/traces ......
The purpose of this paper is to review recent research into the ......
This paper will review the research conducted on ......
In this paper I argue that .....
This chapter reviews the literature concerning the usefulness of using ......
The aim of this paper is to determine/examine ......
The aim of this study was to evaluate and validate ......

Outline of structure

The main questions/issues addressed in this paper are: a), b and c).
This paper has been divided into four parts. The first part deals with ......
The essay has been organised in the following way.
This paper first gives a brief overview of the recent history of X.
This paper begins by ...... It will then go on to ......
The first section of this paper will examine ......
Finally, .......
Chapter 2 begins by laying out the theoretical dimensions of the research, and looks at how ......
Chapter 3 describes the design, synthesis, characterization and evaluation of ......
The last chapter assesses the ......

Explaining Keywords

While a variety of definitions of the term X have been suggested, this paper will use the definition first suggested by Smith (1968) who saw it as .......
Throughout this paper the term X will refer to/will be used to refer to .......
In this article the acronym/abbreviation XYZ will be used.

Being Critical

As an academic writer, you are expected to be critical of the sources that you use. This essentially means questioning what you read and not necessarily agreeing with it just because the information has been published. Being critical can also mean looking for reasons why we should not just accept something as being correct or true. This can require you to identify problems with a writer's arguments or methods, or perhaps to refer to other people's criticisms of these. Constructive criticism goes beyond this by suggesting ways in which a piece of research or writing could be improved.
.....being against is not enough. We also need to develop habits of constructive thinking. Edward de Bono

Introducing questions, problems and limitations

theory

One question that needs to be asked, however, is whether ......
A serious weakness with this argument, however, is that ......
One of the limitations with this explanation is that it does not explain why .....
One criticism of much of the literature on X is that ......
The key problem with this explanation is that ......
The existing accounts fail to resolve the contradiction between X and Y.
However, there is an inconsistency with this argument.
Smith's argument relies too heavily on qualitative analysis of ......
It seems that Jones' understanding of the X framework is questionable.
Smith's interpretation overlooks much of the historical research ......
One major criticism of Smith's work is that .....
Many writers have challenged Jones' claim on the grounds that .......

method/practice

Another problem with this approach is that it fails totake X into account.
Perhaps the most serious disadvantage of this method is that .....
Difficulties arise, however, when an attempt is made to implement the policy.
Nevertheless, the strategy has not escaped criticism from governments, agencies and academics.
One major drawback of this approach is that ......
The main limitation of biosynthetic incorporation, however, is ......
However, this method of analysis has a number of limitations.
However, approaches of this kind carry with them various well known limitations.
All the studies reviewed so far, however, suffer from the fact that ...
However, all the previously mentioned methods suffer from some serious limitations/weaknesses/disadvantages/drawbacks.

Identifying a study's weakness

the main weakness of the study is the failure to address how .......
the study fails to consider the differing categories of damage that .....
the research does not take into account pre-existing ...... such as ......
the author offers no explanation for the distinction between X and Y.
Smith makes no attempt to differentiate between various different types of X.
Jones fails to fully acknowledge the significance of ......
the paper would appear to be over ambitious in its claims
the author overlooks the fact that X contributes to Y.
what Smith fails to do is to draw a distinction between ......
another weakness is that we are given no explanantion of how ......

Offering constructive suggestions

Smith's paper/Her conclusions/The study/The findings would/might have been more/much more/far more useful/convincing/interesting/persuasive/original if he/she/author had included/considered/adopted/used.....

A better study would examine a large, randomly selected sample of societies with ......
A much more systematic study would identify how X interacts with other variables that are believed to be linked to ......

Introducing other people's criticisms

However, Jones (2003) points out that .....
Many analysts now argue that the strategy of X has not been successful. Jones (2003), for example, argues that .....
Non-government agencies are also very critical of the new policies.
The X theory has been vigorously / strongly challenged in recent years by a number of writers.
Smith's analysis has been criticised by a number of writers. Jones (1993), for example, points out that ……
Smith's meta-analysis has been subjected to considerable criticism.
The most important of these criticisms is that Smith failed to note that ......
Jones (2003) is probably the best known critic of the X theory. He argues that .….
The latter point has been devastatingly critiqued by Jones (2003).
Critics have also argued that not only do social surveys provide an inaccurate measure of X, but the......
Critics question the ability of poststructuralist theory to provide ......
More recent arguments against X have been summarised by Smith and Jones (1982):
Jones (2003) is critical of the conclusions that Smith draws from his findings.

Reporting Results

The standrard approach is to this section of dissertations is to merely present the results, without elaborate discussion or comment. This does not mean that you do not need any text to describe data presented in tables and figures. Writers usually comment on the significant data presented in the tables and figures. This often takes the form of the location or summary statement, which identifies the table or figure and indicates its content. This may be followed by a statement or statements which point out and describe the relevant or significant data. All your tables should be numbered and given a title.

More elaborate commentary on the results is normally restricted to the Discussion section. In research articles, however, authors may comment extensively on their results as they are presented, and it is not uncommon for the Results section to be combined with the Discussion section under the heading: Results and Discussion.

Reference to aim/method

To assess X, the Y questionnaire was used.
To distinguish between these two possibilities, ......
In order to assess Z, repeated measures of ANOVA were used.
Regression analysis was used to predict the ......
Changes in X and Y were compared using ......
The average scores of X and Y were compared in order to ......
Nine items on the questionnaire measured the extent to which ......
The correlation between X and Y was tested.
The first set of analyses examined the impact of ......
Simple statistical analysis was used to ......
A scatter diagram and a Pearson's product moment correlation were used to determine the relationship between ......
T-tests were used to analyse the relationship between ......

学术论文中一般对方法的描述都是被动语态，例如 be used to.....

Location and summary statements

Table 1/Figure 1 shows/compares/presents/provides the experimental data on X/the results obtained from the preliminary analysis of X/the intercorrelations among the nine measures of X.

The results obtained from the preliminary analysis of X are shown/can becompared/are presented in Table 1/Figure 1.

As shown in Figure 12.1/As canbe seen from the table (above)/It canbe seen from the data in Table 12.1 that/From the graph above we can see that the X group reported significantly more Y than the other two groups.

The table below illustrates/The pie chart above shows some of the main characteristics of the...../the breakdown of.....

Highlighting significant data in a table/chart

It is apparent from this table that very few ......
This table is quite revealing in several ways. First, unlike the other tables ......
Data from this table canbe compared with the data in Table 4.6 which shows ......
From the data in Figure 9, it is apparent that the length of time left between ......
From this data we can see that Study 2 resulted in the lowest value of ......
The histogram in Fig 1. indicates that ......
What is interesting in this data is that ......
In Fig.10 there is a clear trend of decreasing ......
As Table III shows, there is a significant difference (t = -2.15, p = 0.03) between the two groups.

Statements of result

positive

Strong evidence of X was found when ......
This result is significant at the p = 0.05 level.
There was a significant positive correlation between ......
There was a signifcant difference between the two conditions ......
On average, Xs were shown to have ......
The mean score for X was ......
Interestingly, for those subjects with X, ......
A positive correlation was found between X and Y.

Further analysis showed that ......
Further statistical tests revealed .....

negative

There was no increase of X associated with .....
There were no significant differences between ......
No significant differences were found between .....
No increase in X was detected.
No difference greater than X was observed.
The Chi-square test did not show any significant differences between ......
None of these differences were statistically significant.
Overall, X did not affect males and females differently in these measure

Highlighting significant, interesting or surprising results

The most striking result to emerge from the data is that ......
Interestingly, this correlation is related to .....
The correlation between X and Y is interesting because ......
The more surprising correlation is with the ......
The single most striking observation to emerge from the data comparison was ......

Reporting results from questionnaires and interviews

The response rate was 60% at six months and 56% at 12 months.
Of the study population, 90 subjects completed and returned the questionnaire.
Of the initial cohort of 123 students, 66 were female and 57 male.
The majority of respondents/those who responded felt that .....
Over half of those surveyed reported that ......
70% of those who were interviewed indicated that ......
Almost two-thirds of the participants (64%) said that ......
Approximately half of those surveyed did not comment on ......
A small number of those interviewed suggested that ......
Only a small number of respondents indicated that ......
Of the 148 patients who completed the questionnaire, just over half indicated that .......
A minority of participants (17%) indicated ......
In response to Question 1, most of those surveyed indicated that ......
The overall response to this question was very positive.
When the subject were asked ......, the majority commented that .....
Other responses to this question included ......
The overall response to this question was poor.

Transition statements

Turning now to the experimental evidence on ......
Comparing the two results, it can be seen that ......
A comparison of the two results reveals ......
If we now turn to ......