1. 问题引导
1. What are the seminal works on my topic? Do I need to mention these?
2. What progress has been made since these seminal works?
3. What are the most relevant recent works? What is the best order to mention these works?
4. What are the achievements and limitations of these recent works?
5. What gap do these limitations reveal?
6. How does my work intend to fill this gap?
2. 什么样的风格描述文献
style 1 Blinco [1992] found that Japanese elementary school children showed …（强调作者）
style 2 In [5] Blinco found that Japanese elementary school children showed …（强调作者的文献，不只一篇文献）
style 3 A study of the level of persistence in school children is presented by Blinco [1992]. （强调发现，被动语态，可读性变差）
style 4 A greater level of persistence has been noticed in Japan [ 5].
可以根据需要多个风格混用，这样也可以增加阅读的多样性。
3. 时态的选择
present simple (descriptions of established sci -entific fact), present perfect (at the beginning of review to give general over -view; for past-to-present evolutions), past simple (when specific dates are mentioned within a sentence; for the verbs that introduce an author’s findings)
S1. In the literature there are several examples of new strategies to perform these tests, which all entail setting new parameters [Peters 1997, Grace 2004, Gatto 2005].
S2. Many different approaches have been proposed to solve this issue.
S3. As yet , a solution to Y has not been found, although three attempts have been made .[Peters 1997, Grace 2004, Gatto 2007].
必须用一般过去式的情况：
• The year of publication is stated within the main sentence (i.e. not just in brackets)
• You mention specific pieces of research (e.g. you talk about initial approaches and methods
• that have subsequently probably been abandoned)
• You state the exact date when something was written, proved etc.
S4. This problem was first analyzed in 1994 [Peters]
the first verb introduces the author and is typically used in the past simple . Other similar verbs are, for example: examine, analyze, verify, propose, design , suggest, outline, investigate, study, develop.
S5. Lindley [10] investigated the use of the genitive in French and English and his results agree with other authors’ findings in this area [12, 13, 18]. He proved that …
However, it is common to use the present simple when describing how a system, method, procedure etc. functions.
Use the present simple to discuss previously published laws, theorems, definitions, proofs, lemmas etc. Such published work is generally considered to be established knowledge and the use of the present simple reflects this.
S6. The theorem states that the highest degree of separation is achieved when …
4. 如何谈论以前工作的局限性和现在工作的新颖性
提出未做过的工作：
As far as we know, there are no studies on …
To [the best of] our knowledge, the literature has not discussed …
We believe that this is the first time that principal agent theory has been applied to …
提出研究的局限性：
Generally speaking patients’ perceptions are seldom considered.
Results often appear to conflict with each other …
So far X has never been applied to Y.
Moreover , no attention has been paid to …
These studies have only dealt with the situation in X, whereas our study focuses on the
situation in Y.
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