Scientific Writing (The Style of Scientific Prose)

The main functionof the scientific style is rational cognition and linguistic presentation of the dynamics of thinking. Inner differen­tiation and the formation of the sub-styles and genres of the scientific style used in different fields of science are characterized by different manners of scientific presentation (thesis, abstract of thesis, mono­graph, article, report, annotation, review, etc.). ”Sub-languages ” of scientific styles are law, political, medical, economic, technical, computer, linguistic, etc. Types of presentation: description and argumentation (deduction, induction). Scientific texts present diffe­rent degrees of polemics. The popularization of the scientific information adds similarities to literary writing to the text. The addressee factor also plays a significant role. Style-forming features: a great role of tradition in the use of language means, an objective and non-categorical presentation, specific means of expression, a certain extent of emphasis, restrictions in the use of intensification, evaluation, emotio­nal language means, the absence of imagery.

Many publications require that an informative abstract accompany every paper. For a research paper, the abstract should summarize the principal findings. For a review paper, the abstract should describe the topic, the scope, the sources reviewed, and the conclusion. The purposes of the abstract are to allow the reader to determine the nature and scope of the information given in the paper. It should be concise and self-contained. Abbreviations and acronyms should be used sparingly and only when necessary to prevent awkward con­struc­tion or needless repetitions. In the result section it is essential to summarize the data collected and the statistical treatment of them. Equations, figures, and tables are given where necessary for clarity and conciseness. The discussion section should be objective. The fea­tures and limitations of the work are pointed and the results are interpreted.

Language means of the scientific style are the following.

Lexical means – highly specialized scientific terminology, termi­nological groups, revealing the conceptual systems of the scien­tific style, the peculiarities of the use of terms in scientific spe­ech, the use of nouns and verbs in abstract meanings; strong verbs are used: they are essential to clear, concise writing; special reference words, scientific phraseology – clichés, stereo­typed and hackneyed word combinations and idioms, the priority of neutral vocabulary, limitations in the use of emotional – eva­luative and expressive vocabulary and phraseology, the absence of non-literary vocabulary and phraseology (slang words, vulgar­isms, obscene words); authors stick to the original meaning of words: they do not use a word to express a thought if such usage is the fourth or fifth definition in the dictionary or if such usage is primarily literary; instead of “man” the words “people”, “humans”, “human beings”, or “human species” are used; peculiarities in word-building (standard suffixes and prefixes, mainly of Greek and Latin origin – tele-, morpho-, philo-, -ism, etc.), pecu­liarities in the scarce use of imagery (usually trite and hackneyed, the priority of the functions of intensification and decoration, a non-systematic, narrow contextual character, the absence of rich associations, a schematic and generalized character).

Grammatical means: a nominal character (the predominance of nouns over verbs) in the use of parts of speech; the use of pre­positional “of-phrases” to substitute the genitive case; the tran­sposition of the classes of nouns; a wide use of the Passive Voice (though the Active voice is recommended to be used whenever possible: it is less wordy and unambiguous; brevity is effective); Indefinite Tenses (present and past tenses are used in the introduction. Simple past tense is used to describe procedures. Present tense is used to discuss results and conclusions); the specialization of pronouns in demonstrative and inten­sification functions; numerous conjunctions revealing the logical order of the text as well as double conjunctions (not merely... but also, whether... or both... and, as...as), adverbs of logical connecting; instead of “he” and “she” the plural (“they” and “theirs”) or first person (“we”, “us”, and “ours”) are used.

Syntactical means: short declarative sentences are easiest to write and easiest to read, and they are usually clear; to avoid abruptness and monotony authors start with simple declarative sentences and then combine some of them with long rambling sentences and then try to shorten them; the priority of full, logically correct, regular syntactical models, the syntax of simple sentence in the scientific speech – an extensive use of extended two-member sentence, the priority in the use of compound sentences, an extensive use of secondary predicative constructions (Complex Object, Par­ticipial and Gerundial Construc­tions), a wide use of conjunctions and denominative prepositions, a concise expression of syntactical connection in word combinations, sentences, groups of sentences, an absolute priority of declarative sentences in the use of com­municative types of sentences.

Composition of scientific text: as an explication of the stages of cognition and productive thinking, the usual model is presented by the following scheme – a problem situation, idea, hypothesis, proof, conclusion, compositional speech forms of discussion, argumentation and description, conclusion, types of narration, a wide-spread co-referential repetition as a specific method of text development.

Functional restrictions: strong objections to the use of non-literary vocabulary, a scarce use of emotional and intensification units of vocabulary and phraseology, and stylistic devices (me­tap­hors, metonymies, etc.), the absence of the second person form and corresponding personal pronouns, a scarce use of “I-speaking”, a limited use of incomplete and non-declarative, and one-member sentences; first person is perfectly acceptable only where it helps keep the author’s meaning clear. However, phrases like “we believe”, “we feel”, “we concluded” and “we can see” are unnecessary, as are personal opinions.

Writing for the Press

1. Publicist Style (Journalese)

The major functions of the publicist style: social influence and public opinion manipulation; the informative function. Additional functions: propaganda, popularization, education, organization, analysis and criticism, hedonism (entertainment).

Stylistic features of the publicist style: the interchange of standard and expressiveness, explicit evaluation, affective, impressive character, stylistic effects of "novelty", advertising, mass-group social orientation, factography (documentary precision, abundance of statis­tics, toponymic and proper names, factual data), a neutral or formal manner of presentation, generalization, the use of arguments, multi-stylistic character.

Publicistic style and other functional styles. The publicist style presents the sphere of intersection with the style of fiction (essay, sketch, lampoon, satirical article) and scientific style (commentary, review). It can also possess some qualities of conversational and official styles. Substyles and genres: the publicist style proper (lampoons, articles, essays, sketches, travelogues, memoirs), political propa­ganda (slogans, leaflets, proclamations), etc.

Newspaper Style

Basically servesthe purpose of informing and instructing the reader, and partially rendering evaluation. Newspaper genres: editorial (leading article), newsreel, brief news report, reportage, interview, essay, title, topical satire, advertisement.

Brief news items provide explicit information, low level or zero eva­luation. They have complicated syntactical constructions, deve­loped system of clauses, the abundance of non-finite forms. The language is characterized by clichés, trite metaphors, expressive means, fixed word-combinations. They are overloaded with special political and economic terms, non-term political vocabulary, abbreviations, neolo­gisms. They can consist of 1-3 paragraphs of classical structure:

· an introductory sentence

· the development of the idea

· a summarizing sentence.

Headlines of brief news items are very informative. They tend to omit articles, auxiliary verbs, demonstrative pronouns. Neutral, neutral-colloquial and neutral-literary vocabulary is mainly used in them. The functional purpose is to draw the reader’s attention and to inform him.

Editorials tend to evaluate events, they tend to express the point of view. They are longer, contain a greater number of paragraphs, but they have the same fixed structure.

Advertisements and announcements are highly evaluative, not very informative. The texts are not very long. They render the information about the object and ascribe positive evaluation to the goods advertised. Of all newspaper texts announcements exhibit the use of a greater number of trite means of speech imagery.

Headlines. Their function is to inform the reader briefly of what the news that follows is about. The main features of headlines are omitted articles, phrases with verbals, full declarative sentences, interrogative sentences, nominative sentences, elliptical sentences, questions in the form of statements. English headlines are short and catchy. They may contain emotionally colored words, often resort to a deliberate breaking-up of set expressions (Cakes and bitter ale). The pun and alliteration are very common in headlines.

Language Means of the publicist style are the following.

Graphic Means: a wide use of graphic means – the change of prints, word-arts, italics, various graphic symbols (asterisks, etc.) used for the sake of text limitation as well as elements of compositional arrangement such as columns, titles, subtitles, parts and paragraphs.

Phonetic means: rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, onomaetopia; allite­ra­tion renders negative evaluation.

Vocabulary means: the priority of neutral and bookish vocabulary; a wide use of language means to actualize the chronotop (proper and geogra­phi­cal names, the abundance of statistics, toponymic and proper names, facts and data); means of evaluation; neologisms, social political termino­logy; a great number of loan-words and international words; the use of words and word-combinations typical of other styles (especially, conversational) against the general back­ground of the bookish style vocabulary, including terminology as well as means of imagery to increase expressiveness (trite metaphors, meto­nymies, personifi­ca­tion, metaphorical paraphrases, a metapho­ri­cal use of terminology); newspaper terms: newspaper vocabulary and cliches (journalese and bookish), the decomposition of phraseological units. Word-building: loan suffixes and prefixes as well as the combination of words.

Grammatical means: in morphology the use of the singular number of nouns in their collective meaning, the plural number for the definition of generalization, a wide use of the superlative degree of adjectives in order to reveal the expressiveness, substantiation and evaluation of the use of numerals, adjectives and participles. The average sentence length is 9-11words. A wide use of declarative sentences. The use of ques­tions, exclamatory sentences for the sake of expressiveness. Means of expressive syntax: inversions, parallelism, antithesis, parcellation, gradation, isolation, different types of the author's words presentation and conversational constructions, different patterns in the use of homogeneous parts of the sentence – double, three-element and multi-element.

Compositional and textual means: canonized three-part structure of publicist texts, the principle of “pyramid” and its effects in the composition of modern newspaper text, the use of compositional (foregrounding) devices.