文档介绍：科研中国
The mon Habits from more than 200 English Papers written by
Graduate Chinese Engineering Students

By Felicia Brittman

This paper presents some of the mon Chinese-English habits observed
from over two hundred English technical papers by Chinese writers. The habits are
explained and in most cases, example text from an actual paper is given along with
preferred text. An attempt is made to explain how to correct and prevent such mistakes.
In some cases a possible explanation of why the habit occurs is also given. This paper
can serve as an individual guide to editing technical papers especially when a native
English-speaking editor is unavailable.

Introduction
Most Chinese universities require their doctoral and master candidates in
technical and scientific fields to publish at least one English paper in an international
journal as a degree requirement. However, many factors make this task difficult to
plish. First, previous English studies may not have focused enough on writing, let
alone technical writing. Current studies may not include English, causing the writers
English fluency level to decline. Second, most writers have never lived in an English-
speaking country. Third, due to the special aspects of technical writing, even native
English-speaking engineering students have a technical writing course as part of their
study.
Too often, students’ papers are returned epted because of poor English. If
available, students may have their papers edited by a native English speaker. However,
this can get expensive for a department that has many students with each paper typically
needing to be edited twice. Hiring someone to edit papers is difficult, costly and only puts
a patch over the problem. A native English speaker can do a good job at getting rid of
most of the grammatical mistakes. However, if this person does not have a technical
background, particularly in the area of the papers he is editing