Wayward Modifiers

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From the course by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Scholarly Communication

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Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Scholarly Communication

125 ratings

Course 2 of 5 in the Specialization English for Research Publication Purposes

Scholarly Communication is a concise but comprehensive course on how to write research papers in English. The course will help the candidates gain a better understanding of the rhetorical conventions of English and the common challenges the candidates may face as an academic writer. The course provides instruction, exercises, structure, and deadlines needed to create a publishable paper. The aim of the course is to improve competence in scholarly communications by deepening knowledge of the core features of the scientific writing style. It presents and analyzes the unwritten rules of scientific writing, the ones candidates most likely never learned in academic writing. The course will enable the candidates to write clear, detailed and well-structured scientific texts appropriate to a suitable academic journal. In particular, they will develop an awareness of fundamental concepts of academic writing, such as contrastive rhetoric, logical organization, and argumentation. In addition, they will develop skills for self-editing and revision techniques, including editing for precision and clarity. They will also gain a deeper understanding of how to prepare a scientific paper using the IMRAD format. Finally, the candidates will develop an enhanced understanding of the concept of academic integrity and the ethics of scientific writing. The candidates will be able to overcome anxiety about academic publishing and get their research papers published in international journals.

From the lesson

The Challenge

MODULE II: THE CHALLENGE covers issues relating to the internal text structures intrinsic to a research article. The module clarifies the usage of three major types of modifiers (squinting, misplaced, and dangling) and suggests a number of strategies to avoid obvious negation. In addition, you will learn how to create stronger academic writing by choosing the right verb form used either in active or passive voice. The module teaches Anglo-American style of outlining, paragraphing, and argumentation to make the reading process easier for the reader. Also, you will develop an awareness of the process of journal analysis.

Wayward Modifiers9:35

Hidden Negation5:30

Active vs. Passive4:24

Meet the Instructors

Elena Bazanova
Director of the Language Training and Testing Center
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

In literature, the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language.

The struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.

George Bernard Show.

[MUSIC]

>> Blessing words properly is essential to unity in content and

construction of a research paper.

Incorrectly placed or incorrectly constructed phrases

can cause problems both in clarity and logic.

What words should be properly place?

Modifiers, modifiers are words and

phrases that give more specific information about the words,

in most cases nouns and pronouns, after which they are used.

The guiding principle for the use of modifiers in English,

is that the writer should place them next to the word or phrase that it modifies.

Whenever a modifier is not placed where it belongs

i's placed wrongly or misplaced, then the reader

immediately gets confused and frustrated by the meaning of the sentence.

3 major types of modifier problems occur in English.

Squinting modifiers, misplaced modifiers and dangling modifiers.

Squinting modifiers can be hard to define

when you're looking over what you've written.

Because being the writer of your paper you know what you mean and

you unconsciously assume that what you have written

is correct and anyone is suppose to understand what you have written.

But this can be wrong.

Consider this example.

We agreed at our first meeting to implement the new procedure.

Once you have recognized a squinting modifier, fixing is easy.

You simply need to move the modifier to the word that it modifies

away from the word that you do not want it to modify.

In other words, if it modifies the first word,

then put the modifier next to this word.

If you want to modify the second word, then move it to the second word

and then the sentence would read, at our first meeting

we agreed to implement the new procedure at the first meeting.

Writers find squinting modifiers very hard to recognize

in their own writing because they know so

clearly in their own mind what they mean that they cannot

imagine any other interpretation of their own sentence.

But remember Murphy's law.

If the reader is going to misunderstand your writing, he or she will.

Always proofread or edit your own paper in order to

identify any misplaced modifiers that you may have in your writing.

A misplaced modifier is exactly what it sounds like,

a modifier in the wrong place.

Theoretically, at least, the placement of only may affect writing.

I want one only and I only want one, have exactly the same meaning.

Also, you may have learned that only

immediately precede the word that it modifies.

Most writers use this word incorrectly, and

when they use it incorrectly the sentence sounds unnaturally.

Consider this example, the committee only seemed interested in their proposal.

The sentence sounds unnatural because you expect it go before the verb,

because that's the most typical place for an adverb, before a verb.

As with squinting modifiers, fixing misplaced modifiers is easy.

As with the squinting modifier,

misplaced modifiers are very difficult for the writer to spot.

But once he or she spots the misplaced modifier, it is really easy to fix.

And then the sentence would read,

the committee seemed interested only in their proposal.

A dangling modifier is hard nut to crack.

A dangling modifier is a modifying phrase, often introductory,

with no known present for it to refer to in a sentence.

Therefore in dangles in a sentence, in some cases it is called hanging modifier.

It is called dangling or hanging because it dangles in the sentence and

the noun that it is supposed to modify is missing.

Natalie Reid, in her famous book, How to Get Published in International Journals,

wrote, I think of it as being all dressed up with nowhere to party.

So, the metaphor is dressed up, it's ready to do it's job, but

there is no noun to modify.

So, a dangling modifier is a phrase that modifies a noun

that does not appear in the sentence.

Dangling modifiers, in most cases, are considered as grammatical errors.

Consider the example.

Turning to Table 4, quite a few differences are found.

The sentence not only sounds unnatural, it is grammatically wrong.

Danglers come in many forms, most often the problem involves the descriptive

phrase at the beginning of the sentence referring to noun or pronoun that follows.

Here's the clue, here's the solution, a very quick fix.

You should put the noun and pronoun immediately after the scripted phrase.

If you do not do this your reader would be confused and

the sentence would sound unnatural and obscure.

Then the sentence would read, turning to Table 4, we find several differences.

One common question among academic writers when they first encountered dangling

pronouns, is how to rewrite their sentence with both correct structure and

good academic style.

And not surprisingly, their concern arises

from their fear of using I and we, as they think that

these pronouns will diminish the quality of their scholarly writing.

But as we already know from the previous lesson, that I and

we are a powerful tool that you can use to sound confident and

to show that you take responsibility for your research.

Based on is an extremely common dangling modifier problem.

This phrase appears in almost every research paper,

yet researchers use this phrase incorrectly.

To use this phrase, to use based on phrase correctly.

The writer should understand and

visualize the concept of something being based on something.

Consider this example,

based on his findings, we agree that our conclusions are wrong.

The sentence is incorrect because we cannot be based on anybody's findings.

Remember that you should never use based on to refer to a human subject.

There are three possible ways of fixing the problem.

The first way is to name specifically what is based on his findings.

You may say, based on his findings, our conclusions are incorrect.

Or, based on his findings, our decision is that our conclusions are incorrect.

The second way is to keep we in the independent clause and

specify what we did.

After reviewing his findings, we agree that our conclusions are incorrect.

The third possible solution is to substitute based on worth given

his findings, we agree that our conclusions are incorrect.

So, by placing modifiers where they belong.

Putting them in the right place in the sentences

will increase the chances of your paper to get published, and

this powerful writing will convince other researchers, reviewers, and

editors that your thinking is clear, precise, and accurate.

And then, your paper will definitely get published in the high rank

international journal.

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