Your discourse___Tips on language
Typically an academic text in arts and humanities is from 2500 to 7000 words, depending on whether it is written as a conference paper or as a journal article. The higher number is what would be expected for a journal article where you would develop your ideas on a deeper level. The lower number is what would be expected for a conference paper, which is much more of a survey, broad outline type of text.
For exhibition or funding applications there may also be cases where you will be required to make short submissions that are limited to 2 pages and sometimes even only to 1 page, including images. These are far more difficult to manage than the longer ones since the essence of a full paper will then need to be squished into a summary of 1000 words or less.
For all these types of texts, here are some tips on language:
- Do not hide behind big words. If
your work has meaning and purpose it will become revealed in the
simplest language. If it doesn’t, no amount of esoterica will make up
for the lack. So:
- If you can avoid to do so do not use long words or long sentences!
- Do not use words the meanings of which you are unsure of, no matter how good they may sound!
- Use the online dictionary to find the absolute correct meaning of a word or term you are unsure of,
- and the online thesaurus to avoid the excessive repetition of certain words or terms.
- Do not get complicated in general, either in the way you express yourself or in how you convey your content. Get to the point! Be clear! Use your own words as much as you can and academic terms only when there is no substitute for them. This does not mean that you should be simplistic. It only means that your text should be "readable."
- Do not repeat yourself by phrasing the same thing in different ways.
- Do not make long lists of things that you can describe with just one or two examples of the genre.
- Do not use long quotes but try to summarize the idea embedded in the text you are quoting from by using your own words.
- And please relax: Your English does not have to be perfect. In fact, given our globalized world, most submissions to publications as well as their reviewers come from non-English speaking cultures such as yours and no one is looking for perfectly rounded English, down to its last finest nuances and niceties. Which certainly does not mean that your English should be sloppy or undecipherable or in-correct! Whichever language you write in, you do have to write in such a way that your text is easily understandable, flows well and has no grammatical errors.
- And a few extra words to Turkish paper writers: Do not use the word “some” more than maybe once or at most twice in a full paper. We Turks use the corresponding word of “bazı” very often; however, “some” is not exactly the same as “bazı” and it’s excessive usage implies vagueness and uncertainty. Second, please remember that unlike Turkish, object words in English need to have “the” added in front of them. Be careful with this one – we Turks usually tend to totally forget the “the”.
- And, Turks and non-Turks alike, definitely do a “Word” grammar and spell check prior to submission! While no one may be expecting absolutely perfect English from you, typos and thoroughly weird sentences are completely unacceptable!