Now read the text “Science: The Endless Resource” and study
In case of permanent contacts between scientists they exchange business correspondence and can send letters of invitation to each other.
September 20, 2005
On behalf of our Organizing Committee I have the pleasure of inviting you to attend and possibly present your paper at the International Conference on Sustainable Development which is to be held in London on November 12-15, 2005. We are sure that your participation will contribute much to the success of the Conference.
If you intend to submit a paper (an abstract of not more than 200 words), we should like to have it not later than November 4. Enclosed you will find requirements to abstracts. We will have published Conference proceedings volume by the end of this year. No conference fee is required for invited speakers. The cost of food and accommodation will also be borne by the host University. But much to our regret the Conference budget does not permit us to cover your travel expenses.
We are looking forward to your participation in the conference and would like to have a definite answer by the above-mentioned deadline. You will find Registration Form enclosed with the letter. Should the proposed dates be inconvenient for you inform us of possible changes.
Yours faithfully,
Prof. William Adams
Being a conference attendee you are sure to fill in a registration form like that:
Check the knowledge of the topical vocabulary identifying English
equivalents for the following Russian ones:
получить приглашение
участвовать в конференции
поделиться опытом
быть устроителем конференции
заинтересованные учреждения
информационное письмо
пленарное заседание
секционная работа
рабочий язык конференции
организационный взнос
тезисы доклада
сделать сообщение
обсуждение за «круглым столом»
культурная программа
подводить итоги работы конференции
заключительная речь
Speak on the latest conference you’ve attended according to the given plan:
– preliminary announcement;
– the conference status;
– who hosted the conference;
– who sponsored the conference;
– when was the conference held;
– number of participants;
– registration fee;
– accommodation provided;
– problem field of the conference;
– conference agenda;
– ways of presenting one’s …;
– plenary session; workshops;
– conference proceedings.
Exchange opinions with your fellow-students on the following issues:
– role of the conferences in young researchers’ lives;
– function of an organizing committee;
– requirements to submitted abstracts and papers;
– your personal experience in attending conferences;
– your first report delivered at a conference.
REPORTS AND PRESENTATIONS
Scientific report writing requires the use of certain techniques and conventions that are detailed, strict and not always easy to master. The main purpose of a scientific report is to communicate. A typical structure and style have evolved to convey essential information and ideas as concisely and effectively as possible. The main aim of the report is to state your opinion on the issue or to provide precise information about a practical investigation.
Audience. Assume that your intended reader has a background similar to yours before you started the project. That is, a general understanding of the topic but no specific knowledge of the details. The reader should be able to reproduce whatever you did by following your report.
Clarity of Writing. Good scientific reports share many of the qualities found in other kinds of writing. To write is to think, so a paper that lays out ideas in a logical order will facilitate the same kind of thinking. Make each sentence follows from the previous one, building an argument piece by piece. Group related sentences into paragraphs, and group paragraphs into sections. Create a flow from beginning to end.
Style. It is customary for reports to be written in the third person or the 'scientific passive', for example, instead of writing 'I saw', one writes 'it was observed'; rather than, 'I think that ...' one writes 'it could be stated that ...' and so on. Avoid jargon, slang, or colloquial terms. Define acronyms and any abbreviations not used as standard measurement units. Most of the report describes what you did, and thus it should be in the past tense (e.g., "values were averaged"), but use present or future tense as appropriate (e.g., "x is bigger than y" or "that effect will happen"). Employ the active rather than passive voice to avoid boring writing and contorted phrases (e.g., "the software calculated average values" is better than "average values were calculated by the software").
Typical Sections. There are four major sections to a scientific report, sometimes known as IMRAD – Introduction, Methods, Results, And Discussion. Respectively, these sections structure your report to say "here's the problem, here's how I studied it, here's what I found, and here's what it means." There are additional minor sections that precede or follow the major sections including the title, abstract, acknowledgements, references, and appendices. All sections are important, but at different stages to different readers. When flipping through a journal, a reader might read the title first, and if interested further then the abstract, then conclusions, and then if he or she is truly fascinated perhaps the entire paper. You have to convince the reader that what you have done is interesting and important by communicating appeal and content in all sections.
Title of the report. Convey the essential point of the paper. Be precise, concise, and use key words. Avoid padding with phrases like "A study of ..." or headlines like "Global warming will fry Earth!" It is usual to write the title as one phrase or sentence. A good title is brief and informative. Titles should not exceed 10 or 12 words, and they should reveal the content of the study.
Many titles take one of these two forms: a simple nominal sentence (Asymmetric Information, Stock Returns and Monetary Policy) or beginning with The effect of (for example, The Effects of Financial Restrictions and Technological Diversity on Innovation). Sometimes it is impossible to make word-by-word translation from Russian into English, for example, Об оценке работы фирмы should be translated as Assessing the Firm Performance or К проблеме хеджевых фондов is translated as Hedge Funds. Sometimes the title contains two parts, the first one is the topic, while the second is its specific details (International Financial Contagion: Evidence from the Argentine Crisis of 2001-2002). If the report is of a very problematic issue its title may be in the form of a question (Was There a Credit Crunch in Turkey?)
Introduction. This section should contain a brief history of the research problem with appropriate references to the relevant literature and the purpose of the study. Introduce the problem, moving from the broader issues to your specific problem, finishing the section with the precise aims of the paper (key questions). Craft this section carefully, setting up your argument in logical order.
Refer to relevant ideas/theories and related research by other authors. Answer the question "what is the problem and why is it important?" The introduction should also explain whether the study is an extension of a previous one, or whether a completely new hypothesis is to be tested. The final section of the introduction generally includes a list of all the hypotheses being tested in the study. The results of the current study are not to be referred to in the introduction
The manner of presenting the material is very concise and it tends to be critical.
The summary writer appreciates the material from his point of view and uses as a rule a wide range of clichés, which can be divided into several groups:
1) those introducing the heading and the author:
The article (text) is head-lined …
The head-line of the article (I have read) is …
The article is entitled …
The author of the article (text) is …
The article is written by …
2) those introducing the leading theme of the original paper:
The text deals with ...
The article is devoted to...
The chapter is about..
The article touches upon…
3) those drawing the reader's attention to the major points of the contents:
The author emphasizes the idea of...
The author points out that ...
Attention is drawn to the fact...
In the opinion of the author it is .
4) those introducing secondary information:
Further the author reports
The author states…
The article goes on to say…
According to the text …
5) those forming a conclusion to which the reader's attention is drawn:
The author comes to the conclusion that...
The author concludes by saying ...
The basic approach of the author is that, etc
Now read the text “Science: The Endless Resource” and study
Its sample summary.