英语科技论文写作

英文科技论文写作的常见问题

参考资料:《天文物理类英文科技论文写作的常见问题》-张双南-2014

词语辨析

  • questionproblem,常见搭配有“ask a question”,“answer a question”,“formulate a problem”,“solve a problem”等。
    I have a question about the last page of your presentation.(有不清楚或者不明白的东西要问)
    I have a problem about the last page of your presentation. (是指你认为有错误)
  • “property”, “character”和“characteristic用法区分”。它们翻译成中文都是“特征”、“特性”和“性质”,但是在英文中意思不同。
    [1] “property”是最普通用词,既可指有形或无形的特性,又可指个性或共性的特征。比如: A star has the following properties.
    [2] “character”多指一类人或事物所具有的独特的典型的特征,用于人的时候比较多。比如: Soldiers should have brave character. “character”也常常用于指电影或者书里面的“人物”,比 如:David is a character in this movie.
    [3] “characteristic”指某人或某物天生有别于他人或他物的内部特质或外表特征。比如:The characteristics of neutron stars are listed in table 1.
  • obscure做动词表示遮掩,遮蔽;使费解,形容词表示鲜为人知的,复杂难懂的; 难处理的。表示“模糊”的时候要用“fuzzy”, “blur”, “dark”, “faint”等。
    [1] The black hole is obscured by the dust along the line of sight.
    [2] The image of the star is fuzzy (或blurred), because the telescope is out of focus.
    [3] The source appears to be dark (或faint), because of the obscuration by the gas in front of it.
  • at last”和“finally”不完全一样,前者有“终于(费劲心力)”的含义,后者没有,感情中性。
  •  “suspect or suspicious”(正面)和“doubt or doubtful”(负面),翻成中文都是“怀疑”,但是英文的意思几乎是相反的。
    [1] We suspect that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the over-simplification of the model. (我们怀疑观测数据和模型的偏离是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
    [2] It is suspicious that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the over-simplification of the model. (观测数据和模型的偏离有可能是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
    [3] We doubt that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the over-simplification of the model. (我们怀疑观测数据和模型的偏离不是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
    [4] It is doubtful that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by theover-simplification of the model. (观测数据和模型的偏离不太可能是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
  • 注意区分“distinction” (定性的区别) 和“difference” (定量的不同):
    [1] A distinction should be made between a star and a planet. (“star”和“planet”有定性的不同)
    [2] The difference between the two measurements is only 10%. (显然是定量的不同)
  • 因为的表达区分:“because”的主要意思就是“因为”,而“since”的主要意思是“自从”(描述时间)。不建议使用“as”,因为“as”的主要意思是“作为”。以下是使用“due to”和“because of”的例子:
    [1] Due to the expansion of the universe, the distances between galaxies become farther and farther.
    [2] Because of your work, this problem has been solved completely.
    在大多数情况下,“due to”和“because of”可以通用,但是意思略微有所不同。“due to指自然发展、顺理成章的理由,“because of”指主动介入导致结果的理由
  • “revise”, “correct”, “modify”的区别:第一个表示意为“修改或者更新,没有错误,但是不够完善”,第二个表示“修正或者改正,有错误,需要改过来”,第三个的意思介于前两者之间。
  • luminous”和“bright”的区别:
    在天文学中,“luminous”和“bright”的含义是不同的。“luminous”是指“亮度”很大, “bright”是指“流强”很大,“bright”的反义词是“faint”,但是“luminous”没有反义词(指天文学中没有对应的反义词),但是有时候用“weak”来表示和“luminous”相反的意思,或者就简单地用“less luminous”。
  • justonly 不分:
    [1] This model can just explain the data. 这个模型恰好能够解释那些数据(这是对模型的肯定)。
    [2] This model can only explain the data. 这个模型只能够解释那些数据(这是对模型的否定)。
  • figure, plot, picture, photo, illustration, schematic, diagram, 和 flow chart 的区别
    “figure”是统称 “plot”指数据点或者曲线画出的图, “picture”和“photo”指图片或者照片或者图片, “illustration”, “schematic”, “diagram” 都是指示意图,“flow chart”指流程图。
    [1] In Figure 3, the left panel is the plot between the observed temperature and luminosity of this star.
    [2] The right panel of Figure 3 is the picture (或者 photo) of the galaxy. (注意 picture 指一般性的图片,比如手画的,但是 photo 特指照片,一般指“照相机”拍照的)
    [3] Figure 4 is an illustration of the state transition processes of this binary system.
    [4] The schematic of this telescope is shown in Figure 7.
    [5] The diagram in Figure 3 shows how a star evolves.
    [6] Figure 6 is the flow chart of our numerical calculations.
  •  limit, limitation, constrain, constraint 都是“限制”的意思,但用法不同
    [1] We limit (这里“limit”的意思是“限制”,不能用“constrain”) the redshift range between 0.1 and 0.3 (或者from 0.1 to 0.3, 但是注意不能用between 0.1 to 0.3, 也不能用between 0.1 to 0.3).
    [2] The range of the redshift of these objects is constrained (这里“constrain”的意思是“约束”,不能用 limit)between 0.1 and 0.3 with their measured emission lines.
    [3] From the measured emission line of this object, we obtain a constraint (这里 constraint 是名词,不能用 constrain, 因为 constrain 是动词)to its redshift between 0.1 and 0.3.
    [3] The main limitation (这里“limitation”的意思是“局限”,不能用 limit 或者 constraint,尽管两者也都是名词) of this method is that it can only be applied to objects at low redshift.

名词的复数形式

  1. 几个单复数同形的常见名词:“literature, staff, faculty, deer,sheep,fish,Chinese,Japanese”等。
  2. 易混淆的不可数名词(没有复数形式),如“evidence”,“equipment”, “horsepower”,
    information”, “manpower”等。如果要用复数或者指很多,可以这么用:“a lot of equipment”, “95 times of (习惯上“of”也经常省略掉) horsepower”或者“95 horsepower”(这里“horsepower”指的是单位“马力”), “huge manpower”,one piece of evidence或者many pieces of evidence。
  3. 有些抽象名词在具体化时,可以以复数形式出现。表示特指时,可和定冠词连用;表示“某种”或“一次”意义时,可和不定冠词连用[2]。如:How did you smooth away the difficulties?(指各种具体困难)It is a great pleasure to talk with you. What a surprise!
  4. 不规则变化
    datum/data   nucleus/nuclei   spectrum/spectra   focus/foci   medium/media   radius /radii   nova/novae   locus/loci   formula/formulae   torus/tori   index/indices   modulus/moduli   continuum/continua
  5. 表示由两部分构成的东西,如:“glasses” (眼镜),“trousers”,“clothes”等,若表达具 体数目,要借助数量词“pair”(对,双),“suit”(套)。比如:“a pair of glasses”, “two pairs of trousers”等。
  6. 非整数情况下的单复数:小于等于1的就是单数,大于1的就是复数。
  7. “单位符号”没有复数形式:1 keV, 2 keV, 1 km, 2 km, 1 kg, 2 km 都是正确的,但是2 keVs, 2 kgs, 2 kms 都是错误的。但是注意“单位”有复数形式:2 meters, 2 grams, 2 ergs 都是正确的。

词义的选取

  1. 科技文章中为了避免歧义,一般情况下使用单词的第一个意思
    (1) “for”的意思包括“为了”、“因为”,但是在科技文章里面只使用“为了”。需要“因为”的时 候用“because”或者“since”。再比如“as”的意思包括“作为”、“因为”等,但是在科技文章里面 只使用“作为”。
    (2) “while”主要有两个意思:“当...... 时候”和“然而”。但是科技英文尽可能使用单词的第一 个意思,因此建议只使用“while”为“当...... 时候”,当需要使用“然而”的时候用“whereas”
  2. “primary”的意思,很多学生都在使用“primary”的时候误用作“初始”(“initial”) 或者“初
    级”(“elementary”) 或者“非正式”(“preliminary”)。实际上“primary”的主要意思是“主要”。例子:
    [1] The energy spectrum of this source is consisted of two components; the primary (主要) component is a blackbody with a temperature of 1 keV and the secondary (次要) component is a power-law with a photon index of -2.
    [2] After analyzing these data, our preliminary (初步) conclusion is that this accretion disk has an inner disk radius of 20 km. [3] After analyzing these data, our primary (主要) conclusion is that this accretion disk has an inner disk radius of 20 km.

冠词

可数名词以单数出现的时候前面必须加冠词“a”或者“the”。“a”是不定冠词,没有特指 的含意;“the”是定冠词,专门用来放在特指的名词或者名词性短语之前。

(1) 关于买书的例句:
[1] I bought a book about Einstein yesterday. (有很多关于爱因斯坦的书,我买了其中的一本,
但是从这句话了你无法了解到底是哪一本。)
[2] I bought the book about Einstein we discussed in the class yesterday.
[3] I bought the book about Einstein's love stories.
[4] I bought the book about Einstein. (尽管没有明确指出,但是谈话的双方都知道是哪一本书,或者世界上只有一本关于爱因斯坦的书。)
[5] I bought three books about Einstein's general relativity. (随便三本。)
[6] I bought the three books about Einstein's general relativity. (只有三本。)
[7] I bought the three most popular books about Einstein's general relativity. (三本最受欢迎的。)
[8] I bought three most popular books about Einstein's general relativity. (最受欢迎的其中三本。)
通过比较这几个例句,可知[2]—[5] 的意思完全不同。

(2) 最经常漏掉“the”的例子
[1] “In left panel of Figure 2”改为“In the left panel of Figure 2”; (left panel 是特指)
[2] “In following section, we show…”改为“In the following section, we show…”;(following section 是特指)
[3] “We will calculate this quantity in following paragraph.”改为“We will calculate this quantity in the following paragraph.”(following paragraph 是特指)
[4] “In above calculations, we have ... ”改为“In the above calculations, we have ... ”(“above calculations“是特指。)
[5] From above discussions 改为 From the above discussions,道理同上

(3) 习惯用法,same前一定要加“the”,the same as 经常误写为 same with
[1] Our calculation result is the same as (注意这里常常犯两个错误,一是忘记加“the”,二是把“as”误写为“with”) that reported in Zhang et al. (1989). the same 误写为 a same
[2] This is the (经常忘记加“the”,或者把“the”写成“a”) same phenomenon.
[3] The twins look the same. 那对双胞胎看上去一模一样。
[4] 比如“The same method is also used here. ”很多同学都错误地写成“Same method is also used here.”
[5] 再比如“We have chosen the cross-correlation method, the same as that used by Ling &Zhang (2006).”是正确的。

(4)不该用但是误用“the”的情况:
[a] “the equation 3”,“the table 4”,“the figure 5”都是错误的,因为“equation 3”,“table 4”,“figure 5”已经是特指了,不需要再加“the”。
最经常误用“the”的例子:
This is shown in the equation (10) and the figure 5.
As the description above 改为 As described above
as the follows 改为as follows (上述例子中的“the”都需要去掉)
[b] 物理量符号前面一般不需要加“the”,因为已经是特指了。

中英文翻译和习惯用法

中式翻译
Larger (smaller)是指“几何”大(小),higher (lower) 是指“性质”大(小)或者高(低),例如
Larger (smaller) flux 改为 higher (lower) flux
Larger (smaller) luminosity 改为 higher (lower) luminosity
Larger (smaller) accretion rate 改为 higher (lower) accretion rate
Larger (smaller) temperature 改为 higher (lower) temperature
Larger (smaller) speed 改为 higher (lower) speed
但是“This box has a larger size than the other one.” 是正确的。

  • “The luminosity can be calculated from the below equation是错误的,改成from the following equation或者from the equation as follows
  • 英文习惯中用“for why”连接 explanation, evidence, overview 等先行词。比如looking for a fundamental explanation why (应改为for why)
  • “数量级”是“order of magnitude”,但是经常被误用为“order”,例如“The mass of this black hole is about one order smaller (应改为“smaller by about one order of magnitude”) than that one.”
  • due to small levels of comptonization at lower luminosity.”其中“small”的用法是不对的,因为“small”是指几何的 “小”,所以可以改为low levels of comptonization或者 a weak comptonization component。

同一单词不同词性的选取

  • “sun”是名词,“solar”是形容词。正确表达:“the mass of the Sun”(太阳的质量),“solar mass”(太阳质量,是质量单位)。“sun mass”, “sun energy”等是错误的。
  • “emission”(可数名词) 的意思是“发射” (动词是“emit”,没有形容词,所以只能使用名词 或者动名词作为形容词,如“emission process” (不使用“emitting proce)s”),“emitting source” 和“emission source”都是正确的(发射源));
  • “irradiation ”(不可数名词) 的意思是“照射”,导致的主要结果是“辐射”会进入到被照射的对象;“illumination” (不可数名词) 的意思是“照亮”,导致的主要结果是被照亮的物体表面变亮。
  • “复杂”的动词、名词和形容词分别是:“complicate”, “complication”和“complicated” (与“complex”和“sophisticated”大致同义,但是这3个词的含义略有不同:“complicated”或者 “complication”是指比较乱、多个因素同时并交互起作用;“complex”是指规模比较大,但是并不乱;“sophisticated”指逻辑关系比较复杂)。

动词的现在分词和过去分词作状语,取决于主句的主语

  • comparing tocompared to,based onbasing on类似。
    [1] Base (改为“Basing”) on these data, we can calculate the mass of the black hole. 该句主语是we。
    [2] Base (改为“Based”) on these data, the mass of the black hole can be calculated. 该句主语是“the mass of the black hole”,请注意其中的“on”是必需的。
  • 类似的还要注意的有,accompanied和accompanying、surrounded和surrounding、originated和originating、dominating和dominated。

词组搭配

  • “spherically symmetric”和“spherical symmetry”是正确的。“spherical symmetric”和 “spherically symmetry”是错误的。
  • “detail description”,“in details”是错误的,正确的是“detailed description”,“in detail”.
  • 介词后不能接介词,要接名词。“Unlike in the case with(改为“Unlike the case of )the uniformity of the universe, no apparent violation of this law is known.”
  • “These black holes have masses between 105 — 1010(修改为“between 105 and 1010”)solar masses”.
  • “However this possibility, if true, may have fundamental impacts to(应改为“regarding”)the evolution and fate of the universe, as I will discuss in(应改为“at”)the end of this chapter.”
  • “compare to”用于表示“相似性”,“compare with”用于表示“差异性”。如:
    [1] Compared to source B, source A shows a similarly hard spectrum. (指两个源类似)
    [2] Compared with source B, source A shows a much harder spectrum. (指两个源不同)
  • “consist in”表示“存在于…中”,“consist of”是“包括、由…组成”的意思

及物动词、不及物动词和情态动词的用法

  • cannot”是美国式用法(比如如果投稿到ApJ),“can not”是英国式用法(比如如果投稿 到MNRAS)。
  • “We also referred (应改为“referred to”) Figure 3 and Figure 4 in the text.”
  • “However, in science direct evidence is not always what leads (应改为“leads to”) the discovery of something.” 注意“The appearance of X-rays leads the optical burst.”(“X射线的出 现早于光学爆发”)和“The appearance of X-rays leads to the optical burst.”(“X射线的出现导 致了光学爆发”)语法上都是对的,但是意思不一样,前一个是纯粹的时间先后,后一个是 因果关系。当然“Prof. Zhang leads a very active research group.”这里的“lead”就是领导的意 思。

分号的使用

  • 为了避免一个句子太长,或者强调主要的内容,通常英文中分号后面是对前面的补充(中 文的分号是排比)。例如:
    [1] I teach a graduate course on frontiers of astrophysics between 7:20 pm to 9:45 pm every Thursday; I deliberately arranged to have my classes in the evenings because ...
    [2] In this work, a simple method is provided to combine GRB data into the joint observational data analysis to constrain cosmological models; in this method those SNe Ia data points used for calibrating the GRB data are not used to avoid any correlation between them.
  • 分号“;”也常用于分隔的含有逗号的并列成分
    [1] We thank Gang Li, Tsinghua University, for timing data; Hong Zhao, Peking University, for helpful discussions; and the National Natural Science Foundation of China, for financial support.
    [2] Follow this procedure: first, get your application forms; next, fill them out; last, pay the charge.
  • 经常看到学生不会在latex 文件里面正确输入引号。正确的做法:`test’生成ps或者PDF 文件之后是‘test’. 但是大部分学生都是输入:’test’. 类似的情况是: ``test"而不是”test”

数词/缩写/正斜体

  • 如果能够使用一个单词的数一般不用阿拉伯数字,但是后面接物理量单位时,则用阿拉伯数字。
  • 位于句首时,数字必须用英文单词不用阿拉伯数字表示。
  • 2个或多个具有修饰关系的数字连用时,通常需要给出1个数字的英文单词形式,以免混 淆。如 twenty 2 keV particles(20个具有2 keV能量的粒子)。
  • “Professor”的缩写是“Prof.”不是“Pro.”,如“Dear Pro.Zhang”是错误的应该是“Prof. Zhang”(注意“.”后面的空格)。“Doctor”的缩写是“Dr.”不是“Doc.”
  • Figure 和 Table 的正确缩写分别是 Fig.和 Tbl.。缩写不能出现在句首,并且 Figure/Table 和数字之间必须有一个空格。 Figure.6, Figure6, Fig.6, Tbl10是错误的;Figure 6, Fig. 6, Tbl. 10是正确的。
  • 关于正体和斜体:正文里面数学符号、物理量符号应该是斜体,单位是正体,各种函数名字也是正体。黑洞质量MBH,还有Mk是正确的写法。
  • 单位和前面的数字之间必须留空格,如10 eV, 20 kg, 40 km;在公式里面留空格$m=10\ {\rm kg}$,或者$m={\rm10\ kg}$,或者$m=10\mbox{ } {\rm kg}$(注意“\ ”和“\mbox{ }”的 效果是一样的)。但是如果写成$m=10{\rm kg}$,或者$m={\rm 10 kg}$,则单位和前面的数 字之间就不留空格。

制图

  • 坐标轴需要名称和单位。
  • 几乎所有绘图程序缺省设置的图上的字母和数字字体都太小,基本原则是按照杂志要 求的尺寸印出来后图上的字母和数字和正文的字体相当或者略大,但是应该比“figure caption”的字体大一些。
  • 关于图的一些英文说明: (1) 一个figure 如果由几个图组成,每个图叫做panel,而不是sub-figure,图的位置通常称 为top panel, middle panel, bottom panel, upper panel, upper-left panel, lower-right panel, 等等; (2) 图中线条的说法是solid line, dotted line (不是dot line), dashed line (不是dash line), dot-dashed line。

语态和时态

  • 尽量不要使用主动式,特别是“People have done... ”,应该写“It has been calculated... by xxx”(如果你不想强调到底是谁做的,而仅仅想列出是谁做的,就不要写“by xxx”,而只要 列出参考文献就可以了)。
  • (1) 叙述你本论文的工作使用一般现在时;
    (2) 描述你以前的相关工作使用一般过去时;
    (3) 描述别人以前的工作使用一般过去时;
    (4) 但是当你现在的工作是以前你的或者别人的某个工作的延续时,对那个工作的描述需要使用一般完成时;
    (5) 在文章的summary部分描述本文章的结果时可以使用一般现在时、过去时和一般完成时,如“The black hole we studied in this work ... ”,“In this paper we have calculated... ”,“It has been shown that ... ”,“We study this problem ... ”,“We analyze these data... ”,“We start from ... ”,“We found that ... ”,“We conclude that”,“It is shown”,“In this paper we calculate ... ”;
    (6) 在回复审稿人的信里面,谈到你这篇文章中你做了什么的时候用一般过去式,或者一般完成时,如:
    [1] Thanks for the referee's suggestion. Actually we calculated the mass accretion of three sources, but neglected to include the result in the paper.
    [2] We included Figure 2 and Table 3 in the revised manuscript.
    [3] We thank the referee for these insightful comments and suggestions.
    [4] We have improved the manuscript substantially.
    [5] The manuscript has been improved significantly by including...
    [6] 如果是回复审稿人的第二封信,开头可写为:We have further improved the manuscript following the suggestions in the second referee report...
    (7) 描述发生在过去的一件事用过去时,描述虽然过去发生的、但是已经被认定为“普遍事实(general truth)”的使用一般现在时,如:
    [1] Homan et al. (2006a, 2006b, 2007a) suggested that XTE J1701-462 was a Z source, because it exhibited typical CDs of Z sources and its timing properties were also consistent with those of Z sources.
    例句[1] 并没有错误,但是如果写成:Homan et al. (2006a, 2006b, 2007a) suggested (发生在过去) that XTE J1701-462 is (普遍事实) a Z source, because it exhibited (发生在过去) typical CDs of Z sources and its timing properties are (普遍事实) also consistent with those of Z sources. 则意义有所不同,更加强调“XTE J1701-462 is a Z source”和“its timing properties are also consistent with those of Z sources”是被认定的“普遍事实”。
    再举两个例句:
    [2] In yesterday's battle, three soldiers were killed and one was injured.
    [3] Now a total of 15 soldiers are dead and nine soldiers are injured. 

句子开头/谓语使用不当或与主语不一致

  • “So”作为句子的开头太频繁,可以适当使用“Therefore”, “Hence”, “Consequently”, “Thus”, “As a result”等。因此应该避免使用“So”作为句子的开头。
  • And”, “But”作为句子的开头太频繁,读起来很难受。应该尽量不用“And”, “But”作为句 子的开头,可以适当使用“However”,“Nevertheless”等作为句子的转折。
  • How to 不能作为句子开头。 How to (改为Determining how to) find the optimal parameter is the main objective.
  • “We”作为句子的开头太频繁:只有作者特别想强调是“我们”做的,而不是“别人”做的时 候才使用“We”作为句子的开头,在一篇文章的开始和总结部分可以适当地使用一些,正文中间一般都是使用倒装句字。
  • “Now”作为句子的开头太频繁。因为科技论文的基本时态就是一般现在时,所以基本上 没有必要使用“Now”(见关于时态的讨论)。
  • 尽量不要出现“We feel ... ”或者“We think ... ”之类的句子。比如“We think the accretion rate dominates the ….”应该改为“We consider that the accretion rate dominates the ….”
  • 科技论文中不用下列口语化的用法,应该在科技论文中避免:“it's”, “can't”, “couldn't”,“doesn't” 等应该改成“it is”, “cannot(美式英语)或者can not(英式或者欧式英语)”, “could not”,“does not”。
  • 很多人都喜欢用“a little”,这是很口语化的用法,例子:
    [1] Its surface temperature is a little low. 改为
    [2] Its surface temperature is slightly too low. 或者
    [3] Its surface temperature is somewhat low.
  • 除了命令式之外,一个完整的句子必须有主语(而且只能有一个)、谓语和宾语。 很多同学在一个句子里面用多个主语。如 The black hole binary is a very exciting source of high frequency QPOs, we therefore decided to study it. 是错误的,因为这个句子有两个主语:“the black hole binary”和“we”。正确的写 法是:We decided to study the black hole binary, because it is a very exciting source of high frequency QPOs. 或者 The black hole binary is a very exciting source of high frequency QPOs; we therefore decided to study it. (注意这里分号“;”的用法)

复合句

  •  复句里面“which”和“that”作为代词连接从句和主句时,其先行词是整个句子,所以其后谓语动词保持一致用第三人称单数。“that”分句对先行词起限制和定义的作用,用于限制性关系分句;“which”分句对先行词进行评注或解释,用于非限制性关系分句,通常用逗号分隔。由于在很多情况下比较难确定该使用“that”还是“which”,所以现在习惯上“that”和 “which”是经常通用的。但是如果细细体会,还是能够区分它们用法的不同的。一个大体都 适用的简单原则是,如果用逗号分隔,就用“which”,否则就用“that”。
    [1] Thus the temperature is determined by the heating of the central source's luminosity, which is (注意这里需要“is”) given by equation (2).
    [2] This is the sample that(这里就不能用“which”)Jack collected.
    [3] The sample, which(这里如果用“that”就不太顺)jack collected, was lost in transit.
    [4] I am returning the reports, which I have read.(“归还的报告”我都看过了)
    [5] I am returning the reports that I have read.(我仅仅把“我看过的报告”归还了)
  • 一个句子作为宾语时,该句子前面应该有“that”等连接词。
    We find (改为“find that”) the ΛCDM model is consistent with the joint data in 1-σ confidence region.
  • “which”引导非限定性定语从句,“that”引导限定性定语从句。
    [1] It is actually the expansion of the event horizon which (改为that) swallows the infalling shell.
    [2] Almost all gravitational potential energy is converted into the kinetic energy of the accreted matter which (改为“that”) free-falls into the black hole and thus is (注意这里需要“is”) lost into the event horizon of the black hole.
    [3] I am thinking about the environment distribution to (改为that may) cause this missing emission.
    [4] There are two XRT observations deviated (改为 that deviate) from the constant radius.
  • 从句里面主谓颠倒
    [1] It was not clear who did it and why was it (改为it was) necessary to make the universe suitable for our existence.
    [2] We know who is the author. 改为 We know who the author is.
    [3] We know what is the answer. 改为 We know what the answer is.
    [4] We know why is the universe expanding. 改为 We know why the universe is expanding.
    [5] We know how does it work. 改为 We know how it works.
  • 从句缺主语
    [1] There is no previous work can rule out this model.”改成:
    “ There is no previous work that can rule out this model.”或者 “No previous work can rule out this model.”
    [2]“There is still no mature theory can explain all X-ray properties of super-critical accreting sources.”应该改为“There is still no mature theory that can explain ...”
    [3]“There is a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are candidates for super-Eddington accretion.”应该改为“There is a subclass of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) that are candidates for super-Eddington accretion.”
  • 句子表述不够简洁
    “The fit parameters listed in Table 3 are more accurate than those listed in Table 5, because, as shown by the top panels in Figure 2, the count rate variation within each of the 29 HID regions used to group data for producing the PCA spectra is extremely minimized, while, as shown by the bottom panels in Figure 2, the count rate varies substantially within most of the eight segments used to group data for producing the broadband spectra.”这是从一个中国学生的论文初稿里面 直接摘出来的,中国式英语的味道极浓, 如果直接翻成中文就不会有问题,但是作为英文句 子,主语很多,结果超复杂!可以简化为:“The fit parameters listed in Table 3 are more accurate than those listed in Table 5, because the count rate variation is minimized within each of the 29 HID regions used to group data for producing the PCA spectra, as shown by the top panels in Figure 2. However, the count rate varies substantially within most of the eight segments used to group data for producing the broadband spectra, as shown by the bottom panels in Figure 2.”

要表达的主要含义放句子前面,目的、位置、原因和时间等放句子后面

  • For the application in galaxy formation, this paper studies ... 改为:This paper studies … for application in application in galaxy formation.
  • In practice, we employed this approach to …, and the results show that this method is feasible. 改为: We employed this approach to …, and the results show that this method is feasible. (“in practice”和“feasible”意思重复,即使不重复,最好也是放到句子的最后。)
  • To ensure sufficient signal to noise ratio, this source was observed for three days. 改为:This source was observed for three days to ensure sufficient signal to noise ratio. (前一 个表达并没有语法错误,但是强调的是“to ensure”而不是“was observed for three days”。)
  • When f is taken as the control parameter, the inferred values of g are shown in Fig. 8. 改为:The inferred values of g are shown in Fig. 8 when f is taken as the control parameter. (前 一个表达并没有语法错误,但是强调的是“When f is taken…”而不是“the inferred values…”。)
  • Based on the observations presented here, it is found that this system contains a black hole. 改为:It is found that this system contains a black hole, based on the observations presented here. (前一个表达并没有语法错误,但是强调的是“Based on the…”而不是“it is found that…”。)
  • Because this source is very luminous and shows extremely strong variability, we thus conclude it must contain a black hole. 改为:We thus conclude this source must contain a black hole, because it is very luminous and shows extremely strong variability. 最后再说明一下,中文的习惯是“因为…所以”,但是英文的习惯是“所以…因为”,这是造 成不通顺(或者不能正确表达意图)的主要原因。

两个科技英语中常用的句型

  • “A 随着B 增加而增加”的正确翻译是:“A increases with increasing B.”或者“A increases with B.”
    例如:
    [1] However, when the source moves on the upper track, the inner disk radius increases with increasing of (改为“with”) the disk accretion rate.
    [2] Panel B in Figure 11 shows the inferred NS surface magnetic field strength during the episodes in which the inner disk radius increases with the increasing of the (改为“increasing”) disk accretion rate.
    错误的翻译:
    [1] A increases by increasing B.
    [2] A increases with B increases.
    [3] A increases with increases B.
  • “A 随着B 增加而减少”的正确翻译是:“A decreases with increasing B.”下面给出例句: The inner disk radius decreases with increasing of the (改为“increasing”) disk accretion rate.

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