Page 353 - English for Writing Research Papers

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recommend that the paper be submitted to an English editing service - even if the
rest of the paper was written in good English.

An additional problem is that they key finding in Example 3, i.e. social fi nance for

the first time in Italy and Ireland, is lost at the end of a sentence in the middle of the
paragraph. If something is important, it should stand out from the text.
So what can you do to avoid these issues?

If you say that your limitations could be resolved in future research, then you need
to suggest how such future research might address these limitations:

• If you want to generalize your results to, for instance, another country, then
you could state which countries these might be.

• If you state that your sample size was too small and that future work should con-
sider a larger sample, then you need to propose ways of increasing the sample size.

• If something is outside the scope of your current paper, but could be dealt with
in a future paper, then you should outline two or three ways of exactly how it
might be dealt with.

In summary:

• Don’t underestimate the importance of the Conclusions.

• Be as specifi c as possible. By outlining real concrete possibilities and strate-
gies for the future you will make a much more convincing case to the referees
(and readers).

• Re-read everything in terms of checking the correctness of the English
(see 20.3 ).
Imagine you are a very punctilious referee, i.e. someone who shows great atten-
tion to detail and will not accept vague unfounded assertions. What questions might
referees ask themselves while reading your Conclusions?