Page 81 - English for Writing Research Papers

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4.7 When expressing your aims, consider dividing up a long
sentence into shorter parts
Often you need to explain the rationale for adopting a particular procedure or line of
research. To do this, writers typically use expressions such as in order to, with the
purpose of, with the aim to, in an attempt to.

This is fine if you can express the rationale in a few words, as in this example:
In order to test our hypothesis, we sampled a random selection of documents.

But if your rationale is longer than about 15 words, you probably need to split the
sentence up, as shown below:

original version (ov) revised version (rv)
Our readability index is based on a series We wanted to provide writers with some
of factors – length of sentences and metrics for judging how much readers
paragraphs, use of headings, amount of are likely to understand the writers’
white space, use of formatting (bold, documents. We thus produced a readability
italics, font size etc.) – in order to index based on a series of factors – length
provide writers with some metrics for of sentences and paragraphs, use of
judging how much readers are likely headings, amount of white space, and use
to understand the writers’ documents. of formatting (bold, italics, font size etc.).
In order to establish a relationship (1) We conducted an analysis of A,
between document length and level of B and C. The aim of the analysis was
bureaucracy and to confi rm whether to establish….
documents, such as reports regarding (2) We wanted to establish a relationship
legislative and administrative issues, vary between .. language and another.
substantially in length from one language To do this , we conducted …
to another, we conducted an analysis
of A, B and C.

The two techniques shown in the RV are

1. either say what you did and then why you did it

2. or give your rationale and then say what you did

The first is generally more helpful for the reader because it helps to put the rationale

in context.