English for Academic Research: Grammar, Usage and Style

Introduction
Contents
1: Abbreviations, acronyms, and punctuation
1.1 Abbreviations
1.2 Acronyms: main usage
1.3 Acronyms: grammar and punctuation
1.4 Apostrophes (’)
1.5 Capitalization: days, months, countries, nationalities, natural languages
1.6 Capitalization: sections and headings
1.7 Capitalization: academic titles, degrees, subjects (of study), departments, institutes, faculties, universities
1.8 Capitalization: figure, table, section etc.; step, phase, stage etc.
1.9 Capitalization: keywords
1.10 Colons (:)
1.11 Commas (,): usage
1.12 Commas (,): non usage
1.13 Dashes (_)
1.14 Hyphens (-)
1.15 Parentheses ()
1.16 Periods (.)
1.17 Quotation marks (‘')
1.18 Semicolons (;)
2: Adverbs and prepositions
2.1 above (below), over (under)
2.2 across, through
2.3 already, still, yet
2.4 among, between, from, of (differentiation and selection)
2.5 at, in, to (location, state, change)
2.6 at, in and on (time)
2.7 at, to (measurement, quality)
2.8 before, after, beforehand, afterwards, first (time sequences)
2.9 beside, next to, near (to), close to (location)
2.10 by and from (cause, means and origin)
2.11 by, in, of (variations); by and within (time)
2.12 by now, for now, for the moment, to date, until now, so far
2.13 during, over and throughout (time)
2.14 for, since, from (time)
2.15 in, now, currently, at the moment, historically
2.16 in, inside, within (location)
2.17 of and with (materials, methods, agreements)
3: Articles: a / an / the / zero article
3.1 Indefinite article: a versus an
3.2 Indefinite article: a vs an, use with acronyms
3.3 Indefinite article: a / an vs one
3.4 Indefinite article vs definite article: generic vs specific
3.5 a / an, the, possessive pronoun: parts of the body
3.6 Definite article (the): specific vs general
3.7 Zero article: main usage
3.8 Zero article vs a / an
3.9 Definite article vs zero article: measurements
3.10 Months, years, decades and centuries
3.11 Nationalities, countries, languages
3.12 Other uses of the definite article
3.13 Other uses of the zero article
3.14 Cases where the definite article is used in English but perhaps not in your language
4: Genitive: the possessive form of nouns
4.1 Very general rules for the genitive
4.2 Periods of time
4.3 Position of the ’s with authors and referees
4.4 Names + theories, instruments etc.
4.5 Companies and politicians
4.6 Universities, departments, institutes etc.
4.7 Animals
4.8 Inanimate objects
5: Infinitive versus gerund (-ing form)
5.1 Infinitive
5.2 in order to
5.3 Gerund (-ing form): usage
5.4 Ambiguity with the gerund
5.5 by vs thus + gerund to avoid ambiguity
5.6 Prefer which or that to the -ing form
5.7 Verbs: infinitive vs gerund
5.8 Verbs that take both infinitive and gerund, but with a difference in meaning
5.9 Verbs that require person / thing + infinitive
5.10 Active and passive form: with and without infinitive
5.11 Imperative form
6: Link words
6.1 about, as far as ... is concerned
6.2 also, in addition, as well, besides, moreover
6.3 also, as well, too, both, all: use with not
6.4 although, even though vs even if
6.5 and, along with – avoiding ambiguity
6.6 as versus as it
6.7 as vs like (unlike)
6.8 because, why, due to, owing to, since, as
6.9 both ... and, either ... or
6.10 e.g., i.e., and etc.
6.11 e.g. vs for example
6.12 for this reason vs for this purpose, to this end
6.13 the former, the latter
6.14 however, although, but, yet, despite, nevertheless
6.15 in contrast with vs compared to, by comparison with
6.16 instead, on the other hand, whereas, on the contrary
6.17 that, which, who, whose
6.18 that vs which and who
6.19 thus, therefore, hence, consequently, so, thereby
7: Measurements and numbers, abbreviations, symbols, comparisons, use of articles
7.1 How to write and say numbers
7.2 Words vs numerals: basic rules
7.3 When 1–10 can be used as numerals rather than words
7.4 Making numbers plural
7.5 Singular or plural verbs with numbers
7.6 Decimals and whole numbers
7.7 Abbreviations, symbols, percentages, fractions, and ordinals
7.8 Abbreviations and symbols in the humanities
7.9 Measurements: adjectives, nouns and verbs
7.10 Comparatives and superlatives: -er, -est, irregular forms
7.11 Comparisons of (in)equality
7.12 Ranges of values and use of hyphens
7.13 once, twice vs one time, two times
7.14 Ordinal numbers, -nd, -rd, -th, Latin numbers
7.15 Dates
8: Modal verbs: can, may, could, should, must etc.
8.1 Present and future ability and possibility: can versus may
8.2 Impossibility and possibility: cannot versus may not
8.3 Ability: can, could versus be able to, manage, succeed
8.4 Deductions and speculations about the present: must, cannot, should
8.5 Deductions and speculations: could, might (not)
8.6 Present obligations: must, must not, have to, need
8.7 Past obligation: should have + past participle, had to, was supposed to
8.8 Obligation and recommendation: should
9: Nouns: countable vs uncountable, plurals
9.1 Countable nouns: use with articles
9.2 Singular countable nouns: with and without a / an
9.3 Uncountable nouns: general rules
9.4 Uncountable nouns: specific rules
9.5 Regular plurals
9.6 Irregular plurals
9.7 Nouns ending in -s
9.8 Nouns indicating a group of people
9.9 person vs people
9.10 Number-verb agreement
10: Personal pronouns, names, titles
10.1 he/him/his, she/her/hers vs they
10.2 he/she vs they in academic texts
10.3 Pronouns in emails, social media (e.g. LinkedIn), Zoom etc
10.4 CVs: names and preferred pronouns
10.5 Pronouns in the main text of a CV and in social media profiles
10.6 Non-binary pronouns
10.7 What to expect if your pronouns are they / them / theirs
10.8 Using pronouns to reveal your gender when your gender may not be clear from your name
10.9 Be careful when spelling other people’s names
10.10 Checking a person’s given name vs family name
10.11 Anglo names
10.12 Showing respect by learning how to pronounce someone’s name
10.13 Titles
10.14 Addressing a group of people, addressing unknown people
11: Proofreading tools: checking the correctness of your English
11.1 QuillBot
11.2 Ludwig Guru
11.3 Grammarly
11.4 Reverso
11.5 Google Scholar
11.6 Check for sexist language
11.7 Microsoft Word’s Spelling Checker
11.8 British (UK) vs American (US) spelling
11.9 Misspellings that spell-checking software does not find
12: Quantifiers: any, some, much, many, much, each, every etc.
12.1 Quantifiers used with countable and uncountable nouns
12.2 any vs some
12.3 any vs no
12.4 a little, a few vs little, few
12.5 much, many, a lot of, and lots of
12.6 each vs every, every versus any
12.7 no vs not
13: Readability
13.1 Maximum two ideas per sentence
13.2 Information should be in chronological order
13.3 Avoid redundancy
13.4 Always use the same key words: repetition of words is not bad style or redundant
13.5 Prefer verbs to nouns
13.6 Avoid ambiguity with which
13.7 Avoid ambiguity when using the former / the latter, which, pronouns, etc.
13.8 Avoid ambiguity when using as, in accordance with, according to
13.9 Be specific referring to other parts of the manuscript
13.10 Use the same forms throughout your document
13.11 Be careful with the phrase ‘in a previous paper’
13.12 Avoid informal words and contractions
13.13 Use verbs + adjectives, rather than verbs + nouns
14: Tenses: present and past
14.1 Present simple vs present continuous
14.2 Past simple vs present perfect
14.3 Present perfect: Abstracts
14.4 Present perfect: Introduction
14.5 Present perfect: refering to the literature
14.6 Present perfect: Conclusions
14.7 Present perfect: rebuttal letter
14.8 Present perfect: problem areas
14.9 Past simple vs present simple: aims and procedures
14.10 Present simple vs past simple: Results and Discussion
14.11 Past continuous and past perfect vs simple past
15: Tenses: future, conditional, passive
15.1 will for making predictions
15.2 Zero and first conditional
15.3 if vs when
15.4 Second conditional
15.5 Present simple versus would
15.6 would – other uses
15.7 Third conditional
15.8 The passive: form
15.9 The passive: usage
15.10 The active: usage
15.11 Dangerous ambiguity with the passive
16: Translation
16.1 Translation resources
16.2 Pre-editing: preparing your text for machine translation
16.3 Learn English while you type
16.4 Improving your English through machine translators
16.5 General mistakes made in machine translations
16.6 Typical mistakes made in machine translations of emails
16.7 Warning! The quality of machine translations also depends on the source language
17: Word order
17.1 Subject then verb
17.2 Do not delay the subject
17.3 Avoid long subjects that delay the main verb
17.4 Put direct object before indirect object
17.5 Avoid parenthetical phrases
17.6 Deciding which noun to put first in strings of nouns
17.7 noun + noun and noun + of + noun constructions
17.8 Strings of nouns: use prepositions where possible
17.9 Adverbs of frequency + also, only, just, already
17.10 Adverbs of probability
17.11 Adverbs of manner
17.12 Adverbs of time
17.13 Adverbs with more than one meaning
17.14 first(ly), second(ly), then etc.
17.15 Adjectives
17.16 Use which or that when adjectives follow their nouns
17.17 Be clear which noun an adjective refers to
17.18 Multiple adjectives
17.19 the more … the more
17.20 Past participles
17.21 Shift the negation word (no, not, nothing etc.) to near the beginning of the phrase
18: ChatGPT and Generative AI
18.1 Checking your English at a sentence level
18.2 Checking grammar rules
18.3 Cases where ChatGPT gives the wrong answer or the wrong grammatical explanation
18.4 ChatGPT to help you write a paper
18.5 ChatGPT to help you write a bio, CV or cover letter
18.6 ChatGPT to help you write a rebuttal letter
18.7 ChatGPT: Help with presentations
18.8 ChatGPT: Write perfect emails!
18.9 Aspects of writing that ChatGPT will probably not help you with
Full Introduction
Index