Language
18 July 2022
Tense retouching skills in English papers

  English papers are different from those we often write, mainly because the language is sometimes different from our expression habits. The following editor will bring you a touch up skill on the language tense of English papers.

  1. Tense aspect. Tense plays a role in conveying information. Through the choice of tenses and the collocation of different tenses in the same thesis abstract, the translator can easily express the time order, influence and connection between various research behaviors. However. In the translation of many thesis abstracts, there is a problem of improper use of tense, which will seriously affect readers' understanding of the thesis and reduce the level of scientific papers. The tenses often used in English translation of abstracts of scientific papers are the general present tense, the general past tense and the present perfect tense. These three tenses are applicable to the following different situations:

  1) The present tense is generally used to describe the objectives, contents, methods and research results of research. It usually indicates the existing state, objective facts or universal truth.

  2) The past tense is often used to describe the past, especially the discovery, research process or final test results at a certain time before the writing of the paper. This state is used to indicate the action or state of existence that occurred in a certain time in the past.

  3) The present perfect tense is used to introduce the completed research and experiments and emphasize their impact on the present. This tense connects what happened in the past with the present situation, emphasizing the influence and role of the past on the present.

  2. Voice. In the translation of abstracts of scientific papers, the most commonly used voice is the passive voice. For example, a new approach is put forward in the paper that/conclusion can be drawn from the experience that through experiencing these examples of passive voice, it is not difficult to find that compared with the active voice, the passive voice has the following advantages in the translation of scientific and technological Abstracts:

  1) Scientific papers often need to introduce objective research processes and experimental results that are not based on human will. Using the passive voice can better highlight the objectivity of scientific research.

  2) The use of passive forms can also avoid mentioning the actors of actions, which makes the study of actions more widespread.

  3) Due to the special structure of passive voice, it has greater flexibility in sentence structure adjustment, which is conducive to adding phrase structure and expanding sentence information while maintaining a balanced and neat sentence pattern.