Writing in the Logic of English #2

Ph.D. at St Andrews in Scotland

While at first, I intended to just spend a year in the UK, I felt that it’d be good to stay for a longer period of time, as other people were working on their Ph.D. theses. St Andrews is a small university town, and most students live there. I was able to naturally grow in this academic environment. I remember that we could concentrate on our research, since the university was so helpful in many ways, e.g. the excellent interlibrary loan system

My First English Academic Paper

I wrote my first English academic paper in Scotland. Before then, I’d written two academic papers in Japanese.

The Merits of Writing in English

While writing in English, we can just use technical terms as they are, without having to translate them every time into Japanese. This makes things much easier. While it depends on one’s field, in mine it’s easier to write in English.

Do You Think in English When Writing in English?

I’m pretty sure I think in English. Sometimes I take notes in Japanese, though. When I was in the UK, I was taking notes in English as well, but this is because my computer could only accept input in English. When I write an English paper, I start out in English.

Japanese People’s Tendencies When Writing Papers in English

Obviously, we can write what we like to write. However, this does not mean that everything will be accepted. If we aren’t used to writing in English, we end up writing things that readers can’t understand. Readers don’t understand what the author’s point is. Nothing is grammatically incorrect, but one’s idea doesn’t get across―this happens.

How to Become Able to Write in English

I have the feeling that one needs to write a lot in English without thinking in Japanese. I’m not entirely sure how people can make their English more understandable, but all in all, it’s probably the amount you write. I guess it’s the amount you read and the amount you write in English.

PowerPoint presentations are premised on having an audience, so maybe it’s a good idea to use PowerPoint to create article outlines. Based on the premise that there will be people listening to what you’re saying, put together a presentation and change around the order of things. One might then find that an academic paper has taken shape.

Many Ways to Write (Structure) an Academic Paper

As the absolute amount that one reads in English increases, lots of patterns get stored in the mind. We then notice that people write English papers in many different ways! Perhaps different fields have different conventions, though. While this is just my rough impression—so some may disagree—in the UK and Europe people tend to write papers in their own styles, and there’s more individuality in what they write. In contrast, in the US, people seem to be trained to write in a certain pattern—they learn what to write in the introduction, the conclusion, and so on, and they tend to follow this pattern, though of course, this might be different depending on the field. In the UK, people seem to write as they wish to a larger degree. I find this more interesting. Maybe it’s because I was educated there. So, I don’t think it’s the best to emphasize “the way of writing an English paper” to the extent that it turns into a normative pattern. Peer reviewers used to a certain way of writing sometimes will reject an article just because it doesn’t fit this pattern. I think, though, that it’s important that ideas are interesting, and that it’s okay if writing patterns vary somewhat.

Teaching Students to Communicate

Too much training leads to output that has been fit into a mold, which isn’t interesting. I think that more and more people are being allowed to broadcast a variety of things today. Students are changing a lot as well. It’s important for children to share ideas from when they are young. It doesn’t have to be on an international level—amongst friends is fine.

Language textbooks in Japan have lots of questions that students can easily figure out how to answer. In contrast, language textbooks in Europe, if I remember correctly, had many questions that made one wonder, “How should I go about answering this?” I’d say that such textbooks also make those doing the teaching think about a variety of things.

Choosing Academic Journals

While there are some Japanese journals in which it is relatively easy to publish, there are also extremely rigorous ones. If you’re going to submit an article to such rigorous ones in Japan, why not try an overseas journal? However, if there are many scholars in your field (as is the case in English linguistics), then sometimes everyone ends up working on a pretty narrow topic, so peer reviews can be pretty off the mark. This happens in overseas journals as well.

English Editing by Native Speakers

Things get really messed up if it’s someone unfamiliar with the content. I ask people to edit my work who only will correct parts that are truly off.

University Writing Centers

I’ve heard that at US universities’ writing centers people can have their writing checked by native speakers. One really doesn’t want to turn over new research findings to some unknown editing company. I think it’s great if there’s a place one can go to on campus.

The Publishing Market and the Issue of Incentives

While the situation might be a bit different in science, people aren’t really encouraged to write in English. It’s a backward-looking system, so people don’t need to go through the effort. If one does try to write in English, one encounters lots of difficulties in various ways. For example, even in the case of books, there are many Japanese publishers who don’t do business with overseas companies. Perhaps such publishers also need to change. Japan’s market is pretty big, so sometimes more people will read your book if you write in Japanese. If we write in English, you may lose this audience!

Constructing Systems

I’d like Japanese publishers and the like to work on this as well—in other words, publishing books in English and constructing avenues to sell books in English. If such a system was in place, then one wouldn’t have to publish with an overseas publisher. I think that publishers don’t because they wonder if English books from a Japanese publisher will actually be read overseas. It is true that with Japan having a big population, up until now books in Japanese have sold better, but the population will be smaller in the future.

While it’s important to submit articles to journals with a high impact factor, I’m more interested in the creation of journals with a high impact factor, in heightening the impact factor of existing journals, and so on. In other words, putting systems in place. If we are not involved in this, we will never get the upper hand. Japan also has to start seizing the initiative, I mean, in establishing good journals, etc.

Contributing at International Conferences

It’s important to go to international conferences and talk to people. While today a lot can be acquired on the internet, one could also say that we’ve come to just use what’s close at hand. If you don’t say, “I do X, Y, and Z,” then people won’t be aware of your existence. I feel that it’s important to now and then give a presentation and show people your face.

In the end, it’s true that if you aren’t regularly going to conferences and making an impression, you’ll be put in a marginal place. At the conferences I go to in Europe, there are already existing communities, and on occasions I’ve realized that I’ve been placed on the margins. Of course, we also are responsible for this—we’ll give presentations and serve as a chair if asked, but we won’t raise our hand and speak up from the floor. One has to speak up and make an impression. We have to contribute to the process by which the flow of scholarship is created.