Indirectly speaking / Please fix my mistakes
Mike Guest / Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Dear Dr.Tanaka: I have checked your English essays and correspondence as you requested and have decided to add the following notes. I hope that you may find them of help.
You initially asked me to fix your grammatical mistakes, but your sentence grammar is actually impeccable. You also asked me to comment on your vocabulary, and although I will make a few remarks about this later, I can rarely find fault in that regard either.
Allow me instead to make some comments on import!ant matters that are neither grammatical nor--strictly speaking--vocabulary-related but are nonetheless central to making a good impression upon a native-English reader. They may seem like little formalities but they do matter. Moreover, teachers often forget to teach them and many Japanese never really learn them. Although a good stylebook can go into precise detail, below are my initial suggestions for focus as you revise your work:
1. Paragraphs: Your paragraphs seem to be divided at random, and in some places they look more like poems than essays. Some paragraphs are very lengthy and contain a number of rhetorical shifts while others are only one sentence, yet the content was still directly connected to the paragraph it precedes or follows. While you don't have to follow the so-called rules about topic and concluding sentences, it's a good general guideline to keep to one rhetorical unit as a paragraph. Paragraph breaks should act as breathing spaces for rhetorical shifts or developments, not to mention as cosmetic divisions for the eyes. And please remember to indent every paragraph.
2. Capitals: Please remember to capitalize all first letters in personal names, company names, departments, and titles. The exception, of course, would be prepositions in titles. If you suddenly shift to lower case in a title or name, the reader is likely to think that this word is not actually a part of that name or title.
3. Address forms: These are very import!ant for personal relationships. In your paper, you referred to Dr. Frank Black as Dr. Frank. Never use a title with a first name. Then, in your essay you continually used the name Prof. Herb Cowcatcher, but after you first mention his name you need to refer to him only as Prof. Cowcatcher. Also, do not use the name of the person you are writing to in the third person. If you are writing to Bob Fripp, don't say, "Would Bob be interested in visiting our campus?" And you should usually avoid calling someone Mr./Ms. Director or Mr./Ms. President (unless that person is actually the president of a country). Finally, it is perfectly acceptable to use pronouns like you, he/his, she/her and so on in English. I sense that you are hesitating to use these because I know that they can often seem too familiar and rough in Japanese.
4. Spacing: In most cases you should justify all your margins. If, halfway through, you suddenly shift to a centered justification it looks amateurish or lacking in care. Also try and keep some space between the lines. This is especially true if writing by hand or if you are expecting the reader to make notes of some sort. Creating a space between different sections is also a good idea, as is using subtitles that are distinguishable as such by size, italics and justification. All these serve as visual aids to readers, signaling where they should switch their mental processing. Also, don't forget to type in a space after commas and periods, as well as before and after parentheses.
5. Hyphenation: There are rules about where you can hyphenate English words and it is import!ant that you follow these rules. You can only divide the word at a syllable break. I know that the concept of an English syllable can be elusive for someone coming from a mora-based language like Japanese, but again, failure to do so can make your work look a bit unprofessional. For example, you cannot hyphenate the word "language" after "la." The most acceptable hyphenation spot would be after the "n." Good dictionaries will often indicate syllabic division.
6. Register: I said earlier that I would comment on your vocabulary. And while your vocabulary is vast and technically "correct," I sometimes note a little problem with your register--the level of language that we use in different interactions. For example, in your research you refer to "a really large increase." This sounds fine in casual English conversation, but within a scientific essay "a great" or "significant" increase is much more appropriate. I have noted cases of questionable register in your work.
7. Set phrases: This is another area connected to vocabulary, or more properly, lexis. In your paper you often use the phrase, "Now I think I'd like to discuss..." I believe here you are translating a common Japanese set phrase but it comes off awkwardly in English. You also have a tendency to overuse the English phrase "and so on," which is not quite the same in usage as its standard Japanese cognate. In several places, I have made suggestions on where to use English set phrases and where they are inappropriate.
8. Fonts and size: I noticed that you used a Japanese font to write in English, which leads to several problems in formatting as well as simply looking awkward to most readers, as many words (and even letters) in your paper were spaced too far apart. Please use an English font (Times New Roman and Century are the most widely used for formal writing) and keep a consistent size (I suggest 10.5 point) for the main body of your essay.
9. "The" and "a": I know very well that the English articles are among the most difficult aspects of English to master and I couldn't possibly provide a complete explanation as to how they are used here. Suffice to say that when you write titles and captions for charts and illustrations you can generally avoid using them. (What a relief!) So, instead of "The number of malformed cells found in a typical sample," you can instead write, "Number of malformed cells found in typical sample."
10. When writing titles or addresses please separate different categories onto different lines. For example: 1) Ms. Hanako Yamada 2) Special Investigator 3) General Intimidation and Harassment Section 4) Immigration Bureau. Each of these items should be clearly separated and not run into one another.
For any English academic paper you should always try to conform to the APA (American Psychological Association) style. It's quite easy to find samples online.
Finally, Dr. Tanaka, in response to your final question about how many mistakes you made (and I noted your joke about "taking marks off for my errors"), I really cannot calculate the number of errors. For example, how many "mistakes" does a sentence like, "How do you enjoy your summer?" have? Is "enjoy" a suitable word here? Is this an appropriate opening in correspondence? Does the writer really want to know how the reader typically enjoys their summers or did they mean something else?
This notion of counting mistakes is not very helpful in identifying weak points or offering guidance and correction. Likewise, most of the things I have noted in your paper are not mistakes per se but simply formatting problems, poor choices of ｅxpression!, or inappropriate style. These are not technically "wrong" but they certainly do hinder your paper from looking professional and thereby limit the force of your ｅxpression!.
I hope that English teachers might focus upon these areas as much as they focus upon "correct" grammar when teaching Japanese students to write and in checking or grading their written work. After all, competency in writing English is not simply a matter of avoiding mistakes but also a question of good organization, propriety of form, and of understanding stylistic norms and standards.
Guest is an associate professor of English at Miyazaki University. He can be reached at mikeguest59@yahoo.ca.
(Nov. 27, 2007)
Mike Guest / Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Dear Dr.Tanaka: I have checked your English essays and correspondence as you requested and have decided to add the following notes. I hope that you may find them of help.
You initially asked me to fix your grammatical mistakes, but your sentence grammar is actually impeccable. You also asked me to comment on your vocabulary, and although I will make a few remarks about this later, I can rarely find fault in that regard either.
Allow me instead to make some comments on import!ant matters that are neither grammatical nor--strictly speaking--vocabulary-related but are nonetheless central to making a good impression upon a native-English reader. They may seem like little formalities but they do matter. Moreover, teachers often forget to teach them and many Japanese never really learn them. Although a good stylebook can go into precise detail, below are my initial suggestions for focus as you revise your work:
1. Paragraphs: Your paragraphs seem to be divided at random, and in some places they look more like poems than essays. Some paragraphs are very lengthy and contain a number of rhetorical shifts while others are only one sentence, yet the content was still directly connected to the paragraph it precedes or follows. While you don't have to follow the so-called rules about topic and concluding sentences, it's a good general guideline to keep to one rhetorical unit as a paragraph. Paragraph breaks should act as breathing spaces for rhetorical shifts or developments, not to mention as cosmetic divisions for the eyes. And please remember to indent every paragraph.
2. Capitals: Please remember to capitalize all first letters in personal names, company names, departments, and titles. The exception, of course, would be prepositions in titles. If you suddenly shift to lower case in a title or name, the reader is likely to think that this word is not actually a part of that name or title.
3. Address forms: These are very import!ant for personal relationships. In your paper, you referred to Dr. Frank Black as Dr. Frank. Never use a title with a first name. Then, in your essay you continually used the name Prof. Herb Cowcatcher, but after you first mention his name you need to refer to him only as Prof. Cowcatcher. Also, do not use the name of the person you are writing to in the third person. If you are writing to Bob Fripp, don't say, "Would Bob be interested in visiting our campus?" And you should usually avoid calling someone Mr./Ms. Director or Mr./Ms. President (unless that person is actually the president of a country). Finally, it is perfectly acceptable to use pronouns like you, he/his, she/her and so on in English. I sense that you are hesitating to use these because I know that they can often seem too familiar and rough in Japanese.
4. Spacing: In most cases you should justify all your margins. If, halfway through, you suddenly shift to a centered justification it looks amateurish or lacking in care. Also try and keep some space between the lines. This is especially true if writing by hand or if you are expecting the reader to make notes of some sort. Creating a space between different sections is also a good idea, as is using subtitles that are distinguishable as such by size, italics and justification. All these serve as visual aids to readers, signaling where they should switch their mental processing. Also, don't forget to type in a space after commas and periods, as well as before and after parentheses.
5. Hyphenation: There are rules about where you can hyphenate English words and it is import!ant that you follow these rules. You can only divide the word at a syllable break. I know that the concept of an English syllable can be elusive for someone coming from a mora-based language like Japanese, but again, failure to do so can make your work look a bit unprofessional. For example, you cannot hyphenate the word "language" after "la." The most acceptable hyphenation spot would be after the "n." Good dictionaries will often indicate syllabic division.
6. Register: I said earlier that I would comment on your vocabulary. And while your vocabulary is vast and technically "correct," I sometimes note a little problem with your register--the level of language that we use in different interactions. For example, in your research you refer to "a really large increase." This sounds fine in casual English conversation, but within a scientific essay "a great" or "significant" increase is much more appropriate. I have noted cases of questionable register in your work.
7. Set phrases: This is another area connected to vocabulary, or more properly, lexis. In your paper you often use the phrase, "Now I think I'd like to discuss..." I believe here you are translating a common Japanese set phrase but it comes off awkwardly in English. You also have a tendency to overuse the English phrase "and so on," which is not quite the same in usage as its standard Japanese cognate. In several places, I have made suggestions on where to use English set phrases and where they are inappropriate.
8. Fonts and size: I noticed that you used a Japanese font to write in English, which leads to several problems in formatting as well as simply looking awkward to most readers, as many words (and even letters) in your paper were spaced too far apart. Please use an English font (Times New Roman and Century are the most widely used for formal writing) and keep a consistent size (I suggest 10.5 point) for the main body of your essay.
9. "The" and "a": I know very well that the English articles are among the most difficult aspects of English to master and I couldn't possibly provide a complete explanation as to how they are used here. Suffice to say that when you write titles and captions for charts and illustrations you can generally avoid using them. (What a relief!) So, instead of "The number of malformed cells found in a typical sample," you can instead write, "Number of malformed cells found in typical sample."
10. When writing titles or addresses please separate different categories onto different lines. For example: 1) Ms. Hanako Yamada 2) Special Investigator 3) General Intimidation and Harassment Section 4) Immigration Bureau. Each of these items should be clearly separated and not run into one another.
For any English academic paper you should always try to conform to the APA (American Psychological Association) style. It's quite easy to find samples online.
Finally, Dr. Tanaka, in response to your final question about how many mistakes you made (and I noted your joke about "taking marks off for my errors"), I really cannot calculate the number of errors. For example, how many "mistakes" does a sentence like, "How do you enjoy your summer?" have? Is "enjoy" a suitable word here? Is this an appropriate opening in correspondence? Does the writer really want to know how the reader typically enjoys their summers or did they mean something else?
This notion of counting mistakes is not very helpful in identifying weak points or offering guidance and correction. Likewise, most of the things I have noted in your paper are not mistakes per se but simply formatting problems, poor choices of ｅxpression!, or inappropriate style. These are not technically "wrong" but they certainly do hinder your paper from looking professional and thereby limit the force of your ｅxpression!.
I hope that English teachers might focus upon these areas as much as they focus upon "correct" grammar when teaching Japanese students to write and in checking or grading their written work. After all, competency in writing English is not simply a matter of avoiding mistakes but also a question of good organization, propriety of form, and of understanding stylistic norms and standards.
Guest is an associate professor of English at Miyazaki University. He can be reached at mikeguest59@yahoo.ca.
(Nov. 27, 2007)