NTUT Writing Week 12

“Conclusion” & “Abstract”

Avoid Doing The Following In Your Conclusion

Elaborate the entire experimental processes or purposes of research;

Summarize the entire theses; Repeat sentences from the previous chapters; Overstretch potential theoretical/applicatory

departure; If it is preceded by a “Discussion” chapter, the

“Conclusion” chapter should only VERY BRIEFLY describe the main testified points. (Don’t make your readers read all the data from the previous chapters.)

“Conclusion” and “Conclusions” (vary by fields)

Contents & Organization

1. Brief description of the research (dispensable); 2. Description of the chief conclusions: -- the most important result(s); -- the implications of the result(s) 3. Suggestions on potential applications (dispensable). **Examples:

Tenses

**Describing Research Activities**

1. “Thesis-Oriented”: Present Perfect. This paper has presented a new model for

simulating the effect of elastic scattering on angular and depth distributions of excited photo and Auger electrons.

2. “Research-Oriented”: Past Tense. Silicon substrates and MBE-grown silicon films

doped with either Sb or In at Various concentrations were studied by a time resolved transient grating technique.

Abstract

**Avoid copying sentences from other chapters.(Each chapter has respective functions & purposes.)

Basic Contents & Organization: 1. Backgrounds (dispensable); 2. Primary research or experiments; 3. Methodologies (may be combined with 2); 4. The most important results; 5. One brief conclusion (dispensable). (If conclusions cannot be described in brief, writers

may use the following sentences.) “The results has been discussed in comparison with earlier

findings.” “A mechanism has been proposed to explain the results.”

Tenses

1. “Background”: **Use Present Tense when describing general

truths that are unaffected by time.** An important variable affecting the comprehension

of programs is their psychological complexity. Carbonic acid often has a strong affect on

streamwater chemistry. **Use Present Perfect when describing certain

trends in research. Previous research has shown that during work at

visual display units (VDUs) most subjects prefer viewing distances greater than 50 cm.

Much research has been devoted to investigating the quenching and aging of polymers.

2. “Primary Research & Experiments”:

**Research-Oriented: Past Tense.** (It is preferably to use pt than use pp.) This study investigated the distances at which subjects

prefer to work in VDU tasks that require frequent gaze-shifting between the VDU screen and a paper document.

Samples of neat solid ozone and ozone trapped in excess ice were subjected to laser photosysis at 308 nm.

**Thesis-Oriented: Present Tense.** A numeric method is proposed for solving the symmetric

matrix eigenvalue problem. This paper presents a social planning model for analyzing

the transition to nondepletable fuels.

3. “Methodologies”: **Experimental Procedures: Use Past Tense.** The visual strain of 20 subjects aged 19-51 years was

estimated by means of a questionnaire. Modules were presented to student programmers to

memorize. **Introducing models, algorithm, or other analyses: Use

Present Tense.** A Monte Carlo model is used to calculate the photoelectron

intensity. A numeric method for the symmetric matrix eigenvalue

problem is developed by reducing the problem to a number of matrix-matrix multiplications.

**Sentences that combine purposes & methodologies.** To study the effect of indentation on program

comprehension, programs with three levels of indentation were presented to different groups of subjects.

4. “The most important results”: Past Tense. The scores of subjects who received a program

written with moderate indentation were higher than the scores of the other two groups.

On plots seeded with a no-till crop, residue losses ranged from 81% to 88% by harvest time.

**Unless regarded as universally valid: Present tense.”

Workers with more privacy report a greater degree of satisfaction with their jobs.

5. “Concluding words & suggestions”: use Presnet Tense or model verbs.

The experimental results indicate that in the presence of mullions wind-induced suctions increase dramatically at the wall edge area for almost all geometrical and exposure configurations.

The strong seasonal fluctuations of CO2 may explain variations in streamwater alkalinity and base-cation concentrations.

The pace of capacity expansion in the nondepletable sector has a strong influence on socially optimal energy prices and production rates.

In-Class Drills: Tenses

An important variable affecting the comprehension of programs is their psychological complexity. Although some previous work has been done on surface or low-level semantic features that affect complexity, little work has been done on the effects of higher-level semantic features. This article describes an experiment using pairs of program modules that had equivalent surface complexity and functions but included semantic constructs with varying complexity. The modules were presented to student programmers to memorize. The students were tested on immediate recall, hand execution, and recall after a delay of 48 hours. Students given the semantically complex modules scored significantly worse (had significantly worse scores) on hand execution and delayed recall.