高级医学英语阅读与写作Chapter Seven
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Visibility Losses Caused by
Transient Adaptation at Low Luminance Levels
 

Transient adaptation refers to the rapid fluctuations in the sensitivity of the eye that result from sudden changes in luminance level. The research reported here examines the effects of transient adaptation and resultant losses in visibility by using luminance levels comparable to nighttime highway lighting conditions. Research has been initiated on the problem of nonuniformities in roadway luminances in the motorist’s visual environment. Experiments to examine multiple nonuniformities and the effect of nonuniformities at various distances from the line of sight on transient adaptation are planned.

Definition   Purpose and method     Research work   Future work

 
B. Informative abstract:
 
Visibility Losses Caused by
Transient Adaptation at Low Luminance Levels
 

Transient adaptation refers to the rapid fluctuations in the sensitivity of the eye that result from sudden changes in luminance level. The research reported here examines the effects of transient adaptation and resultant losses in visibility by using luminance levels comparable to nighttime highway lighting conditions. At low luminance levels, sudden increases produce losses in visibility equivalent to those previously found at higher levels. However, at low luminance levels, decreases produce smaller losses than those observed at higher luminance levels. The results also suggest that there is a preadapting level or range of levels below which there is little or no difference between visibility losses for 10-and 100-fold decreases and above which there is a difference. The transition appears to be a gradual one and is complete at about 8 ft-L. The findings of these investigations suggest that visibility loss depends more on the ratio of steady state thresholds, particularly at low luminance levels, than on the ratio of luminance change as previously supposed. Research has been initiated on the problem of nonuniformities in roadway luminances in the motorist’s visual environment. Results indicate that the size of nonuniformity may have little effect on transient adaptation. However, experiments to examine multiple nonuniformities and the effect of nonuniformities at various distances from the line of sight on transient adaptation are planned.

Definition   Purpose and method   Findings of the investigations (exact information)                   Research work       Future work

 
Note: Informative abstracts must make sense on their own without reference to the body of the paper. Many scientific/technical writings need informative abstracts which are thought of as miniature papers incorporating elements from each of the four major sections: Introduction, Material and Methods, Results andDiscussion. Follow the directions given here, and you will write a good abstract: From the Introduction, state the purpose of your study or its questions, perhaps with a sentence providing essential background. From the Material and Methods, describe what you did (treatments, measurements taken, techniques). From the results, distill your findings into one or two or more sentences describing the effects of treatments, relationships between variables, or means and standard deviations. From the Discussion, state your main conclusion and its implications.
 
Other samples
Sample 1(a descriptive abstract)
 

Case Report: AnAutonomously Functioning Thyroid Adenomain a Male With Thyroxine-Binding Globulin Excess   A male with thyroxine-binding globulin (TBG) excess and an autonomously functioning thyroid adenoma is presented. The problem of diagnosing hyperthyroidism in the presence of TBG excess is discussed. The utility of the thyrotropin-releasing hormone test (TRH) is emphasized.

Topic 1   Topic 2   Emphasis

 
Sample 2 (an informative abstract)
 
Malignant Hypertension and Cigarette Smoking
 

The smoking habits of 48 patients with malignant hypertension were compared with those of 92 consecutive patients with non-malignant hypertension. Thirty-three of the patients with malignant and 34 of the patients with non-malignant hypertension were smokers when first diagnosed. This difference was significant, and remained so when only men or black and white patients were considered separately. Results suggest that malignant hypertension is yet another disease related to cigarette smoking.

Work done (past tense)     Results of the study (past tense)     Conclusion (present tense)

 
Sample 3:(a descriptive abstract)
 
How to write abstracts?
 

An abstract, as defined in the paper, is an abbreviated, accurate representation of a document. Recommendations are made for the guidance of authors and editors, so that abstracts in primary documents may be helpful to their readers, useful to librarians and database suppliers and users as well as reproducible with little or no change in secondary publications and services.

Definition   Topic Purpose

 
Tips for writing abstracts
 
1. Try to write a brief abstract —usually no longer than a short paragraph.
2. Try to write an abstract which contains general facts and ideas rather than specific illustrations.
3. Make familiar with the following expressions and try to use them in your abstracts:
 
A. Expressions concerning purposes:
This (report/article/paper…) discusses…
This excellent book outlines …
The purpose of the program/study/report/paper/review is to…
The object/aim of this study/research was to…
The study aimed to…
This report presents an analysis of…
This present paper explores …
The results suggests/show that …
An investigation was designed to …
A study was undertaken to…
Attempts were made to…
The author investigates/presents…
… are described/reported/presented.
 
B. Expression concerning suggestions or conclusions:
The results/authors/observations/findings suggest/show/demonstrate that…
We conclude that…/It is concluded that …
This study indicates…
This case illustrates that…/It is illustrated that…
This study confirms that…/Data fail to confirm…
We/The authors feel/believe/consider/propose/recommend that…
This case points out…
These results support…
It is suspected/thought that…
It is recommended that…
The paper concludes that…
4.Write in your own words and make an effort to reduce an event to its bare essentials.
5.Write complete and grammatical sentences. Don’t omit verbs, conjunctions, articles, etc.
 
Synthesis
 
A synthesis is a combination of information from two or more sources. You need to synthesize when you gather materials from different sources to write your research paper. In order to write a synthesis you will need to use:
 
1.Decision-making skill: first select suitable sources, and then select the relevant parts within those sources.
2. Paraphrase skills: put the relevant information into your own words.
3.Make a plan: The selected and paraphrased information from all the sources has to be made to fit together into one continuous piece of writing. This has to be done in a logical way, so that connected points appear together and no information is repeated. The best way to do this to write an outline or set of simple notes.
 
To write a synthesis in English is similar to writing a synthesis in Chinese. For a graduate, writing a synthesis might not be a problem. Still, some steps to write a synthesis is provided as follows:
 
1. Find suitable sources (these are usually excerpts from longer sources).
2. Underline or highlight everything within each source that is relevant.
3. Read what you have underlined/highlighted two or three times to become very familiar with the main ideas.
4. Number all the main ideas: if the same main idea is in several sources, give it the same number in every source.
5. On a sheet of paper, write the numbers and one or two words for the main ideas — leave four or five lines between each main point (more if you are synthesizing large amounts of source material).
6. Work through each source marking every supporting point for each main idea — mark these 1a, 1b, 1c, etc.
7. Check your plan against the sources for
a.         accuracy
b.        completeness, and
c.         lack of repetition.
8. Put away your sources.
9. Read through your notes, making vocabulary changes where possible, and deciding first on the most logical sequence of main ideas and second on the supporting points for each main idea, indicating possible grammatical structure and linking words.
10. Check yourself for
a.    accuracy, originality, and grammaticality, and
b.    relevance to the title/question.
 
Memorandums (Memos)
 
Memorandums are generally very direct and concise. They do not have a salutation, complimentary close, or signature. Memorandums have the following parts. Note that each section is followed by a colon.
 
Date:
To: (Addressee)
From: (Sender)
Subject: (The brief topic of the memo)
 
Typically, the topic of the memorandum is briefly stated after the subject heading. For example, if the purpose of a memorandum were to summarize a new procedure for reporting sick leave, the heading might read:
Subject: Procedure for reporting sick leave.
 
Sample
 

Date: November 23, 2000 To: Mary Smith From: P. T. Wang Subject: Symposium In order to strengthen Sino-foreign cooperation, a symposium will be held at the meeting hall on October 20, at 2:00 p.m. Please prepare for it and be there on time

 
III. Reading practice
 
Letters and Resumes
 
Letter 1
 
                                                                             1801 Panorama Drive
                                                                             Bakersfield, CA 93305
                                                                             September 19, 19—
 
Editor
The Bakersfield Californian
P.O. Box 440
Bakersfield, CA 93305
 
Dear Editor:
 
Thank you for the fine articles in your recent feature section on the U.S. Constitution. I liked the paraphrasing in modern, simple English for the benefit of Americans who might find the eighteenth century writing style difficult to follow.
 
In your efforts to simplify the Bill of Rights, however, you distorted the meaning of the Second Amendment. Your paraphrase, "gives you the right to own guns," omitted a crucial modifying phrase.
 
Framers of the Constitution feared federal power and needed assurance that each state could keep its own militia, or army. That intent was made clear in the phrase that you omitted. The complete amendment reads, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." In other words, the people of a state have the right to arm themselves collectively, but that does not guarantee every individual the right to own a gun.
 
Framers of the Constitution could not have foreseen automobiles, freeways, or the spectacle of frustrated drivers shooting each other in congested traffic. But they wisely gave us the Ninth Amendment so that we could deal with unforeseen problems. We do not have to tolerate the misuse of guns in a mistaken idea that the Constitution forbids any restrictions on their possession.
 
                                                                                  Sincerely yours,
                                                                                         Helen Gordon
                                                                                  Dr. Helen H. Gordon
 
Letter 2
 
Chang hua
Department of Foreign Languages
Tongji Medical University
13 Hangkong Road
Wuhan, Hubei 430030
People's Republic of China
 
Dear Professor Chang:
 
I recently received your letter in which you inquired about the status of your manuscriptCollege English: An advanced Oral Course.
 
I am afraid that there has been some misunderstanding and also some problems with the mail service. You state in your letter of May 28, 1992 that you sent me the revised manuscript. I received this manuscript and reviewed it. Unfortunately, I decided that in light of our current publishing plans, we would not be able to publish your text. Please be assured that this decision does not reflect the quality of your work; we are a rather small publishing company and we can publish only a few ESL titles each year. This is an ambitious text and I am afraid that we do not currently have the resources to take on this project.
 
I returned the manuscript to you shortly after I received it. I am greatly dismayed that you have not yet received it. I should also say that the letter I received from you today (dated May 28, 1992) is the only piece of correspondence I have received from you since you sent the revised manuscript.
 
I hope that you eventually receive the manuscript. Please let me know if there is any way that I can be of further assistance.
 
Sincerely,
Dathleen Schultz
Dathleen Schultz
ESL/EFL Editor
 
 
 
Letter 3 and resume
 
Dear Mr. ______:
 
In January, 1980, you were interviewing me at the       College campus, I was scheduled to see you but I had just accepted position with Stores and canceled my interview.
 
At the present time I am working as assistant buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I have been commuting every two weeks to see my family in Chicago. I am seeking employment in the Chicago area.
 
Enclosed is my resume for your consideration again. Thank you for your attention. I will look forward to hearing from you in the near future.
 
Sincerely,
Rudi Schepers
 
 
Sample Resume
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Harold B. Rivers
44 Buell Street
Faribault, Minnesota 55021
(507) 555-6789
 

Job Objective   Education 1978-82       1974-78     Work Experience   Summer 1981           Summer 1980     Summers 1978     Extracurricular Activities           Special Interests   References

Marketing or advertising trainee (Date available: July 1, 1982)   Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois Degree: B.A.(expected in June 1982) Major: Business administration   Faribault Senior High School, Faribault, Minnesota Academic degree       Acting Assistant Manager, Brown's Department Store, Faribault, Minnesota. Responsibilities included checking inventory, handling complaints, and processing special orders.   Salesclerk, Brown's Department Store, Faribault, Minnesota   Waiter, The Village Pub, Northfield, and 1979 Minnesota   Undergraduate Council, Monmouth College Debate Forum (President, 1981-82), Monmouth College Drama Club (President, 1977-78), Faribault Senior High School   Photography, public speaking, drama   For academic references: Office of Student Placement Monmouth College Monmouth, Illinois 61462   Mr. George C. Hazen Manager, Brown's Department Store 300 Main Street Faribault, Minnesota 55021   Mrs. Nancy Wright Manager, The Village Pub 24 Harris Street Northfield, Minnesota 5505

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
Summary
Student Rights
 
Who knows better than the students themselves what a university should do for them and how they should be treated? Yet how often do students have any say at all in such important issues as faculty selection, curriculum planning, and scheduling? The answer is obvious: never. If university administrations refuse to include student representatives in the decision-making process, something drastic must be done.
Let's examine what is happening right here on our own campus in the areas mentioned above. The first major issue is the selection of faculty members. Never in the history of this college has a student been permitted to interview, examine the credentials of, or even meet prospective professors. All hiring is done by a joint administrative-faculty committee, often made up of people who will not even have extensive dealings with the individuals after they begin teaching. Those who have the most at stake and whose lives and academic careers will be governed by the professors — the students themselves — never even meet the new teachers until the first class meeting. No one is better equipped to evaluate a professor's ability to communicate with students than those whom he or she intends to teach. Anyone can read a curriculum vitae to ascertain the level of professional training and experience someone has had, but the best judges of a teacher's ability to teach, which is the primary function of any professor, are undoubtedly the students themselves.
Students' interest in and commitment to appropriate curricula are even more obvious. We have come to college with very specific purposes in mind: to prepare ourselves intellectually and practically for the future. We know what we need to learn in order to compete successfully with others in our chosen fields. Why should we be kept out of the curriculum planning process? If we pay for the textbooks, spend hours in the library doing research, and burn the midnight oil studying for tests and exams, why are we not permitted to have our opinions about the materials we will spend so many hours studying? It is imperative that our views be made known to curriculum planners.
Finally, the area of scheduling is of vital interest to students. The hours at which classes are offered affect the workings of our daily lives. Many of us must juggle work and class schedules, but often administrators ignore such problems when they schedule classes. Schedules must be convenient and flexible so that all students have equal opportunities to take the most popular classes and those which are most essential to their majors. If students helped with scheduling, never would there be two required courses offered at the same time for only one semester per academic year. Never would we have to wait two or three semesters to take a course that is a prerequisite for other desired courses, nor would we have to race across campus in ten minutes to get from one class to the next. Students are vitally concerned with the scheduling area.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, students were not too shy or fearful to demonstrate against the injustices they saw in the draft system and the Vietnam conflict. Why should students today be afraid to voice their opinions about the very important issues that affect their very lives? It is imperative that students act to protect their own rights. Fellow university students, I urge that you meet together and draw up demands to be presented to the administration. We must take the future in our own hands, not be led to it like passive sheep. Let us act now so that we will not be sorry later!
 
Summary
 
In his essay, “Student Rights,” Jeff Bakersfield, a university student, stated that students had the right to be involved in university administrative decisions. Using the current situation on his own college campus as an example, he emphasized that students should be included in decisions regarding selection of faculty, curriculum planning, and scheduling of classes. He pointed out that students not only had more vital interests in the decisions made in these areas than those who traditionally settle the issues, but that they were also better equipped through their experiences as students to make intelligent decisions about them. Bakersfield concluded by stating that it was crucial for students to become actively involved in protesting unilateral administrative decisions and proposed that they meet to discuss their mutual interests and demands.
 
IV. Writing assignments
 
Exercise 7-1         Letter of inquiry
_________________________________________________________________
             
Write a letter of inquiry to one of the following: (1) a department of a university you have attended or plan to transfer to, asking for information on programs or services, or requesting a transcript of your grades, (2) a company or agency that might supply information for your paper.
 
Exercise 7-2         Business letter
___________________________________________________________________________
 
Write a letter to the editor of your school journal, local newspaper or a favorite magazine. Commend something that the publication has printed or some praiseworthy activities taking place. Or discuss something that you think can be improved, giving a specific description of the problem and suggestion for solving it.
 
Exercise 7-3         Application letter and resume
___________________________________________________________________
 
(1)   Write a cover letter to a department of a university you are applying to for an admission of Ph.D. degree or a post-doctoral research position
(2)   Write a cover letter and resume to a company or an agency to try to apply for a working position.
 
Exercise 7-4         Summary
___________________________________________________________________
 
Using the techniques, write a brief summary of the following article in about 250 words. Be sure to use your OWN words.
 
Industrialism, at least within our experience of it for more than 200 years, never reaches a point of equilibrium or a level plateau. By its principle of operation, it ceaselessly innovates and changes. Having largely eliminated the agricultural work force, it moves on manufacturing employment by creating new automated technology that increases manufacturing productivity while displacing workers. Manufacturing, from accounting for a half or more of the employed population of industrial societies, shrinks to between a quarter and a third. Its place is filled by the service sector, which in fully industrial societies comes to employ between a half and two-thirds of the work force and to account for more than half of the gross national product. Most service occupations in government, health, education, finance, leisure and entertainment are white-collar. The typical industrial worker is now not the blue-collar worker but the white-collar worker.
The move to a service society is marked by a great expansion in education, health, and other private and public welfare services. The population typically becomes not just healthier, better housed, and better fed but also better educated. Most young people complete secondary-or high-school education; between a quarter and a half of them go on to full-time higher education. Professional and scientific knowledge becomes the most marketable commodity. The “knowledge class” of professional, scientific, and technical workers becomes the fastest-growing occupational group. The link between pure science and technology, loose and uncertain in the early stages of industrialization, becomes pivotal. New industries, starting with chemicals and pharmaceuticals and later including the aeronautical, space, and nuclear industries, are created by developments in pure science and depend largely on theoretical research. Theoretical knowledge in the social sciences also comes to be widely applied, as in Keynesian management of the national economy and in complex models of technological and economic forecasting.
Struck by these changes, as compared with the classic forms of industrial society of the 19th and early 20th centuries, some theorists, notably the American sociologist Daniel Bell, have discerned a movement to a new postmodern or postindustrial society. Such conclusions may be premature. Most of the changes characterizing late industrialism can be seen as the results of long-term developments implicit in the process of industrialization from the start. The rise of service industries has emerged in part from the increase in leisure and in disposable wealth and in part from the continuing process of mechanization and technical innovation, which constantly raises manufacturing productivity by replacing human labour with machines. It can also be seen as the consequence of the growth of multinational corporations, this, too, is the result of the increase in scale and complexity of industrial organization, a clear tendency from the very start. The growth of knowledge-based industries, finally, represents no break with the past. Science has always been at the base of industrialism, and its closer union with industry and society in the 20th century is simply the fulfillment of modernization’s rationalizing drive.
But, while there may be no new society, these changes do add a new dimension to modern societies. Beyond a certain point in economic development, new values and problems emerge. The activities of the multinationals seem to encourage a process of “de-industrialization” in many modern societies, a drastic decline in manufacturing output and employment as these functions shift to the Third World. While services have for the time being filled the breach, it can not be assumed that such a balancing will continue, at least as far as employment is concerned. The new microelectronic technology, itself simply the latest wave of industrial tools, has made inroads into service employment faster than more traditional industrial machines displaced manufacturing workers. The application of computers to information processing in a wide range of service work may threaten in turn to displace the vast mass of routine white-collar workers. Nor are the jobs of the more skilled workers necessarily much safer: Computer-aided design may take over much of the draftsman’s and architect’s work as computer-aided manufacturing equipment displaces skilled machinists, electronic audiovisual equipment may to a large extent take the place of the classroom teacher, and self-service diagnostic software may eliminate many tasks of the nurse and doctor.
Many features of modernity, intensified beyond a certain level, produce a reactive response. Urbanization, having reached some practical saturation point, leads to suburbanization, the desire to live in neighbourhoods with green spaces and at least a breath of country air. As the suburbs fill up, the more prosperous citizens become exurban: they colonize the villages and small towns of the countryside within commuting distance of their work in the city. Aiding this trend is the industrial decentralization and depopulation of many cities as old manufacturing industries decline and new service industries move out to the suburbs and small towns. For the first time since the onset of industrialization, the countryside begins to gain population and the cities begin to lose it. According to the 1980 U.S. census, cities such as St, Louis, Buffalo, and Detroit lost between 35 and 47 percent of their population over a 30-year period. London lost almost 15 percent of the population of its inner boroughs between 1961 and 1971, and Liverpool almost 25 percent of its population in the 20-year period to 1971.
But there is a deceptive aspect to this movement. The familiar forces of industrialism, here as elsewhere, continue to dominate the process. Suburbanization and exurbanization do not mean deurbanization. On the contrary, they amount to a spreading of urban life over greater and greater areas. They are simply the filling up, at lesser but still urban densities, of larger areas and regions. From the old city develops the metropolitan area, comprising a large city of about 10 million people together with a surrounding community socially and economically dependent on it. The metropolitan areas themselves tend to merge into even larger urban agglomerations, the megalopolises, which serve populations of 40 million or more. The biggest of these is “Boswash”, the chain of contiguous cities and surrounding regions that stretches from Boston to Washington, D.C., along the northeastern seaboard of the United States. Others in the United States include the Chicago-Pittsburgh area around the Great Lakes and the San Francisco-San Diego region along the California coast. There are emerging megalopolises in Britain in the region between London and the Midland cities, in Germany in the industrial basin of the Ruhr, and in Japan in the Tokyo-Osaka-Kyoto complex.
The Greek architect and city planner Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis argued that this process is part of a long-term evolution that must eventually culminate in the world-city, or “Ecumenopolis”. This remarkable object will incorporate areas reserved for recreation and agriculture as well as desert and wilderness conservation areas, but essentially it will be a web of interconnected cities throughout the world, all closely linked by rapid transport and electronic communication, and all contributing to a single functional unity. In Ecumenopolis the entire land surface of the globe will have become recognizably the swelling place of urbanized humanity.
Embedded in this process is a contradictory pattern typical of late industrial life. Subjectively, individuals wish to escape from the city. They leave the congested and declining older urban centers only to find themselves cocooned by larger urban structures in the region at large. The objective structural forces of industrialism have in no way abated. But increasingly they give rise to reactions and behaviour that have a de-modernizing character.
Thus there is reaction against large-scale bureaucratic organization. “Small is beautiful”, declare the protesters as they seek to reestablish communal and craft environments characteristic of the preindustrial period. Parallel with this is a movement to promote “alternative” and “intermediate” technology, which aims to design tools that restore to the human worker the potential to use and express skill and creativity.
At the political level, too, there is reaction against large scale and centralization. In many industrial societies, such as those of Britain, France, and Canada, there have been strong regional movements demanding autonomy or outright independence. Often these are areas, such as Scotland in Britain, where at least substantial minorities wish to restore historic nations that have been incorporated into larger, more centralized states. Such movements derive momentum from the internationalization of the world economy and polity, which, over the world generally, gives rise to wholly new nationalisms as well. Lacking economic and often genuine political self-government, small societies assert their cultural identity and clamour-and sometimes fight-for autonomy. This was particularly evident in the 1990s with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and other nationalist movements in Africa and throughout the world. In less extreme cases, new nations may emerge, although their main symbols of independence may be no more than a national anthem and an international airport.
The assertion of cultural values opposed to modernity is a general characteristic of late industrialism. This may take the form of a revival of ethnicity, a claim for a culture and way of life that often harks back to older communal traditions and which denies the legitimacy of any uniform culture propagated by the large nation-state. Thus in the United States blacks, Hispanics, American Indians, and many other groups have made strong claims on behalf of a distinctive ethnic way of life that they variously seek to defend against the encroachments of the national culture. Protests against rationality and uniformity are seen, as well, in the successive waves of youth cultures and religious revivals that have marked late industrial society. Objectively, it is clear that the large-scale bureaucratic institutions of society continue to give the main direction to national life. All revolts break against their indispensability to modern society. But subjectively these institutions are incapable of satisfying the emotional and social needs of individuals. The consequence is the repeated rise of subcultures, often of bizarre mystical or hedonistic kinds, which aim in their practice to reverse the main features of modernity and which give their members a sense of participation and belonging of an almost tribal nature. Central to most of these antinomian movements and ideologies is a wholesale rejection of the scientific worldview, which is depicted as alienating and dehumanizing.
To embark on modernization is to be caught up in a whirligig. Once started, the ceaselessly spinning motion seemingly cannot be stopped or even slowed for long. A nation that modernizes is set upon a path of development that carries its own logic and an inseparable mixture of good and bad. Without question, modern society brings progress in the form of material abundance. Less certainly, it brings increasing control of the natural and social environment. But its scientific and technological achievements are bought at some cost to spiritual and emotional life. In unifying the world, modernization establishes uniform standards, albeit higher ones in many cases than previously prevailed. At the same time, it ensures that failures and disasters will also be magnified globally. There are no retreats and escape routes, except those that modern society itself invents as pastimes. The world becomes one and its fate that of all its inhabitants.
To measure the balance of gains and losses in modernity and to increase the former against the latter require forms of social accounting and social engineering that have so far largely defied the efforts of social science and government. But in practice this does not matter. No one can wait for that problem to be solved, if it ever can be. To modernize is to take everything, the bad with the good, and not to modernize is to play no part in the life of contemporary humanity. One of the unusual, and historically unprecedented, aspects of modernization is that it leaves no choice in the matter.
(1941 words)
 
Exercise 7-5        Abstract 
_________________________________________________________________
 
Read the following article and then write its descriptive abstract and informative abstract respectively.
 
BRIGHTER PROSPECTS FOR WOMEN IN ENGINEERING
 
One of the major deterrents to women considering engineering as a career is the all-male image. This barrier is rapidly disappearing as the engineering image changes from that of a hard-hat roustabout at a construction site to that of a thoughtful, logical individual who is genuinely interested in solving the engineering and social problems which face us today. True, she may still show up at a construction site in her hard hat, but her time is more apt to be spent at a desk working on new solutions. A female engineer – unlikely? Not quite.
Although women make up an unimpressive 1 percent of the engineering population, their ranks have been growing. The latest Society of Women Engineers survey of schools accredited by the Engineering Council for Professional Development shows that female engineering enrollment increased from 1,035 during 1959-60 to 3,905 during the 1972-73 school year. This increase may not be as large as it appears on the surface. Only 128 schools replied to the 1959-60 survey. But with the advent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, more recently, the implementation of the federal affirmative action program, as well as an increased awareness on the part of the schools, 201 responded last year. However, since the number of female engineering students per school has increased, even as the number of males enrolled at these schools has decreased, there is little doubt that the percentage of women enrolled in engineering undergraduate programs is growing.
 
Jobs Come Fast, Promotions Slowly
What happens when the newly minted female engineer tries to enter the field? Initially, she is sought after by almost every employer in sight. Once she is on the job, however, things change. On the average, promotions do not come as rapidly for women as they do for men.
Discrimination can be a double-edged sword, however, for unlike her male counterpart, the female engineer is highly visible, and if she does an outstanding job, she may very well be rewarded faster than a man would be. If her performance is average or slightly below average, she may be judged in terms of a number of myths. Perhaps chief among them is the notion that men (and women) don’t like to work for women. In my personal experience, I have found that people who enjoy their work get it done without any thought to whether their supervisor is a man or a woman.
Some echoes of other misconceptions about women are still heard among engineers, and undoubtedly contribute to the lag in promoting women to top management ranks. Examples of these myths are: (a) a company’s public image will suffer if a woman takes over a top management position, because men have traditionally been the corporate leaders; (b) a woman won’t travel on sales trips, to plant inspections, to professional conferences and so forth; (c) women don’t want to accept responsibility; (d) a woman’s family will always take precedence over her career. (One must ask, why shouldn’t it take precedence over a man’s as well?)
It has also been argued that promotion policies don’t favor women because companies prefer long tenure for those elevated to executive positions, and they believe that turnover rates are greater for women. But, not only do government figures show that professional women have working careers comparable in length to those of men, it is also clear that promotions generally accrue to men regardless of age and experience. Over 20 percent of all male engineers are in management, as opposed to an estimated 3 percent of female engineers.
Admittedly, because the number of women in the profession is small, the above figure is open to sampling error. Indeed, as many as 40 percent of the women surveyed in 1972 by the Society of Women Engineers stated that they supervised groups which ranged in size from teams to major organizations. It must be noted, however, that members of SWE (and engineering societies in general) are probably among the more qualified and professionally active engineers.
 
Attitudes Vary
A questionnaire on discrimination was included in the 1972 SWE survey. In a classic case of “which-came-first-the-chicken-or-the-egg?” the results showed that those women who were very successful in terms of salary, responsibility, and years of experience felt they had not encountered any discrimination. Those women who were moderately successful indicated that there was no discrimination encountered from their immediate superiors. They felt, however, that people in the upper levels of management hierarchy did discriminate and that there was some evidence of discrimination by coworkers.
Those women on the low side of the average in terms of salary and responsibility indicated that they had encountered discrimination at all levels. It can be argued that these women have less ability than their male cohorts, and use “discrimination” as an excuse for their lack of advancement.
 
Salaries
All women encounter discrimination, perhaps not intentional or even conscious, from their male colleagues. This contention is borne out by the results of the SWE salary survey, compared with the results of the survey of Engineers Joint Council for the profession as a whole. For engineers with 11 years’ experience (the median for women), the median salary for female engineers is $14,200 per year, while that for all engineers with 11 years’ experience is $16,700, according to the EJC. Both surveys were completed in 1972. The disparity may be even greater because again, SWE members are more professionally active than all engineers taken as a group.
Of course, the engineering profession is not alone in this disparity in salaries. In the federal civil service, men average $14,328 per year, and women only $8,578. This is not because there are separate pay scales for women, but rather because women employees are heavily concentrated in lower grade jobs.
All is not bleak, however. In 1973, the average starting salary offered to women engineering graduates at the bachelor’s degree level was $936 per month — $15 a month more than the average for men, according to the College Placement Council. This represents a closing of the gap when compared with 1971, when women were offered $8 a month less than men. Engineering — the profession offering the highest starting pay for those with bachelor’s degrees, remains the only profession where salary offers are higher for women than for men.
If one considers salary offers from private industry only, the salary gap between male and female engineers was even greater than the averages indicate, and favored women. But the federal government, which offered significantly lower salaries to entry-level female engineers than to males, dragged the overall averages closer together.
 
The Future?
The current energy crisis and materials shortage indicate that this country is fast moving form a state of have to have not. The only way to maintain our current standard of living is through technology, which means that engineers will continue to be in great demand. It also means that the image of engineering will continue to change as attention is focused on sociological-technological problems. Consequently, we can expect women to enter the engineering profession in greater numbers.
 

Exercise 7-6  Synthesis

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       Among your classmates, find three research papers you have written on similar topics to write a synthesis.
 
 
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