高级医学英语阅读与写作Chapter 8 Mechanics of Writing
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Chapter 8  Mechanics of Writing

I.     Margin and indentation
 
   Margin
Leave sufficient margins at the top and the bottom and on both sides.
 
   Indentation
Indent the first line of every paragraph for about one inch in handwritten copy and 3-5-7 letters in typewritten copy. Read the following example of correct manuscript form:
 

Center          Triple space   Center         Double spaceCenter   Triple space    Indent 5 letters

→   →   →   → →→   →

Assessing the Counseling Needs of Immigrants: A Multi-Modal Approach     Sirpa S. Whitman Portland Community College   Introduction     The purpose of the paper is to illustrate to helping professionals, especially to EFL teachers, how the multi-modal of assessment and intervention can be applied to assessing the counseling needs of immigrants.  This…

 
II.   Capitalization
 
       Capital letters are used:
 
A.      To begin a sentence (including every quoted sentence), each line of a poem, an outline or a table of contents. e.g.
 
a.         A sentence:
Because human nature is seldom as simple as it appears, hasty judgments are therefore often wrong.                                            
 
b.        A poem:
            Trees
Ithink that I shall never see
Apoem lovely as a tree;
 
Atree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet slowing breast;
 
Atree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
 
Atree that may in Summer wear
Anest of robins in her hairs;
 
Upon whose bosom snow has lain,
Who intimately lives with rain.
 
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
                                          by Joyce Kilmer               
 
c.         An outline:
     Christmas
A.    December 25th
B.     Celebration of the birth of Christ
C.     Celebration in church
1.      Christmas Eve service
2.      Christmas Day service
3.      Special music: carol
4.      Pageant to reenact the Christmas story
D.    Celebrations at home
1.      Christmas tree and decorations
2.      Gifts exchanged
3.      Christmas dinner                                    
 
B.       To capitalize the first word of a direct quotation. e.g.
 
He asked, “What are you doing?”
 
But when the quotation is not full in meaning, no capitalization is needed.e.g.
 
They said they were “very hospitable”.
 
C.   To capitalize the first letters of proper names, the essential words of proper names formed with common words, and words made from proper nouns but not general terms:
 
·Proper names:Eastern Europe (a geographic area); Africa (a continent); Thailand (a country); Salt Lake City (a city); Central Park ( a park); Fifth Avenue (a street); Yale University (a university); Thomas Hardy (a person); Chinese, English (names of languages); President Reagan (a title preceding a proper name)
·Proper names formed with common words:the Great Wall, the Red Cross, the American Civil War, the Republic of China; the United Nations
·  Words made from proper nouns but not general terms:European, Anglicize; Asian; Brazilian
 
     But when words which were originally proper names or are made from proper nouns become common nouns, they are written with small letters. e.g.
 
China — china (porcelain); Boycott — boycott (movement); Italy — italics (type) ; Pasteur — pasteurize
 
     D.        To capitalize the first letter of important words in titles of books, periodicals, articles, films, plays, compositions; trade marks, service signs, posts, slogans, greeting cards, etc. (the first word, the last word, and all other important words are capitalized.) e.g.
 
              A New English-Chinese Dictionary     (a dictionary)
              Selected Work of Lu Xun             (a book)
              China Reconstructs                 (a magazine)
              On Practice                       (an article)
              The Man Against the Sky             (title of a story)
              China Daily                                            (a newspaper)
 
Articles, short prepositions and conjunctions are not capitalized unless they begin or end a title. Sometimes all the letters of the above are capitalized. e.g.
 
REPLY TO DAVID WARDELL'S COMMENTS
 
E.    To capitalize abbreviations:
 
              Mr, Prof, Dr,
              U.S.A, PRC, Ph.D, MA,
              SALT talks
             
       F.    To capitalize contents in tables and forms:
             

Year of Schooling	Name of Institution	Your Age	Year of Attendance
1
2
3
4

 
G.   To capitalize the first letter of salutation and closings in letters. e.g.
 
              Dear Mr Smith,
                ……
                                                               Sincerely yours,
                                                               David
 
H.   To capitalize days of the week, months and holidays:
 
                     April, March, Monday, Labor Day, New Year’s Day ...
 
I.    To capitalize all letters of emphasized words or phrases or certain expressions:
 
                     Smoking is NOT allowed here!
                     Vitamin C can help cure a cold.
                     This is the ABC of English grammar.
 
J.    To capitalize the names of theatres, cinemas, hotels, restaurants, museums, ships, trains and aeroplanes:
       the Grand Theatre, the British Museum, the Mayflower, the Foyot’s, the Hilton Hotel
 
III.  Syllabification
 
       When there is not enough space at the end of a line to write a whole word and syllabification is necessary, the word should be divided according to syllables. End the line with a hyphen and write the remaining part at the beginning of a new line (without hyphen). Don't divide words of one syllable or the last word on a page but move them onto the next page.
       Syllabification is not always easy. When in doubt about where to divide a word, consult a dictionary in which dots or a little space among a word mark the divisions of its syllables. e.g.
 
              val•u•able,  easy•going,  re•li•able
              quar•ter•ly,  re•lease,  thea•tre
 
IV.  Punctuation Marks
 

Introduction

       Punctuation marks are signs in writing and printing. They serve two main functions: separation of successive units to clarify the sense of a paragraph, and specification of language function. Punctuation can be divided into "end punctuation" at the end of a sentence and "mid-punctuation" in the middle of a sentence and words. And punctuation has its syntactic meanings. It's helpful to both reading and writing to study it.
 

Functions

       A.   Separation of successive units: The comma, the colon, the semicolon, the dash, the slash, etc. are used to separate successive units. Strictly speaking, the period, the question mark, and the exclamation mark may also serve the above function because they can be regarded as separating sentences from each other.
 
       B.   Specification of language function: The period mainly signifies the end of a sentence. The question mark specifies doubt of a matter a sentence refers to. The exclamation mark specifies the exclamation or emotion of the matter a speaker or a writer holds an attitude toward. The comma means coordinate addition. The semicolon indicates coordinate addition. The colon indicates explanation and included contents. The dash indicates explanation and summary. Parentheses (brackets) indicate addition and explanation. The apostrophe indicates the possessive case of a word or structure. The hyphen indicates the combination of a word or structure. For the detail, read the following parts.
 
Positions of punctuation
 

End punctuation	Mid-punctuation
. / ? / “ ” / (  )/ !	, / ; / : / ( )	'
at the end of a sentence	in the middle of a sentence	within a word

 
V.    The Period (.), the Question Mark (?) and the Exclamation Mark (!)
 
1.   The three marks and three sentence types
Periods are used at the end of an indicative sentence or a mildly imperative sentence to indicate the end of an integral sense; question marks, after a direct question to ask a question or demonstrate some doubt; exclamation marks, after an exclamatory sentence to show a writer's strong feelings. e.g.
 
                     She warmly extended both hands towards us.
                     It was a day's work to repair the house's roof.
                     Water the flower.
                     Could you come a little earlier?
                     You have a brother, haven't you?
                     What day is it today?
                     What a fine day it is today!
                     How hard he works! 
                     Wait! I forgot my lunch!
                     Watch out!
 
2.    The period and exclamation mark
Periods and exclamation marks are used with imperative sentences. Periods are used with imperative sentences to show a writer's mild request while exclamation marks, to show a writer's strong order or request. e.g.
 
                     Fetch your supper yourself, Tom.
                     Water the garden.
                     Fancy spending a few days in there!
                     Stop the bus!
 
3.    Periods in or after abbreviations
Periods usually follow abbreviations. But abbreviations of government and international agencies are often written without periods. So are many technical abbreviations. Consider the following list:
 

Abbrev. with Periods	Abbrev. without Periods
Mr. / Dr. / U.S.A. /i.e./ p.m. Ave./ B.C./ B.B.C./ e.g.	UNESCO, NATO, UN, TV, GHQ, FCC

 
Note:    The full words for the above abbreviations are: Mr. = mister; Dr. = doctor; the U.S.A. = the United States of America; Ave. = avenue; B.C. = before Christ; B.B.C. = British Broadcasting Corporation; UNESCO (U.N.E.S.C.O.) = United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; UN = United Nations; NATO (N.A.T.O.) = North Atlantic Treaty Organization; TV = television; GHQ (G.H.Q.) =General Headquarters; FCC = face-centered cube
 
A comma or another mark of punctuation may follow the period after an abbreviation which is in the middle of a sentence, but at the end of a sentence, only one period is used. If a sentence is a question or an exclamation, the end punctuation mark follows the period after the abbreviation. e.g.
 
              After she finished with her M.A., she began studying for her Ph.D.
       When did she finished with her M.A.?
              Fancy her earning her Ph.D.!
 
4.    No occurrence of some of the three marks
 
              No occurrence of periods
Periods are not used in a title of a book or an article, but a                  question mark or exclamation mark can be included in some titles. e.g.
 
                 “Talks on Generative Grammar of English”
                 “Semantic Ambiguity: Use of Personal Pronouns”
                 “Can Animals Be Made to Work for Us?”
                 “Westward Ho!”
              No occurrence of question marks
Question marks are not used within sentences to indicate humor or sarcasm because they are used only to indicate doubt or question. If questions marks with parentheses are used after some parts (usually dates or figures) in a sentence, they show that the parts marked by them are historically doubtful. e.g.
         
Unacceptable:
                 The comedy (?) was a miserable failure.
                 They won a victory (?) in the match.
 
              Acceptable:
The article was written by William David Collidge (1873?). (It's unknown and therefore doubtful when he died.)
David Crook earned his M.A. in 1915 (?) and his Ph.D. in 1918. (The year he earned his M.A. is not sure.)
 
              Sparing use of exclamation marks
Exclamation marks are used only for signaling strong exclamations and orders, so they should be sparingly used for mild exclamations. Use commas or periods after mild exclamations. e.g.
 
                     Wait! I forgot my Lunch!               (strong)
                     Wait. I forgot my lunch.                 (mild)
                     Water the garden!                           (strong)
                     Water the garden.                            (mild)
 
VI.  Mid-punctuation
 
1.    The Comma(,)
 
The comma is chiefly used to clarify the sense of a sentence by separating equal items such as words, phrases or clauses in a series, and by setting off modifiers or parenthetical words, phrases or clauses.   
 
Separating equal items in a series
 
By ‘equal items’ are meant coordinate nouns in a series, verbs in a series, adjectives in a series, coordinate clauses in a series, etc, which are usually separated by a comma. e.g.
 
TV can influence their thoughts, their likes and dislikes, their speech, and even their dress.
Mr. Johnson, Mr. Smith (,) andMrs. Smith will come to the party.
He is a sleepy, hungry, tired boy.
With machines, man increased the powerof his arms and legs, of his eyes, ofhis ears, andeven of his brain.
We left the house, Father carried some baggage on his back, and Mother carried my youngest brother at her breast.
Finally we concluded that the letter had been burned, that someone had taken it, orthat it had not been written.
The lecture was good, butfew people were present.  
(two clauses)
Iasked him to go, so he went.                                    (two coordinate clauses)
I asked him to stay to tea, for I had something to tell him.
(two coordinate clauses)
It's strange,yet it's true.                                         (two coordinate clauses)
 
Notes:
A.   The final comma before the coordinate conjunctions and, or, but in a series of words is sometimes omitted, but it is not omitted in a series of coordinate clauses. e.g.
 
The medical students will become doctors, dentists(,)(The comma is optional) and hospital administrators.
The lecture was good, (The comma is necessary) but few people were present.
We left our house, Father carried some baggage on his back, (The comma is necessary) and Mother carried my youngest brother at her breast.
 
B.   Commas before coordinate conjunctions and, or, but connecting two parallel elements (words or phrases) are usually not used, but they are optional for two coordinate clauses they connect, and necessary before coordinate conjunctions so, for, yet. e.g.
 
                     I like teaand coffee.                                                           (no comma)
                     Mary or John will come to see me.                                    (no comma)
                     I don't like TV butfilms.                                                    (no comma)
                     Tom was not there (,) buthis brother was.                     (optional)
                     It's not cheap (,) but it's good.                                     (optional)
                     I had a headache, so I went to bed early                      (necessary)
                     She is a funny girl, yet you can't help liking her.                (necessary)
The old lady doesn't go out in the winter,for she feels the cold a great deal.                                                                              (necessary)
 
C.   A comma is used between coordinate adjectives not joined by and, or, but. A comma is not used between cumulative adjectives which are not coordinate. e.g.
 
                     a.    It was a rainy, windy, unpleasant day.
                            He is a sleepy, hungry, tired boy.
 
 

          b.    The huge old iron lock  broke easily.