WRITING ENGLISH: MY NORMS• “The purpose of writing is to translate inner feelings

into public words.” (Richard Paul & Linda Elder, 2005, Journal of Development Education, 20/1, pp. 40-41)

George Owell had previously said (1984), “Why I Write”, Penguin.

1. Good writers will ask themselves six questions:a. What am I trying to say?b. What words will express it?c. What word picture will make it clearer?d. Will it [i.e., the word picture] be fresh enough to have an effect?e. Could I have put it [i.e., my topic] more shortly?f. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

2. Good writing should consist of choosing words for the sake of their meaning.

3. That is to say, the words should not be chosen before the writer decides what s/he wants to say.

WRITING FOR

ACADEMIC PUBLICATION

Presenter Dr. Neal Waddell

University of Queensland

Six Stages of Writing an Article1. Topic Choice (Colquitt, J. A. & George, G. (2011). Publishing in

AMJ—Part 1: Topic choice. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3): 432–435.

2. Research Design (Bono, J. E. & McNamara, G. (2011). Publishing in AMJ—Part 2. Academy of Management Journal, 54(4): 657–660.

3. Setting the Hook (Grant, A. M. & Pollock, T. G. (2011). Publishing in AMJ—Part 3. Academy of Management Journal, 54(5): 873–879.

4. Grounding Hypotheses (Sparrowe, R. T. & Mayer, K. J. (2011). Publishing in AMJ—Part 4. Academy of Management Journal, 54(6): 1098–1102.

5. Crafting the Methods and Results (Zhang, Y. & Shaw, J. D. (2012). Publishing in AMJ—Part 5. Academy of Management Journal,55(1): 8–12.

6. Discussing the Implications (Geletkanycz, A. M. & Tepper, B. J. (2012). Publishing in AMJ—Part 6. Academy of Management Journal,55(2): 256–260. 2

Part 1: Topic Choice

Choosing your topic: Five Questions1. Does your topic challenge or contribute to the

grand goal: to advance human knowledge?

2. Will your topic be new or different so that it can change the way readers think?

3. Will the ideas associated with your topic catch and hold your readers’ attention?

4. Will you induce action or motivate readers to apply your ideas to their practice?

5. Have you covered the full scope of the topic?

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Part 2: Research design

Designing your research: Five Questions1. Have you set a research question to your topic?

2. Have you chosen a fitting research design for that question with suitable sampling, methods?

3. Are quantitative or qualitative research methods best suited to your research question and data?

4. Have you adapted and applied the measures most commonly used in such research analysis?

5. Is your research design strong enough to eliminate threats to validity?

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Part 3: Setting the HookAttracting readers: Five Questions1. Have you spent enough time writing and rewriting

the introduction of your research?2. Have you focused your introduction by justifying

your topic and what it achieves?3. Do you answer the three questions: Who cares;

What do we know, what don’t we know, and so what?

4. Have you adapted and applied the measures most commonly used in such research analysis?

5. Is your research design strong enough to eliminate threats to validity?

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Part 4: Grounding HypothesesGrounding Hypotheses: Five Questions1. Have you reviewed the literature to ensure you

have fully represented all research into your topic?

2. Have you built an argument that substantiates your approach by drawing on multiple theories?

3. Are the theories coherently compared, contrasted and conclusions drawn in that you select what fits your research but do not state the obvious?

4. Have you chosen and combined only those theories that relate specifically to your topic?

5. Are your hypotheses the heart of you paper and thus enable you to build a cogent argument?

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Part 5: Crafting Methods and Results

Methods and Results: Four Questions1. Have you spend enough time carefully writing

your method and results in keeping with their importance to your research question and arguments?

2. Have you thoroughly described how you obtained your data, how you analyzed it, and how it points to comprehensive findings?

3. Are your results complete, clear and credible?

4. Have you combined only those theories that relate specifically to your topic?

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Part 6: Discussing the Implications

Ending with Implications: Five Questions1. Have you convincingly explained why you

researched the topic you chose?

2. Have you clearly declared what new and valuable ideas you have contributed to contemporary theoretical understanding?

3. Have you uncovered some unexpected issues or problematic assumptions?

4. Have you cogently addresses the ‘so what’ question?

5. Have you clearly stated your study’s implications. 8

Using Other Authors’ Views

Remember:

1. It is your research, nobody else’s.

2. You use other authors theoretically but they will benefit from your using their views.

3. Restrict how much you privilege their words over yours.

4. Use their ideas but apply them to your research questions and arguments in words that YOU choose.

5. Sometimes published material is written poorly.

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How to Use Other Authors 1

Don’t privilege their work over yours:In 1959, Edith Penrose published the book “The theory of the growth of the firm” and was among the first scholars to identify the importance of resources for the growth of a firm and its competitive position. She determines that a firm is comprised of “a collection of productive resources” (Penrose, 1959, p. 24).

MY COMMENT: No need to tell Ms Penrose’s life story. And there’s no need to select and quote directly a simplistic statement like:

“a collection of productive resources”.

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How to Use Other Authors 2You have no need to head the sentence with other authors’ names or achievements.[While university entrepreneurship is discussed widely, social science research commercialisation has been overlooked...]Therefore, Harman (2005), Kayrooz, Kinnear, and Preston (2001), Olmos-Peñuela, Castro-Martínez, and D’Este (2014) and Woolley, Sánchez-Barrioluengo, Turpin, & Marceau (2015) discuss the differences between social sciences and natural and applied sciences and find that social sciences are disadvantaged.MY COMMENT: Say in the second sentence: “Therefore, because they differ from the natural and applied sciences, the social sciences are disadvantaged (+ in-text citations)”.

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How to Use Other Authors 3Unless it applies directly to what you are doing, just talk about the the findings.In the development of non-pecuniary OI [open innovation] search terms (Alexy, Bascavusoglu-Moreau and Salter, 2016) served as the authors’ primary reference. They found…

OI practices can be divided into three categories: ‘classic’, ‘non-’, and ‘open’ R&D partnerships. ‘Open’ R&D partnerships consist of firms’ ‘user innovation’, ‘idea jams’, being ‘involved in open-source projects’, ‘sharing facilities’, and ‘participating in or setting up innovation networks/hubs with other firms’ [use citation here].

MY COMMENT: You have no need to comment on the quality or nature of other authors’ research.

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How to Use Other Authors 4

EXAMPLES USING VALUE JUDGMENTS:

“We found the research done by Creps and Lotfi on addressing the global problem of missed appointments a thoughtful and original method to reduce the economic drain of missed appointments.”

Lim, C. & Chodhari, R. (2017) A dynamic approach for outpatient scheduling. Journal of medical economics. Journal of Medical Economics, 20(8), 786‒798.

“Tkacz (2001) provides an interesting study regarding the use of leading indicator neural network models for forecasting Canadian GDP growth.”

Dutta, G. et al. (2006). Artificial neural network models for forecasting stock price index in the Bombay Stock Exchange. Journal of Emerging Market Finance, 5(3), 283‒295. 13

Quoting Other Authors Directly

Don’t use apostrophes too much.•However direct quotations are usual as follows:

1. If the words are seminal to the field of your research.

2. If the words are theoretically central to your argument.

3. If the words are known or the authors are renowned.

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Seminal Quotes 1

Seminal work by Wiedersheim-Paul, Olson and Welch (1978:47) saw pre-internationalization as the “first step in internationalization”. That is, they saw pre-internationalization as a step that was not to be disassociated from the internationalization process, stressing “the importance of a firm’s activities and pre-export behavior for the export start” (Wiedersheim-Paul et al., 1978: 47).

Wiedersheim-Paul, F., Olson, H. C., & Welch, L. S. (1978). Pre-export activity: The first step in internationalization, Journal of International Business Studies, 9(1), 47-58.

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Seminal Quotes 2

The learning and teaching literature shows that LA [learning autonomy] has increasingly attracted research interest. Holec’s (1981) seminal definition of LA as “learners’ capacity to take charge of their own learning” (p. 2) has become the orthodoxy of education.

Roderick D. McKenzie (1933) introduced the theory to the field of human ecology explaining that expansion “connotes movement outward from a spatially determined center of settlement…It presupposes a sufficient development of the center or core of settlement to insure reciprocal relations within an ever-widening range of territory.”Kasarda, J. D. (1972). The theory of ecological expansion: An empirical Test. Social Forces 51(2): 165‒175. 16

Theoretically Essential Quotes

The majority seemingly were satisfied with the face-value aspect of Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) definition of ThS [theoretical saturation]: “…no additional data are being found…to the extent that the researcher becomes empirically confident that a category is saturated” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967, p. 61). In other words, 91 percent of studies stopped short of Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) further recommendation to combine “the empirical limits of the data, the integration and density of the theory, and the analyst’s theoretical sensitivity” (p. 62).

Rowlands, T., Waddell , N., & McKenna. (2015). Are we there yet? A technique to determine theoretical saturation. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 56(1), 40–47.

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Renowned Quotes

Pramoedya Ananta

“People might be as smart as they can; however, as long as they never write, they will just pass from people memory and history. Writing is a work for eternity.”

Susi Pudjiastuti

“Do not fear to do your duty and work. By the same token, do not work if you still have fear.”

B. J. Habibie

“Success is not possessed by educated people. It belongs to those who try everlastingly.”

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When to Quote Other AuthorsOther than these examples, if you use an author’s words because they are important or worthwhile, you should follow accepted guidelines:

1. If it is long, remember the ‘three-line new-line’ rule: the quotation should begin on a new line. It should probably be indented, left and right, but this will depend on the style guidelines of the publisher you are writing for.

2. Never quote another author’s words by themselves without any of your own.

3. Nevertheless, when using another author’s view, the best thing to do is paraphrase them, rather than quote them word for word (i.e., verbatim).

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What Does Paraphrase Mean?

The Oxford English Dictionary says,

(As a noun): “A rewording of something written or spoken by someone else, esp. with the aim of making the sense clearer; a free rendering of a passage. Also as a mass noun: the practice or process of paraphrasing.”

(As a verb): “To express the meaning of (a written or spoken passage, or the words of an author or speaker) using different words, esp. to achieve greater clarity; to render or translate freely.”

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Other Forms of Paraphrasing

Robert Bolton defines it as “a concise response to the speaker which states the essence of the other’s content in the listener’s own words.”

Bolton, R. (1979). People skills: How to assert yourself, listen to others, and resolve conflicts. In “50 Psychology Classics” T. Butler-Bowdon (Ed.), London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing.

Lam (2006) defines it as using “alternative expressions with similar meanings to replace those that the speaker does not know or cannot think of” (p. 145).

(https://www.scribd.com/document/129868726/Developing-young-learners-communication-strategies)

IELTS Canada defines it as “Using different vocabulary with the same meaning”.

(https://ieltscanadatest.com/2017/03/task-1-2-paraphrasing/)21

Academic Paraphrasing

Campbell (1998) defines paraphrasing as “using different phrasing and wording to express a particular passage that was originally written or spoken by someone else…to blend the other's idea smoothly into one's own writing” (p. 86).

Sun, Y. C. & Yang, F. Y. (2015). Journal of English for academic purposes, 2015, Elsevier.

How do you know whether to quote or to paraphrase? The general rule is to use a quote only when the exact wording of the original source is important.

http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/author1.htm

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Paraphrasing Exemplified 1

“Long-term memory, that immensely complex storehouse, has also been most extensively studied with the use of verbal materials, usually presented in the form of long lists. As we shall see, this approach has resulted in some extremely important findings, but it has also been a bit misleading. After all, remembering lists of words is somewhat different from remembering a conversation, a recipe, or the plot of a movie" (Klatsky, 1975, p.17).

Klatsky, R. (1975). Human memory: Structures and processes. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company.

“We usually study long term memory by having subjects attempt to recall aloud items from long lists. Because such a task is different in important ways from the kinds of tasks long-term memory is usually called upon to perform, our findings are somewhat questionable (Klatsky, 1975).”

http://faculty.webster.edu/woolflm/author1.htm [Alverno College]

Paraphrasing Exemplified 2

“Concerning the role of gender stereotypes…If those who make promotion decisions believe that women’s leadership styles are different from men’s (descriptive beliefs) or that women should not manifest certain particularly effective leadership styles (prescriptive beliefs), the path to leadership may become more difficult for women than men.”

Olivia Kyriakidou (2012)

“When studying how gender roles are discursively enacted in daily work practice, we note that gender research into leadership/management has identified masculine stereotypes that diminish women’s contributions” (Kyriakidou, 2012).

McKenna, B., Verreynne, M-L., & Waddell, N. (2016). Locating gendered work practices: A typology. International Journal of Manpower, 37(6), 1085–1107.

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Paraphrasing Exemplified 2a

EXAMPLE:

The social world is…populated by diverse social practices which are carried by agents…[They] consist in the performance of practices (i.e., bodily [and] mental routines). As carriers of a practice, they are neither autonomous nor the judgmental dopes who conform to norms: They understand the world and themselves, and use know-how and motivational knowledge, according to the particular practice.

Reckwitz, A. (2002). Toward a theory of social practices: A development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory 5, 243–63.

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Paraphrasing Exemplified 2b

MY EDIT:

The social world consists of people performing diverse physical and mentals practices to the extent that their behaviors become routine and normative by sharing thoughts and activities. While these practices may be social, their knowledge and routines will vary from person to person as they understand their social world and their individual subjective positions within it. (Reckwitz, 2002).

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Necessary Paraphrasing 1

[The concept of brands only intermittently has been used in the entertainment industry (Todreas, 2008)…] Concerning the theoretical gap, Malmelin and Moisander’s (2014) research agenda for branding in the media industry suggests “there is a need for more theoretical work on brands and branding that takes into account the specific conditions where contemporary media organisations operate” (p. 16).

Would be more efficient as:

“Therefore, this article extends the research by studying how contemporary media organisations apply branding to the specific conditions under which they operate (Malmelin & Moisander, 2014).”

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Necessary Paraphrasing 2aAN EXAMPLE

“Rafiq and Ahmend (1993) define internal marketing as “a planned effort using a marketing-like approach to overcome organizational resistance to change and to align, motivate and inter functionally co-ordinate and integrate, employees towards the effective implementation of corporate and functional strategies, in order to deliver customer satisfaction, through a process of creating motivated and customer orientated employees” (p. 222).

Necessary Paraphrasing 2b

MY EDIT:

Studying branding begins with understanding internal marketing in organisations, which they use to overcome resistance to change in their ranks. Internal marketing requires three steps: to plan, align and motivate all employees to contribute eagerly to implement…corporate and functional strategies. This internal marketing creates customer-oriented employees and ultimately, customer satisfaction (Rafiq & Ahmend, 1993, p. 222).

Necessary Paraphrasing 3Resilience can generally describe the ability of a system to cope with disturbances (Holling, 1973)...

Walker et al. (2004) further developed and defined resilience as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks” (Walker et al., 2004, p. 6).

MY EDIT: Applied to this paper, resilience refers to systems or organizations being capable of absorbing disaster or other serious disturbance. They also must by capable of reorganizing sufficiently to maintain their operations, structure, identity and ‘word-of-mouth’ (Walker et al., 2004, p. 6).

Get Paraphrasing Right 1

EXAMPLE: Innovation refers to a change in the combination of production that can lead to improved organisational performance and economic growth (Schumpeter, 1912).

MY COMMENT: You cannot say “a combination of production”. It must be something plural. As well, I checked and Schumpeter talks about a “recombination of resources”.

MY REWRITE: “Innovation refers to recombining production resources that can lead to improved organisational performance and economic growth” (Schumpeter, 1912).

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Get Paraphrasing Right 2

EXAMPLE OF UNACCEPTABLE LANGUAGE

“French girls from neighbouring Syria, Jewesses from Haifa or nearby Jewish colonies, Polish ATS or, if one was luckier, with British WAAFS from RAF units in Haifa.”

MY COMMENT:

Two questions: who wrote or said this? And second, while I acknowledge it was written during the war, the quote is very unseemly in 2018. So, I ask, is this quote necessary or, if so, could it paraphrased so that women are not portrayed as prizes and the ‘white’ ones as the best? 32

Get Paraphrasing Right 3Under the “one country, two systems” formula, Hong Kong's and China's regulatory and other institutional systems remain quite different, as do their respective levels of economic development. Thus, from an economic, and even subcultural, perspective, Hong Kong and mainland China can be regarded as separate territories with a degree of "foreignness" between them.

Child, J. and G. Möllering (2003), Contextual confidence and active trust development in the Chinese business environment. Organization Science, 14(1), 69–80.

“A business environment is constituted from different domains of which institutions is a crucial component (Child & Möllering, 2003).”

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Get Paraphrasing Right 4

EXAMPLES OF POOR EXPRESSION:

These factors can be of all kinds: “social, cultural, economical, systemic, structural and even spatial” (Levy & Caws, 2016, p. 96).

MY COMMENT: These authors are wrong. Your editor should have known that “economic” is the correct word.

“Fifth generation is fundamentally different…a step over the previous rate of progress…is attributable to the impact of three technologies: low-observability (stealth)…a quantum advance in the fusion of systems that provide knowledge dominance, and a similar advance in the ability to detect, identify, track, and combat air and surface targets at substantial distances.”

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