Writing scientific articles

like a native English

speaker: top ten tips for
Portuguese speakers

Mariel A. Marlow
University of California, Berkeley/CA, USA. Universidade
Federal Fluminense, Niteri/RJ, Brazil.

Edited by Lygia Caroline Alves lygiaa@gmail.com

 Over the past four years, while conducting my doctoral,
and now my postdoctoral, work here in Brazil, I have
been asked to both translate and help revise numerous
manuscripts for my fellow Brazilian researchers.
Most of these are common mistakes or poor writing
habits that affect even native English speakers.

Background
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 importante..., Tambm muito comum..., H
pouca ateno...
Many people directly translate these phrases as:
It is important..., Also, it is very common..., There
is little attention...

1. Avoid beginning sentences with

It is....
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 Portuguese: importante destacar os trabalhos mais
recentes que...
Weak English: It is important to highlight the most
recent works that...
Strong English: The most recent works that (...) are
important to highlight.

Portuguese: H pouca ateno dada ao evento.

Weak English: There is little attention given to the
event.
Strong English: Little attention is given to the event.

1. Avoid beginning sentences with

It is....
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 Add the to a phrase when it refers to specific people,
places, events or populations.

2. Learn when to use the; try to

remove it from the beginning of the
sentence and to only include it
when referring to specific
events/objects/people.
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 The study was conducted at the University Hospital of the
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (FORMAL) in Rio de
Janeiro State. The hospital (INFORMAL) of the university
(INFORMAL) attends more than 100 patients per day.
A maioria das amostras foram coletadas do Centro-Oeste de
Brasil.
Majority of samples were collected from Central West (or
Midwest) Brazil.
Majority of samples were collected from the central-western
region of Brazil.

3. Only capitalize subjects if they

refer to the formal name of a
place/department/title.
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 That should only be used at the beginning of a
dependent clause or when describing a subject/noun:
Os resultados mostraram que muitas pessoas gostam de
frutas.
The results showed many people like fruits.
Os resultados que foram encontrados nesse estudo
mostraram que muitas pessoas gostam de frutas.
The results that were found in this study showed many
people like fruits.

4. Remove that!
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 Pronturios dos pacientes
Patient charts or Patients charts

5. Attempt to place adjectives, including

possessive adjectives, in front of nouns
when possible (adjective- noun rather
than noun-of-adjective). You may need
to remove the s from a plural adjective.
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 It is important to restate your subject.
Neste estudo, 74 pacientes foram includos. Destes, 7
(9.5%) foram do sexo masculino.
In this study, 74 patients were included. Of these, 7
(9.5%) patients were male.

6. In Portuguese, it is common to use an

assumed subject if you have already
mentioned the topic in the previous
sentence; however, in English, you need
to continue to explain what you are
referring to throughout the phrase.
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 Encontramos vrios tipos de mosquitos.
Various types of mosquitos were found.
In active voice: The man ate the apple. The main point
of this sentence is that the man was the one who ate the
apple.
If we reverse it to passive voice: The apple was eaten by
the man. Now the main point of the sentence is that the
apple was eaten.

7. Try to use the first person (I and

we) as little as possible and
exchange it with passive voice.
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 Characteristic (NOT Characteristics)
Male (NOT Males) Female (NOT Females)
Change ALL of your decimal commas into decimal
periods!

8. In your graphs, titles should

always be singular, and do not use
variables as a heading.
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 In Brazil,
Of these,
However,
Therefore,
Currently,
As previously reported,
9. Prepositional phrases, transitions
and adverbs in the beginning of
sentences should be followed by a
comma:
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 Translators are not miracle workers. Make sure that you
consult a Portuguese professional, or simply have a
colleague, friend or other professor read your work
critically, specifically for the Portuguese.

10. If it is poorly written in

Portuguese, then it will be poorly
written in English.
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Analyzing abstracts
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Using Online Resources to Improve Math Facts Scores

I am interested in investigating if students have learned their math facts

using online resources as compared to traditional practice tests and
flashcards. Using computers in the computer lab, the teachers class of
24 students will work at one or more of several different websites that
promote learning math facts. Students spent 30- 45 minutes in the lab
each week for approximately 8 weeks. Students kept track of their
scores and at the end of the project note any improvement or decline in
their accuracy and time. Results from this year were compared to class
averages from the past three years when students only used the
traditional practice tests and flash cards to see if students show any
improvement over past classes.

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Elements of an Optimal Experience

This paper presents and assesses a framework for an engineering

capstone design program. We explain how student preparation, project
selection, and instructor mentorship are the three key elements that
must be addressed before the capstone experience is ready for the
students. Next, we describe a way to administer and execute the
capstone design experience including design workshops and lead
engineers. We describe the importance in assessing the capstone
design experience and report recent assessment results of our
framework. We comment specifically on what students thought were
the most important aspects of their experience in engineering capstone
design and provide quantitative insight into what parts of the
framework are most important.
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Thematic profile of library studies' graduation papers.

This is an analysis of the thematic aspects of 217 graduation papers

(TCC) produced during 1987-2002 in the Department of Library
Studies and Documentation of the School of Communication and Arts
of the Universidade de So Paulo, Brazil, according to the abstracts
published in LISA-Library Information Science Abstracts. It was found
that the most studied category was "library and information center,"
having as specific subjects "the public library" and "the special
subjects' library", followed by "informational communication" with its
specific subjects being: "information services" and "reference works".
A concentration of studies on just five categories drew the "thematic
profile" of the TCC production, besides indicating a vast gap on other
thematic categories, which ought to be explored by undergraduate
students.
Keywords: academic production; subject analysis; undergraduate
program; graduation
Edited by papers;
Lygia Caroline librarianship.
Alves lygiaa@gmail.com
 MARLOW, Mariel A. Writing scientific articles like a
native English speaker: top ten tips for Portuguese
speakers. Clinics, So Paulo , v. 69, n. 3, mar. 2014 .
Available from
<http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=
S1807-59322014000300153&lng=en&nrm=iso>. Access
on 08 Feb. 2015.

Reference
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