A manuscript sent to an international journal comes back with the comment: “The manuscript would benefit from careful language editing.” The author pays for editing and receives a version with hundreds of red marks — yet most are the same few error types repeated: missing or extra “the”, an “s” added to “researches”, every other sentence opening with “Besides” or “Moreover”. These errors follow patterns, and they can be fixed at the root.
Reviewers seldom reject a paper for language alone, but awkward language slows them down, invites misreading and quietly raises doubts about the care taken in the research. This guide focuses on errors typical of writers whose first language lacks articles or verb inflection — including speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai and many Slavic languages.
Articles: the most common error, and a patterned one
If your first language has no articles, this will be your most persistent problem. Three rules resolve most cases:
- Singular countable nouns always need a determiner (a, the, this, our…). “We conducted survey” is wrong; “We conducted a survey” is right.
- Use “the” for something the reader can identify: previously mentioned, unique, or specified immediately after (“the effect of feedback on satisfaction”).
- Uncountable and plural nouns used generally take no article: “Feedback improves learning”, “Teachers in rural schools…”.
Uncountable nouns are a major trap: research, evidence, information, feedback, knowledge, equipment, software, advice have no plural. Write “a study” or “studies” rather than “a research” or “researches”; “pieces of evidence” rather than “evidences”.
A related pattern: “In China context” should be “In the Chinese context” or “In the context of China”.
Hedging: the right strength, neither more nor less
Academic English calibrates certainty finely. Writing too strongly (“This proves that…”) about correlational data is wrong; stacking hedges (“It might possibly be suggested that…”) blurs the argument.
| Certainty | Verbs and adverbs | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| High | demonstrate, show, clearly | Strong experiments, replicated findings |
| Moderate | indicate, suggest, is associated with | Correlational results, a single study |
| Low | may, might, appear to, possibly | Interpretation, explanatory conjecture |
A rule of thumb: one hedge per clause is enough. “These results suggest that feedback may matter” hedges twice; choose “suggest that feedback matters” or “feedback may matter”.
Collocations: right words, wrong partners
Many incorrect sentences fail not on vocabulary but on combination. Frequent pairs:
- conduct / carry out research, not “make research” or “do a research”.
- pay attention to, not “pay attention on”.
- have an effect on, affect (verb), not “affect to”.
- an increase in (noun), increase by (amount): “an increase in scores”, “scores increased by 12%”.
- consist of, comprise (not “comprise of”).
- discuss (not “discuss about”), emphasise (not “emphasise on”).
When unsure, check real usage in a corpus rather than a bilingual dictionary (see the tools below).
Overused words and phrases
- Nowadays, In recent years as openers: vague; replace with specific information.
- Besides, Moreover, Furthermore at the start of every sentence: usually unnecessary; link sentences through given-new flow instead.
- A lot of, big, get: conversational; prefer many, substantial, obtain.
- Play an important role: far more frequent in multilingual writers’ drafts than in published prose; naming the specific role is stronger.
- In order to: usually “to” is enough.
Tense, plurals and subject–verb agreement
Languages without verb inflection make these errors easy to miss when rereading quickly. Two tips: when proofreading, read sentence by sentence and underline the subject and main verb; and watch long subjects — “The effect of the three interventions on students’ scores was…” (the subject is “effect”, singular). On tense: methods and results are usually past; general knowledge and interpretation are present.
Nominalisation: in moderation
Academic English uses many nominalisations (“the implementation of the policy” rather than “implementing the policy”), but overuse creates heavy noun chains: “the investigation of the implementation of the evaluation of teachers”. If a sentence contains three or more consecutive “of the” phrases, try rewriting it with verbs.
Tools for checking real usage
- Academic Phrasebank (University of Manchester): phrases organised by function — introducing work, describing methods, reporting results.
- Corpus and collocation tools such as SkELL or online academic corpora: type a word to see what it typically combines with in real texts.
- Google Scholar with quotation marks: search “have an impact on” and “have an impact to” and compare hit counts in published papers.
- Grammar checkers: good at articles and plurals, weak on technical terminology, and occasionally wrong about meaning. Review each suggestion; never accept them in bulk.
A three-pass language check
- Articles and plurals: use find to locate uncountable nouns (research, evidence, feedback) and check every singular countable noun.
- Hedging: search for prove, clearly, may, might; check each against the strength of the evidence.
- Connectors and overused phrases: search Moreover, Besides, In addition, play a role; delete or replace.
Next step: take one page of your manuscript, run pass one alone and count the corrections. That number tells you how much time the pass deserves across the whole paper — for many writers, articles are the single largest group of errors.
Câu hỏi thường gặp
Is researches correct in academic English?
In academic writing, research is normally treated as uncountable. To refer to several, use studies or a body of research rather than researches.
When should I use the in academic writing?
Use the when the reader can identify which thing you mean: it was mentioned before, is unique or is specified immediately afterwards. Plural and uncountable nouns used generally take no article.
What is hedging in academic writing?
Hedging adjusts the certainty of a claim using words such as suggest, may or appear to, matching language to the strength of evidence. One hedge per clause is usually enough.
Is it bad to start sentences with Moreover?
Not always, but using it in most sentences makes writing feel disjointed. Linking sentences by repeating key concepts usually works better than stacking connectors.
What tools help check academic English usage?
Academic Phrasebank, corpus tools such as SkELL and phrase searches in Google Scholar all show real usage. Grammar checkers help too, but review each suggestion individually.
