本书系“求知高等学校英语专业系类教材”之一。
本书介绍了学术论文的语言特点和语篇结构。通过援引新近在国内外学术刊物上发表的论文作为实例，讨论并解释了不同宏观和微观要素的基本理论基础、功能和相关的语言特征。
本书用英语和汉语讨论同一方面的问题，共11个章节和四个目录，详细介绍了学术论文写作的各个方面，旨在帮助国内外的高年级学生和研究生学习并掌握学术研究论文写作所需的有关技巧。

Introduction
Chapter 1 Preliminaries for starting,continuing,and completing a research paper
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Focusing on a topic
1.3 Asking questions while planning the research
1.4 Research assumptions
1.5 How to choose between the approaches
1.6 Methods associated with the two approaches
1.7 Choosing a format for the research paper
1.8 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 2 Steps in preparing a research paper
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Finding an area of research
2.3 Reading the relevant literature
2.4 Gathering data and information
2.5 Organizing data and ideas
2.6 Writing and revising the paper
2.7 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 3 Plagiarism and how to avoid it
3.1 Introduction
3.2 What is plagiarism？
3.3 How to recognize plagiarism？
3.4 How to avoid plagiarism？
3.5 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 4 How to write an Abstract for a research paper
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Structure of an Abstract
4.3 Questions on the Abstract
4.4 Elements of structure in an Abstract
4.5 The language of an Abstract
4.6 Information content of an Abstract
4.7 Grammatical consequence of condensing the information in an Abstract
4.8 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 5 How to prepare the Introduction for a research paper
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Introducing the topic
5.3 Focusing on the issue
5.4 Discussing deficiencies in previous research
5.5 Proposing a “new/different” way of investigation
5.6 The language of an Introduction
5.7 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 6 Reviewing the literature
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Summarizing previous studies
6.3 Direct and indirect quotations
6.4 Paraphrasing
6.5 Summarizing
6.6 The language of the review section
6.7 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 7 Method section of a research paper
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Materials
7.3 Design
7.4 Analysis
7.5 Procedure
7.6 The language of the method section
7.7 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 8 Results section of a research paper
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Tables,Charts,and Diagrams
8.3 Use of statistics
8.4 The language of the Results section
8.5 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 9 Discussion section of a research paper
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The content of Discussion section
9.3 The language of Discussion section
9.4 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 10 Conclusion section of a research paper
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The content of Conclusion
10.3 The structure of Conclusion
10.4 The language of Conclusion
10.5 Summary
Exercises
Chapter 11 References in a research paper
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Different styles of referencing
11.3 American Psychological Association Style
11.4 Appendixes in a research paper
11.5 Summary
Exercises
Appendix 1 A published research paper for further analysis
Appendix 2 Styles of referencing in academic journals
Appendix 3 Format of notes and references for students of English at Sun Yat-sen University
Appendix 4 Suggested answers to exercises