Mike Hannay en J. Lachlan Mackenzie - Effective Writing in English

Part 1 The process of writing

After we had investigated the pollution levels in the ditches … After investigation of pollution levels in the ditches …

Or you can convert the verb into a noun without any change of form, as in the following example in which the verb interview has been converted without any change into the noun interview :

We interviewed all the local dairy farmers about milk yields. Interviews were conducted with all the local dairy farmers about milk yields.

The last example combines two strategies: passivization and nominalization. The third option involves using a so-called locative subject (for further discussion, see Chapter 7 Section 6(a)). Let us look again at the example giv en above:

I have shown in this paper that global warming is a phenomenon whose pres ence cannot be proved scientifically.

Here the expression in this paper indicates a ‘location’ for the event described by I have shown … A grammatical construction favoured in English, one that is also becoming more frequent in Dutch writing, involves taking this loca tion and making it into the subject of the sentence, delivering another way of removing all mention of the original first-person subject:

This paper has shown that global warming is a phenomenon whose presence cannot be proved scientifically.

Other examples are:

▲ In the following paragraphs, I will argue that there is a need for alternative punishments. The following paragraphs will argue that there is a need for alternative pun ishments. ▲ From our research results we draw the conclusion that further work will be necessary. Our research results lead to the conclusion that further work will be neces sary.

28