學術文章寫作的注意要點（二）

例如：What is the purpose of education? Some people may say that the purpose of education should be to create a totally academic environment that separates from the outside world, for, they think, this situation allows students to focus on their academic research work without being disturbed by practical concerns. In fact, this suggestion is harmful to the scientific research work.

這是某一篇文章的開頭。我們現在只是分析語法問題。作者除了要注意不要使用疑問句以外，還有很重要的一點：總共兩三句話，出現4個Be動詞。這種寫法，在英語里面被稱作non-act的動詞。Be 僅僅表示一種狀態，例如：I am here, you are there。對于母語者來說，Be動詞其實就是寫在紙上，而沒有任何感情色彩。所以應該盡量避免成篇累牘地使用。我們的例子可以改為：

Some people argue that the purpose of education lies in its strength in creating a totally academic environment separated from the outside world. They think this situation allows students to focus on academic research by excluding outside disturbance from practical concerns. However, this suggestion in fact does harm to the scientific research work.

我們可以看到，使用了lie in, exclude, do harm to以后，句子更有色彩了。