Lectures on Academic Paper Writing by Prof. Steve Wallace

On January 7, Professor Steve Wallace delivered two passionate and brilliant lectures on academic paper writing to both Chinese and international graduates at Jiangsu University.

   The morning lecture, with the theme of cultivating 7 good habits of writing academic papers, was held in the Lecture Hall of the Graduate School. He briefly and clearly cited the causes of many graduates’ failure in publishing their papers, including procrastination, only reading and not writing, writing a while and resting a life and waiting for a never-coming good idea. After analyzing these causes, he put forward seven practical suggestions about writing habits with his own experience of teaching and scientific research, including writing early, writing every day and writing down bad ideas (for good ideas come out of them).

   The afternoon lecture, concentrating on the 9 common mistakes committed by Chinese students in their writing, was held in Hall A of the Conference Center. The mistakes included overusing passive voice, abusing nouns, misusing ellipses, using weak verbs, redundancy, disagreement between subjects and verbs, and so on. Steve elucidated the causes of these mistakes with many authentic materials and recommended measures to correct and avoid these mistakes in future writing.

   Steve suggested the audience to pay close attention to the frontiers of their discipline, write down any idea whenever it pops up, study the call for papers closely, attach great importance to the editor’s comments and opinions and avoid double submissions.

   Prof. Steve Wallace is now teaching academic paper writing at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. With expertise in academic paper editing and profound experience in academic publication, he has long been engaged in helping China’s scientific research to take the lead in the international stage.