Li !

Martin Li

Professor. Webb

Ling 12- section 500

February 19th, 2019

On Academic Writings

As many know, writing is very significant for anyone who has an academic a career, as it

is a very important tool for one to communicate and analyze work one has done. There are many

forms of writing that are common in the academic field: research papers, study report, and even

business letter sent to funders… One way or the other, anyone who is currently in an academic

field needs to learn the importance of all these types of writings, and one will also need to know

how to write well in order to achieve success in one’s field. In my field of interest, which is

Chemical Engineering, many types of writings that were mentioned above are extremely crucial,

as the communication between the chemical engineers and researchers are absolutely essential.

Out of all the writing genres that are essential, the most important for my field are dissertation,

research papers, and business letters.

Firstly, dissertation papers is probably the first and most important academic writing I

will have to write in my future career. Since I will need to get a Phd (Doctor of Philosophy)

degree in order to start my own laboratory and my research, writing a dissertation becomes a real

challenge. Dissertation is defined by the Oxford Dictionary to be “a long essay on a particular

subject, especially one written for a university degree or diploma.” As Jahren mentioned in her

bood Lab Girl, a good dissertation does not only shows the creativity of a researcher but also

shows his or her strong skills of researching and analyzing data (Jahren 71.)
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Those who pursue a graduate or PHD education often put in much effort in their

dissertation. When I asked Professor Li, who is a researcher in the Institute of Chemistry in the

Chinese Academy of Sciences, about his most painful academic writing experience, he

responded me saying that there was “no greater pain than writing his dissertation as he was

trying to get his PHD degree.” (Li)To get his dissertation finished, he had to construct a new and

strong research idea, finish the experiment, and analysis the result of the study before he

carefully wrote his dissertation.

After Professor Li carefully considered the wordings and structure of the dissertation,

what came next was the endless process of editing the dissertation with his doctoral advisor, who

plays a strict role in the process. (Li)The editing process itself could take months, if not longer,

as getting a PHD is a very hard process after all. As it was described in Jahren’s book Lab Girl,

Jahhren was very stressed about finish her dissertation, as that was an important task in her

academic life. (Jahren 80.) It is very important to write a good dissertation for a graduate student

to impress the professor that he or she is ready to make stand along and start his or her own study

and research.

Secondly, research papers are definitely one of the most important types of writing in the

field of chemical engineering. It is crucial because the researchers need to record all the

procedures and outcomes in complicated experiment or case study, and they also need explain

clearly what the goals of the experiments or studies are. In order to achieve that, the research

papers require very logical structures and clear wordings that would create no misunderstanding

or confusions of any kind. It is always found difficult by a lot of researchers to write about a
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good research paper. When I was asking Professor. Li, he mentioned that “it might take a

researcher more effort to construct a good research paper than to set up a good experiment.” (Li)

As Professor Li mentioned, a good research paper is very important academically, since

it is regarded as one of the most important criteria of evaluating the ability of a researcher: a

successful researcher often publishes many strong research papers that are cited by many other

researchers. (Li)As Jahren mentioned in her book Lab Girl, she and her research partner, Bill, put

in a lot of effort to make their research paper look strong and solid, so they are able to make a

project successfully. (Jahren 122). That shows the importance of the research paper as Jahren had

to spend extra time on it while she was already overwhelmed by other work.

Thirdly, it is also extremely important for the researchers to be able to write good

business letters that can impress any potential benefactors. I know it sounds weird that a

researcher has to write a business letter, but in the real world, this ability is more than necessary.

Almost all the researchers suffer from budget problems at the beginning of their research

programs. They are not able to receive enough funds from the academies and universities, as

there are simply so many programs that are needed to be funded. As Jaren mentioned in her

book, the hardship of getting the funds is beyond imaginations. “Ask a science professor what

she worries about. It won’t take long. She’ll look you in the eye and say one word: ‘Money.’”

(Jahren 125) It is clear that Jahren was very eager to get the funds to start her research, and the

fund is very hard to get. That points to the reason why the business letter could be the most

important writing skill that all researchers need: without money, you can’s do anything.

Given the circumstances, what do researchers have to think about? If there is no way they

can get enough funds from the institutions they are in, who would ever aid them on their research
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programs? That is when business men come into the big pictures. There are many research

programs that are desperately needed by a lot of business owners, since technologies can

definitely help them to make more profit in the business world. However, it came down to the

researchers’ responsibilities to do the fundraising. How could you make the business owners

believe that your program, despite the probabilities of failing, are able to help them in their future

business? How do convince a group of most elite population in the world to take their money out

of their pockets and feed it to your program? A researcher who writes good business letter has a

strong advantage in getting the funds he or she needs.

A persuasive business letter does not only explains what kind of research a researcher is

working on, but more importantly, it shows the great potential in the research that would make

the business owners believe it would be an extremely beneficial investment. It is a very

important method to build up a discourse community that benefit both the investors and the

researchers, and it is what helps the team to know exactly what each members can offer and what

they can get out of it. As Swales mentioned in his work, it is very significant for these kind of

communication to be clear and straightforward, and especially for a business. (Swales)The

researcher needs to catch the heart of the investors by telling them why they should care about

the research and how it would benefit them if the research succeeds. As Ramsey Sandra

mentioned in her journal, a good business letter should be able to deliver a clear message to the

receiver, and while the letter should be formal and serious, it could also be interesting and eye-

catching in a way that will not be considered offensive. (Ramsey 42) Professor Li also mentioned

in his email that “to get the funds we need, the most important thing is to trigger the interest of

the business owners.” (Li) The business letters could be written to anyone: universities,
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independent research institutes, charities that support scientific research… Anyway, it is

important to find all what the potential benefactor are interested in and persuade them to put their

faith in you.

After all, in the field of Chemical Engineering, or in any other fields that are thought to

be focused on research and scientific studies, different types of writing always have very

important influences that many people would forget about. Writing is not only a very important

method to communicate, but it is also very significant to use writing to record a lot of important

experiments and studies. As what I have mentioned, in Chemical Engineering, it is very

important for a researcher to be able to write good dissertation, research papers, and business

letters. In the future, I will put in my best effort to solidify my writing skills, so I will be able to

handle these types of writing in my future academic career.

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Work Cited

Hope, Jahren. Lab Girl. Little. Brown. 2017.

Swales, John. “The Concept of Discourse Community.” Writing about Writing: a College
Reader. edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Bedford Books St Martins, 2017. pp.
463-480. Originally published in Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings,
1990, pp. 21-33.

Ramsey, Sandra, and Randy B. “A Study of Business Letter Features.” Journal of Forensic
Sciences, Callaghan and Company, 1987, pp. 35–62.

Li, Mingde. Personal Interview. Feb 23, 2019.