英文科技论文写作的常见问题
1 用词分析
1.1 近义词的用法区别
例1 “方程”的英文是“equation”，不是“formula”，“formula”的意思是“公式”。
例2 “question”和“problem”翻译成中文都是“问题”，但是英文的意思完全不同，
如“ask a question”，“answer a question”，“formulate a problem”，“solve a problem”等;
[1] I have a question about the last page of your presentation.
[2] I have a problem about the last page of your presentation.
前者的意思是你有不清楚或者不明白的东西要问，后者是指你认为“the last page of your
presentation”有错误。
例3 “too”和“also”的用法区别：
[1] I have done this quickly too.
[2] I have also done this quickly.
例4 “few”和“several”用法区分。“several”的意思是“几个”，“few”的意思是“几乎没有”或者“少”，
但是“a few”的意思是“几个”。如：
[1] (a) I bought several books today. [1] (b) I bought a few books today.
这两句话的意思略微不同：前者情况是指买的比较多，而后者指的是买的比较少。
[2] There is very few water left in the bottle. (那个瓶子里面几乎没有水了。)
[3] Very few students came to today's seminar. (今天参加讲座的学生很少。)
[4] Few students came last night. (昨晚只来了几个学生。)
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[5] A few students came last night. (昨晚来了几个学生。)
例5 很多学生都不能区分科技英语中的property, character 和characteristic。翻译成中文都是“特
征”、“特性”和“性质”，但是在英文中意思不同。
[1] quality 最普通用词，既可指有形或无形的特性，又可指个性或共性的特征。
[2] character多指一类人或事物所具有的独特的典型的特征。
[3] characteristic 指某人或某物天生有别于他人或他物的内部特质或外表特征。
例6 Obscure (动词和形容词) 的主要意思是“遮挡”。很多同学以为“obscure”的意思就是“模糊”，
应该用fuzzy, blur, dark, faint 等的时候误用obscure。
[1] The black hole is obscured by the dust along the line of sight.
[2] The image of the star is fuzzy, because the telescope is out of focus.
[3] The image of the star is blurred, because the telescope ...
[4] The source appears to be dark (或者faint), because of the obscuration by the gas in front of it.
例7 “At last”和“Finally”不完全一样。如“Finally, we reconstruct the expansion history of the
Universe up to with the distance moduli of SNe Ia and GRBs.”Finally 换成 At last，意思是不同的：
前者的意思是，“最后，我们重建(了) ......”，后者的意思是“我们终于重建(了) ......”。
例8 “suspect or suspicious”(正面) 和“doubt or doubtful”(负面)。例子：
[1] We suspect that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the
over-simplification of the model. (我们怀疑观测数据和模型的偏离是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
[2] We doubt that the observed deviation of data from the model prediction is caused by the over-simplification of the model. (我们怀疑观测数据和模型的偏离不是由于模型过分简化造成的。)
例9 distinction (定性的区别) 和difference (定量的不同)：
[1] A distinction should be made between a star and a planet.
[2] The difference between the two measurements is only 10%.
例10 “due to”, “because of”, “since”, “because”和“as”都有“因为”和“由于”的意思，但是使用起来
很不一样。
[1] However, due to the fact that (注意此处需要the fact that) the inner disk temperature or BB
temperature is lower than several keV, the disk or NS flux below 2 keV contributes a considerable
portion in the whole energy band.
或者可以改为：
[2] However, because of the fact that the inner disk ...
[3] However, since the inner disk ...
179 中国科学院上海天文台年刊 2010 年
[4] However, the disk or NS flux below 2 keV contributes a considerable portion in the whole energy
band, because the inner disk or BB temperature is lower than several keV.
推荐表达[4]，因为主次关系明确，而且“because”的主要意思就是“因为”，而“since”的主要意思
是“自从”(描述时间)。不建议使用“as”，因为“as”的主要意思是“作为”。以下是使用“due to”和
“because of”的例子：
[5] Due to the expansion of the universe, the distances between galaxies become farther and farther.
[6] Because of your work, this problem has been solved completely.
在大多数情况下，“due to”和“because of”可以通用，但是意思略微有所不同。“due to”指自然发
展、顺理成章的理由，“because of”指主动介入导致结果的理由。
例11 revise、correct、modify 的区别：
“revise or revision or revised”意为“修改或者更新，没有错误，但是不够完善”;
“correct or correction or corrected”意为“修正或者改正，有错误，需要改过来”;
“modify”的意思介于两者之间。
1.2 大小写
例12 能量的单位：eV (不是ev)，keV (不是KeV), MeV (不是meV)，GeV，TeV。
例13 方程后面如果不是句号，后面的紧接的句子不能另起一段，而且第一个字母必须是小写;
方程后面如果是句号，后面紧接的句子可以另起一段，也可以不另起一段，但是第一个字母必
须是大写。
例14 冒号后面如果接的是句子，则第一个字母是大写;如果是单词或词组，则第一个字母是小写。
[1] It requires that a clock still show proper time after being read: The quantum uncertainty in its
position must not introduce significant inaccuracies in its measurement of time over the total running
time. (请注意这里的“show”用动词原形，因为“require”是命令语气。)
[2] I classify black holes into three categories: mathematical black holes, physical black holes or
astrophysical black holes. (请注意这里的“or”经常被误写为“and”。)
1.3 单复数
例15 “data”是复数(单数是“datum”);spectrum, nova, formula, nuclear, index, locus, torus, modulus,
radius, focus 的复数分别是spectra, novae, formulae, nuclei, indices, loci, tori, moduli, radii, foci。
例16 “In Figure 7, I show the conversion efficiency of different kind (应改为kinds) of black hole
accretion systems.”
例17 指示代词的单复数this, that, these, those 的用法。错误的例子：
“This (or that) two pictures are taken ... ”应该改为“These (or those) two pictures are taken ... ”。
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1.4 数字的英文写法
例18 如果能够使用一个单词的数一般不用阿拉伯数字。比如“nine books”或者“twenty books”而
不是“9 books”或者“20 books”;但是后面接物理量单位时，9 kg 是正确的，nine kg 是错误的。
例19 日期的写法：the first of July, 2006;July first, 2006;the second of July, 2006;the third of July;
the 4th of July;the 28th of July;July 28th, 2006;2006-07-28;07-28-2006
(USA), 28-07-2006 (Europe and the rest of world)。
例20 30 年代：“1930s”是正确的，“1930’s”是错误的。
例21 “Up to now, about 20 (应改为twenty) black holes with masses around ten (应改为10) solar
masses, called stellar mass black holes, have been identified observationally.”
1.5 词义的选取
例22 一般情况下使用单词的第一个意思。比如“for”的意思包括“为了”、“因为”，但是在科技文
章里面只使用“为了”。需要“因为”的时候用“because”或者“since”。再比如“as”的意思包括“作为”、
“因为”等，但是在科技文章里面只使用“作为”。
例23 “while”主要有两个意思：“当...... 时候”和“然而”。但是科技英文尽可能使用单词的第一个
意思，因此建议只使用“while”为“当...... 时候”，当需要使用“然而”的时候用“whereas”。
例24 大部分学生都知道even 有几个意思，但是很多学生不清楚如何使用。举几个例子：
[1] Even though (虽然) a scientist does not make a lot of money, I still choose doing research
because ...
[2] Even if (尽管) this book costs a lot of money, I will still buy it because ...
[3] This book is very good, even (甚至) better than the most popular book written by...
例25 primary 的意思，几乎所有的学生都在使用primary 的时候误用作“初始”(initial) 或者“初
级”(elementary) 或者“非正式”(preliminary)。实际上primary 的主要意思是“主要”。例子：
[1] The energy spectrum of this source is consisted of two components; the primary (主要) component
is a blackbody with a temperature of 1 keV and the secondary (次要) component is a power-law with
a photon index of -2.
[2] After analyzing these data, our preliminary (初步) conclusion is that this accretion disk has an
inner disk radius of 20 km.
[3] After analyzing these data, our primary (主要) conclusion is that this accretion disk has an inner
disk radius of 20 km.
1.6 冠词
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例26 可数名词以单数出现的时候前面必须加冠词“a”或者“the”。“a”是不定冠词，没有特指的含
意;“the”是定冠词，必须有特指。比如：
[1] (a) I bought a book about Einstein yesterday. (有很多关于爱因斯坦的书，我买了其中的一本，
但是从这句话了你无法了解到底是哪一本。)
[1] (b) I bought the book about Einstein we discussed in the class yesterday.
[1] (c) I bought the book about Einstein's love stories.
[1] (d) I bought the book about Einstein. (尽管没有明确指出，但是谈话的双方都知道是哪一本书，
或者世界上只有一本关于爱因斯坦的书。)
[2] I bought three books about Einstein's general relativity. (随便三本。)
[3] I bought the three books about Einstein's general relativity. (只有三本。)
[4] I bought the three most popular books about Einstein's general relativity. (三本最受欢迎的。)
[5] I bought three most popular books about Einstein's general relativity. (最受欢迎的其中三本。)
[2]—[5] 的意思完全不同。
例27 “the equation 3”,“the table 4”,“the figure 5”都是错误的，因为“the”都不需要。
例28 “In above calculations, we have ... ”改为
“In the above calculations, we have ... ”(显然是特指。)
例29 same 前面一般加the，因为是特指。
比如“The same method is also used here. ”几乎所有同学都错误地写成“Same method
is also used here.”
再比如“We have chosen the cross-correlation method, the same as that used by Ling & Zhang
(2006).”是正确的。
例30 single 后面如果是可数名词单数的话，仍然需要在single 前面加“a”或者“the”，比如“a single
book”，“the single tree”。
例31 物理量符号前面一般不需要加“the”，因为已经是特指了。例如“Empirically, γ
is roughly correlated to observed peak (需改为the observed peak) spectral energy Ep by lg Ep =(2.76 ±
0.07) - (3.61 ± 0.26) lg γ. We employ this empirical relation to estimate the (删除the) Ep of Swift
GRBs and correct the observed peak luminosity to a bolometric band.”但是“We employ this
