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Book review
Title BOOK REVIEW: English for Research Writing
Author Woravit Kitjaroenpaiboon
Page 85-86

English is widely used as a major language for research writing (Grabe & Kaplan, 1997; Hyland, 2012; Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005). However, not all researchers (particularly non-native English and novice researchers) can use English efficiently for this purpose (Cho, 2004; Flowerdew, 1999). When competing with experienced native Englishresearchers for publication, the non-native English and novice ones are at a distinct disadvantage (Burrough-Boenisch, 2003). They sometimes feel marginalized from the international academic community. This might be owing to reasons for example i) writing the research article is linguistically, culturally, and disciplinary specific (Swales, 2004) and / or ii) some researchers might not be familiar with the lexical, grammatical, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic conventions regarding a research article (Kaplan & Baldauf, 2005).

As in many other countries, several researchers in Thailand, where English is considered a foreign language, are also facing this problem. Presently, Thai researchers, teachers, and graduate students are encouraged to carry out research studies and need to have these published in international journals. However, writing the research article may be beyond their abilities. According to Kaplan and Baldauf (2005), to rectify this problem, researchers should learn the lexico-grammatical patterns associated with it. That is why I am reviewing about the book titled ‘English for Research Writing’

The book is written by Kanyarat Getkham and published by Chulalongkorn University Press. The book has been posited in several university libraries,used in numbers of English for academic purposes courses in a lot of universities. Presently, there have rarely been knowledge (or know-how) about writing research, this book thusin the writer’s own point of viewis so beneficial toward inexperienced and novice researchers, teachers and students that they are able to apply the knowledge in the book as powerful academic resources for professionally crafting academic papers.

The book is divided into 11 chapters. ChapterI begins with how to write correct sentences which is the first step of writing a paragraph. Chapter II explain how to use modifiers. Chapter III show ways how to make sentences concise. Chapter IV provides empirical numbers of evidences of sentence problems. Chapter V describes academic stylistic features. Chapter VI exemplifies hedging often used for writing research studies. Chapter VII shows how to use evaluative stances. Chapter VIII explains tenses and their aspects particularly in research reports. Chapter IX tells us how to link ideas into paragraphs and essays. Chapter X teaches how to write an effective research abstracts. And most importantly in chapter XI shows ways to cite other works correctly and properly. All chapters in the book, in my opinion, are very useful and a fundamental knowledge for researchers. 

Simply put, English is currently developing a status of world academic lingua franca, (Mauranen, 2008), with it being used as a medium language for writing research articles. However, not all researchers have the potential to write in English proficiently, with numerous non-native English and novice researchers being intimidated by the prospect (Wu, 2011). Thailand is a non-native English speaking country where English is not the country’s first or even the second language. Most Thai graduate students, teachers, and researchers are not eloquent in English. They said they are not proficient enough in English writing to write adequate research articles. In the writer’s own opinion, and in agreement with Kaplan and Baldauf’s (2005), this might be because of their unfamiliarity of linguistic patterns used in the research articles. Furthermore, academic writing is noone’s first language, topic specific, and a skill not naturally acquired. It needs to be learned and practiced. Necessitating empirical evidences in the book helps shed light on lexical, grammatical, syntactical, semantic, and pragmatic conventions and their communicative functions used for writing research. These are the objective of the writer of the book to benefit ESP/EAP teachers, non-native English and novice researchers, and students to understand writing correct sentences, using modifiers, making sentences concise, avoiding sentence problems, academic stylistic features, hedging, and so on in writing research papers.


 
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