I can only confirm that some of the best non-fiction/academic writers I know are trained lawyers. As long as they don’t lose themselves in legalese, they understand the importance of focus, flow, and clarity in reaching and guiding their readers.

Von: European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing - discussions <[log in to unmask]> Im Auftrag von Susan Mitchell
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 27. Mai 2020 13:26
An: [log in to unmask]
Betreff: Re: Many thanks for all your replies, plus anadiplosis to generate flow.

Hi Mary Ellen,

Thank you for sending a copy of the paper below:

Intervention and revision: expertise and interaction in text mediation

N Luo, K Hyland - Written Communication, 2017 - journals.sagepub.com

I found it definitely worth reading.

For those who haven’t read the paper, a short synopsis might be: A Chinese scholar wishing to publish science research internationally gets three ‘mediators’ to help. The first has subject-specific knowledge but is prevented from communicating directly with scholar. The second has subject-specific knowledge but won’t listen to the scholar. The third has English and Law degrees and pools intellectual resources with the scholar.

[Any similarities of this synopsis with the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears is purely coincidental.]

Which mediator proved to be the best? I think that you can guess.

It chimes strongly with my thinking – that it is difficult, or even impossible, to help someone produce a highly publishable paper unless you work with them, pool skills and knowledge, thrash it out with lots of questions (on my part) and lots of robust discussion (or their part), while partaking of random Brownian motion generator beverages – i.e. several cups of tea or coffee.

However, although the paper is fascinating it is not entirely balanced. It would have been interesting to have had a mediator with subject-specific knowledge prepared to pool intellectual resources and another mediator from a non subject-specific area who was unable or unprepared to communicate with the scholar. Then, although I acknowledge that this would have been difficult to do in a real-life situation - any conclusions might have had more weight.

It would also have been interesting to explore whether the cooperative ability of the third mediator, his/her English degree or his/her Masters degree in Law that provided the third mediator with the ‘edge’. Lawyers are encouraged to interrogate information and people all the time, and that approach certainly lends itself to the sceptical, adversarial and persuasive nature of academic writing.

In fact, I put it to you – ladies and gentlemen of the jury - that, as an academic group, lawyers often make the best academic writers. (Their only weakness to my mind is their lack of a need of a historical perspective. Lawyers usually only need to reference the most recent judicial ruling.)

Have a good day.

With very best wishes,

Susan

From: Mary Ellen Kerans <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 26 May 2020 11:28
To: Susan Mitchell <[log in to unmask]>
Cc: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Many thanks for all your replies, plus anadiplosis to generate flow.

Sorry, just to say I cited the wrong Luo & Hyland paper yesterday. The reference for the one that analyzes details in a "text mediator's" change in "thematic" progression (cohesion) is this one:

Intervention and revision: expertise and interaction in text mediation

N Luo, K Hyland - Written Communication, 2017 - journals.sagepub.com

Many EAL (English as an Additional Language) scholars enlist text mediators' support when
faced with the challenges of writing for international publication. However, the contributions
these individuals are able to make in improving scientific manuscripts remains unclear …

On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 5:56 PM Mary Ellen Kerans <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

I've never heard the term anadipolis, Susan, but in functional grammar this concept is called progression from rheme (the end of a sentence) to theme (the beginning of the next one).

Regardless of what it's called, this is one of the fundamental tools for creating cohesion in a text. An author drafts and revises to create this cohesion gradually and fairly unconsciously (though it can be conscious too). It's more difficult when authors need translators or manuscript editors (whatever you call us: literacy brokers [Lillis and Curry]; text mediators [Luo and Hyland]; copy editors [the websites that sell editing services]; shapers [Burrough-Boenisch]; authors' editors [in my circle, in Mediterranean Editors and Translators]). In MET we prefer the last name because we work very closely with authors. However, I think text mediator also comes close to how I work.

The following article shows how three different types of text mediators attempted to help an author revise to make a draft ready for publication. The third mediator (an English-language writing instructor), working along with the author, succeeded by identifying the spot that was confusing, asking the author to clarify, and then suggesting how to create rheme-to-theme cohesion. The cohesive text achieved is more subtle than the example Susan gives -- because the problems and solutions in real manuscripts tend to be more complicated than the ones we present to exemplify concepts in classrooms or textbooks.

I recommend looking at this paper. The edit is what made the argument in the Discussion paragraph come to the fore clearly, and once that was achieved, the author's paper was finally accepted for publication. This is the paper with the example edit:

Chinese academics writing for publication: English teachers as text mediators

N Luo, K Hyland - Journal of Second Language Writing, 2016 - Elsevier

This paper discusses a key aspect of Chinese scholars writing for publication in English: the
role played by local English teachers as literacy brokers or “text mediators”. Increasingly,
academics in China are required to publish their research in prestigious international …

Enjoy!

Mary Ellen, Barcelona

On Mon, May 25, 2020 at 4:13 PM Susan Mitchell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Everyone,

Many thanks for all your extremely interesting replies. Perhaps the most fascinating thing is just how passionate we all are about the work we do.

I thought I would move the discussion on (unless people want to discuss the previous topics further) to getting academic text to flow and to have direction.

I usually advise the occasional use of anadiplosis where a word or phrase appears at the end of one sentence and the beginning of the next.

Thus:

Without anadiplosis

Several approaches are required to solve this problem. There are lots of apparent differences with these approaches but they are all qualitative and this is what they have in common.

With anadiplosis

To solve this problem we require several approaches. These approaches appear to be very different but they have one thing in common – they are all qualitative.

Another use of anadiplosis is that it allows the writer to discuss something in further detail. (In the previous anadiplitic sentence we are not only told that there are several approaches but also something about them.)

I find that if writers never discuss anything in any more detail than anything else the writing becomes quite flat. Nothing stands out and nothing grabs the readers’ interest.

Do you all advise using anadiplosis or do you have other techniques to improve flow?

With very best wishes,

Susan

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Mary Ellen Kerans
Barcelona, SPAIN

Mary Ellen Kerans
Barcelona, SPAIN

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