Читать книгу Writing Scientific English - Timothy Skern - Страница 15

What is a complete sentence? A complete sentence relates a finished thought or action. An incomplete sentence leaves the reader searching for the full meaning or with the impression that something vital has been omitted. The exercises 3.6.2, 5.2.1 and 5.3.1 provide examples of incomplete or poorly constructed sentences for you to identify and improve.

Scientific manuscripts may, however, contain incomplete sentences as part of their title. Titles such as “Measurement of the speed of the expansion of the Universe” or “Discovery of a new gene linked to Alzheimer's disease” are quite common. Similarly, the titles of the figures showing the data are often incomplete sentences. There are two reasons why titles are sometimes written in this way. The first is that they sound punchier, in the same way that newspaper headlines are often not complete sentences. The second is to reduce the number of characters required. Many journals often have quite strict limitations on the number of characters in the title.