Why Translate English Abstracts?
联合国教科文组织（United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization，缩写作 UNESCO）规定：学术论文无论用什么语种表达，都要求附上一篇英文版的摘要。
National Standard: Format for Writing Scientific and Technical Reports, Dissertations and Academic Papers
It is stipulated that for the purpose of international exchange, scientific and technical reports and academic papers should also have abstracts in foreign languages (mostly in English).
English abstracts are a bridge and medium for international knowledge dissemination, academic exchange and cooperation. With the popularization of the Internet, everyone has the right to search for content. English as the language of the world, modern science originated in the West, many basic academic concepts are put forward in English, especially the databases of major international search agencies are very dependent on English abstracts, publishing abstracts in English is conducive to increasing the chances of journals and papers being retrieved and cited, is conducive to learning from each other in the same industry, and avoids duplication of work in the research field.
Academic papers in mainland China, due to the limitation of English writing ability, generally choose the first language of Chinese for creation, and then choose a professional translation company for translation after the manuscript is completed. Therefore, the vast majority of English abstracts are translated from Chinese.
What should I pay attention to when translating abstracts?
1. Translation principles: faith, reach, and elegance
Translating abstracts requires the principle of "faith, reach, and elegance".
Faithfulness means that the translation must be consistent with the original text, and the translation of the English abstract must be faithful to the original text, and cannot be arbitrarily added or deleted.
Expressiveness refers to fluent language proficiency, on the basis of an accurate understanding of the original text, and fluent expression in English that conforms to the expression habits, avoiding "Chinese English".
雅（Gracefulness）指译文修辞得当，文字优雅。
2. Vocabulary: word selection, professional terms, and connecting words
Careful word selection: Due to the written nature of abstracts in academic papers, formal expressions should be used when choosing words to avoid ambiguity and informal expressions in spoken language.
Terminology is accurate: Terminology is often used to describe a research process or outcome in a particular field. In order to better ensure the quality of the translation, the translator must verify the technical terminology. In general, you can check the English-Chinese dictionary in the relevant field.
Logical conjunctions: Due to the highly generalized nature of the abstract, many complex and abstract research objectives, processes and results should be presented in a short space, and the use of conjunctions plays an important role in the reader's better understanding of the logical relationship between scientific research. For example, the commonly used progressive relational connectors include "moreover", "beside", etc.
3. Tense: Use the past tense to describe the author's work, and the present tense to describe the author's conclusion
Tenses play the role of conveying information, and the collocation of different tenses is used in abstracts to express the chronological order and correlation between various research actions.
In general, the present tense is used to describe the objectives, contents, methods, and results of research, etc., and usually denotes the state of existence as it exists, objective facts, or universal truths.
The simple past tense is often used to illustrate the past, especially the discovery, research process, or final experimental results at some time before the paper was written. This tense is used to denote an action or state of being that took place at a time in the past.
The present perfect tense is used to describe the research and experiments that have been done and to emphasize their impact on the present. This tense is related to what happened in the past and the present situation, and emphasizes the influence and role of the past on the present.
4. Syntactic aspect: pay attention to logic and short long sentences
Structural characteristics of Chinese and English sentences: Chinese is a linear structure, focusing on semantic coherence, and English is a spatial structure, focusing on grammatical integrity.
When translating abstracts, since Chinese sentences focus on conformity, English sentences focus on conformity, so in order to maintain the completeness and accuracy of the translation, several Chinese sentences are usually combined into one English long sentence, and prepositional phrases, participle structures and non-restrictive definite clauses are often used in long sentences.
In the process of translation, the translator is required to analyze and clarify the sentence structure, find out the central meaning of the whole sentence, and on the basis of accurate understanding, figure out the relationship between the various clauses and split the long sentence.
For the English translation of the original Chinese sentence, whether it is multiple mergers or splits, the premise is that the translator must thoroughly analyze and understand the original text, and then arrange the sentence structure as a whole, remembering that the content of the original text cannot be deleted or omitted. When translating abstracts, it is necessary to take into account the differences in Chinese and English expression habits, and express the main content of the original text completely according to the thinking habits of Westerners through paraphrasing.
5. Formatting: Use standard charts, formulas, units of measurement, symbols and abbreviations
The abstract must use a standardized format and language, and avoid using non-professional language, units of measurement, charts, formulas, symbols, abbreviations, and unfamiliar words.
Many domestic journals have requirements for writing Chinese abstracts, which are generally explained in the submission instructions. If there is no standard to follow, the regulations published by the authoritative institutions or academic groups of the discipline or the specialty may be adopted, and the vocabulary of each discipline compiled and printed by the National Committee for the Examination and Approval of Natural Science Terminology may also be adopted.
National Standard: Legal Units of Measurement of the People's Republic of China
For the writing guidelines of English abstracts, please also refer to.
Sample presentation of abstracts in English
Below are sample abstracts of some published papers or articles, all written by faculty from a variety of disciplines at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We've annotated these examples to help you understand what these authors are doing in the abstract.
1. Social science samples
The present tense is used to describe general facts and explanations that were both true in the past and present, including general explanations of the social phenomena being studied. The abstract also uses the present tense to describe the methodology, findings, arguments, and implications of the findings in their new research. The authors use the past tense to describe previous studies.
2. Humanities samples
Describe the events that were done in the past in the past tense, describe what is happening in those texts in the present tense, explain the meaning or significance of those texts, and describe the arguments presented in the essay.
3. Scientific samples
Use the past tense to describe what previous studies have done, what research the authors have conducted, the methods they followed, and what they found. In the rationale or justification (which is yet to be done) in their research, they use the present tense. They also use the present tense to introduce their research (in sample 3, "we report here...") and explain the significance of their study (in sample 3, this reprogramming... Provides a scalable unit source... ）
Solutions for Abstract Translation:
99 Translation professional human translation services
Make abstract translation easy and affordable!
Scan the code to communicate translation needs
99 Translation specializes in human translation, through our services:
- Friends only need to use Chinese to write, freely explain your arguments and ideas, and do not need to worry about English expression;
- Be responsible for your own paper, pay attention to the use of specified reference documents during the writing process, and ensure that the content of the paper fully meets the requirements of the teacher;
- Based on the original Chinese text of the partner and the terminology reference you provide, we provide high-quality human translation services by professional translators to ensure that the summary translation is accurate in the expression of ideas, there is no omission in the statement of sentences, there are no errors in grammatical expression, and the terminology and vocabulary are accurate in place;
- The originality of the little partner, coupled with our manual translation, completely eliminates the worries of plagiarism detection, and gives the teacher an impeccable summary from point of view to expression;
99 Translation's professional human paper translation will help you create a professional, standardized, and hot abstract.