Introduction
The academic language symbolizes the school language demands. This language consists of the language that is used on tests, in classrooms, textbooks, and in each discipline. Every form of communication has its functions, and neither is advanced than the other. A number of academic writing seeks to convey new information as well as discussing the existing ideas. Scientific writing is not different. In particular, the scientists should be in a position to present their data. What’s more, the scientists must explain what their data means in the study and the broader context of the scientific studies. To realize their goals, the scientists utilize particular structural and linguistic patterns, which make their texts different from the other academic writing forms. For this reason, this essay analyzes the textual and linguistic patterns in a scientific article titled “Surgical treatment of liver metastases in patients with colorectal cancer” by Ballantyne and Quin. In addition, the essay explains how these patterns contribute to an academic tone and academic writing conventions of the article.
Being a scientific article, this article is essentially detailed with medical terms that imply the professionalism in it. Ideally, the authors in the article try to discuss the health status of colorectal cancer within the United States. There are sensitizing terms that show the solemn situation of this disease in the hospital. This article states that almost half of the patients suffering from colorectal cancer are deemed to have minor developments of metastases of the liver. Moreover, the number of patients who are suffering from hepatic metastatic is also increasing at an alarming rate. Ideally, the initial resection which was reported in the year 1888 by Garre implied the origin of the liver lesion. However, another one was identified in the year 1889. Consequently, the prior discoveries about the cancerous effects imply that it is very unfortunate that metastatic diseases are expected to remain limited to the liver at an extent of 25 % proportion (Ballantyne & Quin, 2006, 4252).
The article analyses the history of both liver metastases, as well as the preferable diagnosis of Colorectal Carcinoma in an effective manner. It gives a brief scope of the matters arising in the medical world. Ideally, the article focuses on making analysis about the presence of the above infections within the United States. In the basic analysis of the article, there are other basic solutions that are considered effective in the overall process. For instance, it shows the rising cases of colorectal cancer and the rate at which people are contracting the disease. The article also contains statistical and financial reports originated from the analysis made in the article on health related issues.
In every article or document, introduction is the most essential part of the document .It captures the attention; therefore, its structure determines the extent to which it will captivate and enhance understanding to the reader. Most introductions are structured in a manner that the reader will be able to understand the scope of the article and its core objectives. Moreover, most writers use specialized vocabularies that define the main context of the article .For instance, the article “Surgical Treatment of Liver Metastases in Patients with Colorectal Cancer” follows a scientific path in its introduction with intent to inculcate the mind of the reader about the theme of the document. The authors introduce metastatic disease and unilobar colorectal metastases as vocabularies that are only applied in the context of medicine topics or courses. This strategy of specific vocabularies enlightens the reader on the major theme of the topic.
Moreover, the authors use both the title and its contraction. The approach enables the writer to avoid repeating of the whole words in the subsequent mention and instead use initials. “Factors that appear adversely to affect survival include detection of metastatic diseases because of signs or symptoms of diseases, an elevated Carcinoembryonic Antigen (CEA)” (Ballantyne & Quin, 2006, 4256). The initial CEA is a contraction that could be applied in the subsequent mentioning.
These two sub-headings are subsequently arranged and, therefore, portray the pattern of information inheritance where the outcome of the former will be important in making deductions about the latter. This language pattern has greatly influenced the understanding of these scientific findings. Data presentation is one of the conspicuous language patterns that researchers use explicitly to defend their findings. Use of data is a linguistic pattern that is applied in the social data analysis. Gathered statistical data is analyzed and factual deductions are made. For instance, the authors of the article
The article has used simple sentences to comment against the findings. This approach is a textual language pattern that protects the data from ambiguous interpretation. The authors apply adverbs of frequency to consolidate close data in the tables and make common deductions. For instance, in table 10 of the article, the authors use the words median and mean to explain the rate of survival of Liver metastasis patients when new techniques are applied. The approach is a structural pattern that enhances the consolidation of statistical data in a table. Therefore, linguistic patterns are the key factors to accurate dissemination of information through writing.
In Ballantyne and Quin article, we can identify the use of many complex, compound, and simple. The authors have used simple sentences to reflect on the process of research as accurate as possible. They have used a variety of sentences that have an independent clause with no dependent clauses. For instance, the authors have used simple sentences such as “colorectal cancer in the United States is increasing,” “Another patient was reported by keen in 1989,” “the goals of this review are numerous” (Ballantyne & Quin, 2006, 4252) among other simple sentences. All the simple sentences that the authors have used express a full thought. Apart from using simple sentences in their article, the authors have also used a variety of compound sentences. Majority of their sentences include no less than two independent clauses connected by a coordinating conjunction. For example, one of the compound sentences that the authors have used in their article is “Objective response rates have varied from 35% to 75%, although most were approximately 50%” (Ballantyne & Quin, 2006, 4254). What’s more, in this article, the authors have used various complex sentences to develop a body of knowledge regarding the present research in the field of cancer.
In terms of linguistic and textual patterns, this article qualifies to act as an educational or even scholarly article. This is because of the terminologies that the authors have used in the article, which are related to the medical jargon. It is easy to comprehend the content of the article despite the fact that it has used much of medical terms. Initially, the connection of sentences throughout the article is proper. For instance, since the article is a research article, the use of the first person is avoided completely. The sentences used in the article are deemed to have differentiated sentence structures that meet the objective of passing the information. For instance, there are statements with simple structures as describes in the prior part of the analysis. The authors have used the statements to give a basic introduction within the article. However, as the need arises for the author to describe intensively some of the research concepts, the long, complex sentences are used. This cooperative organization of the ideas defines the significance of this article. The proper organization of ideas in this article increases our level of understanding, which is the major objective of any academic article.
References
Ballantyne, G. H., & Quin, J. (2006). Surgical treatment of liver metastases in patients with colorectal cancer. Cancer, 71(12), 4252–4266. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1097-0142(19930615)71:12%2B%3C4252::AID-CNCR2820711815%3E3.0.CO;2-6/pdf
