如何在學術研究寫作中使用英文as a result?

問題：請問在研究論文中應該如何使用as a result一詞？我對此感到很困惑，因為它在研究寫作中似乎有兩個含意。

-準備回覆審閱者的教授作者

回答：

As a result是經常用來表示因果關係的片語

從這個意義上來說，它是therefore、hence、consequently、as a consequence及accordingly的同義詞。

以下是一些使用as a result的句子：

• The molecule has bulky substituents in the ortho positions; as a result, the eclipsed rotamer is energetically disfavored.
• The fact that eclipsed rotamer is energetically disfavored is a consequence of the steric bulk of the substituents.
• The diphenyl phosphine oxide group is electron withdrawing, and as a result, the central carbon of the allene is electron deficient.
• The electron deficiency is a consequence of the presence of the electron-withdrawing group.

在編輯許多論文的過程中，我經常遇到as a result的非標準使用法

在該用法中，as a result被拿來連接描述修飾的子句，與描述該實驗結果的第二個子句。這種用法似乎特別常見在作者的母語為中文的論文中。

以下是一個例子：

“We investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water and concurrently evaluated the estrogenic activity of the treated water. As a result, 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.”

有些讀者可能會一時將as a result誤解為礦化作用是調查與評估的結果。

然而，作者實際上只是單純想用as a result來承接後面的文字，僅僅只是想要描述實驗的發現結果發現。也就是說，「17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2…」構成了實驗結果，因此建議是將as a result放句首，改為：「As a result of this experiment, we found that…」。

以下是另一個例子：

“Serial dilution tests of the JCAbl antibody were performed on the three tissues. As a result, JCAbl reacted with JCV-IMR32 cells and PML tissues at all the dilutions.”

在此，作者同樣不是指抗體與組織的反應是由連續稀釋試驗引起的。相反地，作者的意思是實驗觀察到的結果是抗體在所有稀釋度下均與特定組織產生反應。

我不會將上述as a result的使用方式視為嚴重的錯誤，但正如上一個所示範的那句一樣，有些讀者會覺得上述的用法僅是暫時分散注意力。因此我認為，最好的修改方式是將as a result直接替換為we found that：

“We investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water and concurrently evaluated the estrogenic activity of the treated water. We found that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.”

或者您也可以修改為下列的例句：

• “We investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water…. The results of these experiments indicated that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.”
• “When we investigated the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water…, we found that that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.”
• “Investigation of the photocatalytic degradation of 17β-estradiol in water and concurrent evaluation of the estrogenic activity of the treated water indicated that 17β-estradiol was totally mineralized to CO2 in a TiO2 suspension under UV irradiation for 3 h.”

 

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