Finding confidence in science writing when English is your second language

Dr Yan Zhuge is Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering with the School of Natural and Built Environments. She has lived in Australia for fifteen years and published extensively in English - her second language.

Mandarin is my native language and I was at school for fifteen years before I learned English.

The article 'the' is not used in Mandarin, so I found myself getting confused. I still struggle with this.

I read aloud to help me become familiar with the way scientific papers are written and how they sound. For example, reading aloud has given me a sense of what is allowed in scientific writing. The first person 'I', for example, is never used.

I also found my supervisors really helpful and patient. As they corrected my language I learned very quickly. I used their writing as a model for my own writing.

It still takes longer for me to write in English than if it were my native language. This is not so much the case for emails and business writing, but for scientific articles. Sometimes it's hard to find exactly the right word - sometimes writing several alternative sentences can help.

If you just keep trying you'll get there!