English for

Paul: Can I come in first on this? 
Moderator: Sure, Paul.
Paul: I believe that a publication should be theoretically and 
methodologically sound. It has to be based on solid research 
and structured investigation. And the research the article is 
based on should be original. Review articles are appropriate, 
but research publications are more welcome.
Dan: That’s exactly how I see it. A publication that is accepted 
is likely to be relevant and beneficial to the academic 
community. Besides that, the article has to be well structured 
and clearly written. The use of technical terms has to be 
accurate and precise.
Moderator: Thank you, Paul and Dan, for such detailed 
explanations. Coming back to the issue of publishing versus 
teaching, what other problems does this pressure to publish 
cause? Dan?
Dan: Really, the ‘publish-or-perish’ system causes a lot of stress 
among not only young academics, but also more established 
scholars. Now many institutions consider your article as 
worthy only if it is published in a journal with a high citation 
index. 
Moderator: Sorry, could I just check, does a citation index 
illustrate how often a publication is cited, and the citation 
index, in its turn, does it affect a journal’s impact factor?
Dan: Quite right. But low impact factors do not necessarily 
mean a journal is of lower quality. It may concentrate on a 
very specific subject, for instance. Sadly, if all academics limit 
their publications to journals with high impact factors, there 
will be neither choice nor diversity.
Moderator: A rather sad perspective. Well, Ann, what’s your 
view on this?
9 
Suggested answers
Criteria the arguments fail to meet: 
B Some parts are disconnected: the point about having larger 
bodies of data today is not connected with anything else. 
There are some contradictory points: the speaker says the 
pressure to publish quickly is the reason for the low quality of 
research results, but then says that modern technology helps us 
to process data quickly.
C The argument does not have a conclusion. The tone is emotional.