As we know medical English is an expert subject because its huge volume vocabulary and comprehensive sentence structure. Here I would like to share some ideas learnt from my college classes. First to understand the medical sentence structure, we should figure out the standards to justify a good sentence.

What is a good sentence?

A good sentence should tell its readers the messages in a short time. Speaking of time-shorten and clear sentences, the most important and basic requirements of sentence should be simple and direct, or we can say precise and concise. But in medical English writing or translating, there are many factors will become obstacles on our way to simplify sentence.

There are six most common factors which influence the concise and precise of sentences.

1. Fail to express the core message with the subject, verb and completer in the sentence.

2. Nouns clusters.

3. Sentences over-long and contains too much contents.

4. Using unclear antecedents to represent pronoun and to lead the clause sentence.

5. Putting Improperly using preposition phrases to express actions or movements ideas in unparallel forms

6. Grammar errors

Let us try to make every point clear on the following texts.

1. Expressing the core message with the subject, verb and completer in the sentence. How to achieve this point? We can Make the topic the subject and put the action in the verb.

How do you notice that one didn’t use verbs to express action and movements? On one hand, we can check whether the verbs are uncertain verbs or not, like occur, cause, be made, be achieved, be noted, be carried out, etc.

On the other hand, we can check whether the subjects or objects in the sentences are nouns transferred from verbs, like prolongation, inhibition, formation, production, measurement, assessment, enhancement, occurrence, existence, reversal, survival

Read Also: Sentence structure of medical English (2)

There are six mistakes made when expressing actions or movements without using verbs.

A. Improperly using subjects to express actions or movements.

Eg: An increase in heart rate occurred.

B. Improperly using objects to express actions or movements.

Eg: The new drug caused a decrease in heart rate.

C. Improperly using preposition phrases to express actions or movements.

Eg: With bilateral leg vessel congestion, the compliance of forearm vessels increased significantly.

D. Improperly using nouns lead by “ there be” form to express actions or movements.

Eg: There is a modest enhancement in radical cleavage at base pairs 10-12.

E. Improperly using adjective rather than verb+ adjective to express actions or movements.

Eg: These results demonstrate the essential role of the DI receptor in the locomotor stimulant effects of cocaine.

F. Improperly using nouns rather than verb’s participle. form to express actions or movements.

Eg: One of these factors, TFIIH, possesses DNA-dependent ATPase, helicase, and protein kinase activities that may be involved in transcription initiation.
In English sentences, verbs are of great importance, we need to use verbs to express actions or movements.. Sentences will lose their spirit or become hard to understand, when omitting verbs and use preposition phrases instead or reducing the verbs’ function by using subjects or objects instead of verbs.

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