Mastering machine translation: 13 steps to success
Machine translation has become an indispensable tool, even for language professionals. However, its quality often leaves much to be desired. The main challenge lies in the differences in structure and syntax between languages - the issue that artificial intelligence has yet to fully overcome. Can this problem be solved?
How to express the author’s position through modality in an academic text
Modal verbs are one of the first language means we learn when studying the English language. However, as we craft an academic text, we have to ask ourselves if modal verbs and other means of modality are as common and appropriate in the academic style as they are in everyday communication.
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Building confidence in public speaking
What do you think is the most common fear, regardless of gender, age, or country? Fear of public speaking is a strong contender: according to various sources, it affects up to 77% of the world's population. This is probably why the “Public Speaking Crash Course”, developed by Zhenya Bakin specially for HSE researchers, has remained popular with AWC visitors for several years.
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The rainbow of definitions: A spectrum of possibilities
As children, we used the mnemonic "Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain" to memorize the sequence of colors in a rainbow. This clever trick led us to believe that there are only seven colors. However, the truth is more nuanced. The number of colors in a rainbow is not fixed; it depends on how we define colors and varies across cultures and traditions from as few as three to infinity. The question is, where do we draw the line and which shades do we include or exclude? It all comes down to how we craft our definitions.
Writing techniques: AI vs. HI or AI with HI?
Now that the initial enthusiasm (as well as shock, denial, and bargaining 🙂) about the advent of AI has faded, we are all trying to evaluate its pros and cons and decide what AI is good for and what had better be left to HI.
AWC is big in Japan
Imagine a conference entitled “What is a writing center?” We could not miss the chance, could we? AWC’s director Svetlana Suchkova made a presentation at the 14th Symposium on Writing Centers in Asia, hosted by Hiroshima University in February 2025.
What’s in a word?
Authors writing in a foreign language are often dissatisfied with their vocabulary range. However, consider this: what does it really mean to know a word? Is it enough to know its meaning or translation?
Academic precision as a path to visibility
We are all aware that in order to communicate our research results to the global academia we have to adopt the academic register. But what does it really mean and why is it essential for increasing our credibility and visibility?
Chinese New Year in the Academic Writing Center
On January 29, as people across China, from Nanjing to Harbin, celebrated the Lunar New Year, the Academic Writing Center joined in the festivities in its own way. To honor the arrival of the Year of the Green Wooden Snake, the Center hosted a workshop "The Rise of the Asia Era: Key Features of Communication with Chinese Partners."