This study compared syntactic complexity between undergraduate students’ research papers and published research papers. A 2 (Groups: experts, students) × 4 (Sections: introduction, methods, results, discussions) mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted on each of the following variables: T-unit length, clause density, the frequencies of adverbial clauses, relative clauses, and nominal clauses. The analyses showed there were longer T-units and fewer adverbial clauses in the published papers than in the student papers. Section effects were robust. Qualitative analyses were further conducted to reveal how the student research paper is different from the published papers syntactically. Implications for education were discussed.

本研究比较了本科生研究论文和已发表研究论文之间的句法复杂性。对以下每个变量进行了 2（组：专家、学生）×4（部分：介绍、方法、结果、讨论）混合因子方差分析 (ANOVA)：T 单位长度、从句密度、状语从句、关系从句和名词性从句。分析表明，与学生论文相比，已发表论文中的 T 单位更长，状语从句更少。节效应是稳健的。进一步进行定性分析以揭示学生研究论文在句法上与已发表论文的不同之处。讨论了对教育的影响。