Chronicle 2 :  Hello, how are you?

English is the language spoken in India and everyone knows that. But Indians being proficient in English? The US doesn’t think so.  Every dentist trained outside US has to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) to prove that he or she is proficient. So here I was, trying to get “proficient” at a language that I had been speaking for the past twenty years! Little did I know there were many more things to learn…..

After I moved to the US, the first week at my new apartment building was plain horror as far as my spoken English was concerned. One fine day, my dishwasher stopped working and I walked down to the lobby to raise a complaint with the doorman. The doorman smiled at me and said, “Hi how are you?” and I went, “I am fine”. The doorman gave a weird expression before saying, “Please see the management person to help you fix it”.  Later, I tried to reason his weird look and began wondering in my mind whether I should have said “I am good”, instead. The next day, I walked up to the management office to raise the complaint. I saw a couple of people waiting. I go to the last person in the line and ask, “Is this the queue for the service request?” The lady gave me the funniest look and said, “Yes this is the line for the service request”. This went on for quite some time! It was as if I spoke an alien tongue. It made me so nervous that I would think a zillion times before I even spoke a sentence.

I turned to some friends for help. Anderson Cooper and Kiran Chetry, sat with me every morning over a cup of coffee and helped me practice my accent. The doorman was my ‘test’ person. His weird expressions got better as the days progressed- a sign that I was doing much better. After a dozen practice runs like I was auditioning for news channel anchor, I was all ready to head to Brooklyn for a test. A week later, I was ecstatic with a super score at TOEFL!

Now after being in the US for six years, my accent has changed so much that I have to remind myself that I never spoke this way! Many of my patients till now think I am an American born Indian. Well, I think a lot of practice and observation can make a huge difference.

Happy speaking!

Dr Meenakshi Umapathy is a General Dentist who graduated from India. She moved to the USA and completed her DDS from New York University College of Dentistry. She is currently practicing General Dentistry for Kids in Indiana. She shares her stories about dentistry in India and the US through her narratives at the DentistryUnited every Saturday

Disclaimer : The views expressed in this blog are solely the views of the author and need not reflect the views of DentistryUnited.com . For any clarification you can get in touch with the author directly at the address mentioned above.

Read More

Register through us to the Standard Proficiency Course in Dental Laser By ALD USA  and get a Flat discount of 1500/- rupees as well as a free gift from DentistryUnited.

Mail Us your Name/Age/Sex/Addess/Email/Mobile Number/Qualification to DentistryUnited@Gmail.com

And we will mail you the discount coupon code soon.

How it works?

Read More

Dental Follicle – The E Journal Of Dentistry is an Open Access Journal. The Journal does not charge any fee from readers or their institutions for access.

Please organize and enter your Original Article manuscript using the following headings (Case reports and other types of articles may vary):

CLICK HERE FOR PAST ISSUES

COVER LETTER: Must contain the following:

Copyright Releases: The following written statement, signed by one of the authors and acting on behalf of all of the authors, must accompany all manuscripts: “The undersigned author transfers all copyright ownership of the manuscript (fill in the title of your manuscript) to Dental Follicle – The E Journal of Dentistry in the event the work is published. The undersigned author warrants that the article is original, is not under consideration for publication by another journal and has not been previously published. I sign for and accept responsibility for releasing this material on behalf of any and all coauthors.”;
Direct quotations, tables or images that have appeared elsewhere in copyrighted material must be accompanied by a signed release from the copyright owner. Complete information identifying the source of the material is required.

Patient Releases: A signed release must be obtained for all images that contain identifiable patients or human subjects. These releases must be retained indefinitely by the Corresponding Author. A cover letter must be submitted with the manuscript attesting to the fact that all applicable patient releases were obtained and are on file with the Corresponding Author.
Each release statement must be on a separate page, include the manuscript title, all authors’ names and contain a copy of the following statement signed by the patient: “;I hereby grant all rights to publish photographs or other images of me in the above manuscript where I appear as a patient or subject without payment of any kind. I have been informed that any images of me that do appear may be modified”;

ARTICLE FILE: Articles should be prepared as a MS Word document (*.doc). Articles must be original and written in clear English. The total article file must be entered as one document and must contain only the following items:
Title of the manuscript.
Abstract – Dental Follicle – The E Journal of Dentistry is using a structured abstract which must be limited to 250 words. The abstract should conform to the following outline and not contain an introduction, literature review or discussion.
ABSTRACT
Objective: List the specific goal(s) of the research.
Materials and Methods: Briefly describe the procedures you used to accomplish this work. Leave the small details for the manuscript itself.
Results: Identify the results that were found as a result of this study.
Conclusion: List the specific conclusion(s) that can be drawn based on the results of this study.

Manuscript text - Please remove all references to the author’s identity or institutions as manuscripts are peer reviewed anonymously. An original article text will contain the following in order:

INTRODUCTION - This section states the purpose of the research and includes a brief summary of the literature describing the current state of the field.
MATERIALS AND METHODS -This section states exactly what was done and should enable a reader to replicate the work. Materials or methods described elsewhere in the literature can be referenced without repeating these details.
RESULTS – This section should describe the objective findings without any comment on their significance or relative importance. Cite all tables and figures in sequential order in the text.
DISCUSSION – Only this section allows you freedom to interpret your data and to give your opinion of the value of your findings relative to previous work. All opinions must be limited to this section.
CONCLUSION – This section states what conclusions can be drawn specifically from the research reported. Bullet points are preferred. Do not repeat material from other sections..

REFERENCES – References cited must refer to published material.The style and punctuation of manuscript should be in “Harvard Style”.Number of references should be limited to maximum of 8 in order of relevance.The British Standard system or Vancouver System is not acceptable.

FIGURE LEGENDS – All figures must be numbered sequentially in the manuscript and a legend for each figure must appear in this section.

TABLE FILES: Each table must be in EXCEL format and entered as a separate file. Each table must have its own legend accompanying it, numbered with Arabic numerals and sequentially referred to in the text. All abbreviations used in the table must be defined in a footnote. Use * P=.05; ** P=.01; *** P=.001; ****P=.0001 as needed. Tables cannot be in pictorial or image formats. Pictorial or image formats are figures and must be entered as figures.

FIGURE FILES: Each figure must be of sufficient resolution for high quality publication usually in JPG format. All images need to be at 600 DPI when the figure is of the size to be used in publication. If you enter a large image at 600 DPI and reduce it to a much smaller size for publication, this will increase the DPI and the image will be very heavy and slow to open electronically. If you enter a small image (such as a 35 mm picture) and plan to enlarge it for publication, it needs to be entered at more than 600 DPI since enlargement will only reduce the resolution. Figures in WORD or presentation software such as PowerPoint, Corel Draw or Harvard Graphics do not contain sufficient resolution for publication and will not be accepted.

LANGUAGE: The language of publication is English.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION: The Dental Follicle – The E Journal of Dentistry is now open for all manuscript submissions and review.

Mail the Manuscript in the Following Order .

1. Letter of Submission
2. Title Page with institutional affiliation
   
3. Copyrights form signed by all authors
4. Manuscript (. Doc) without images
   
5. Manuscript (.Doc)  with Images in place
6. Images in Jpeg (Fig 1 , Fig 2, Fig 3)
7. Tables
   

Mail us your Manuscript on DentistryUnited@gmail.com

Fee :The Fee options are as follows

The Papers will be submitted in Four Categories

Category 1 . Immediate publishing in the next issue after  review and acceptance for  publication Rs.5000 / 100US$

Category 2.publishing in 4-6 months after review and acceptance of the manuscript Rs.2500/ 50US$

Category 3. publishing beyond six months after review and acceptance of the manuscript- upto a year Rs.1250/25US$

Category 4. publishing beyond 1 year  – FREE

Read More