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I cannot make sense of this in English:

Der empirische, zweite Teil der Diplomarbeit stellt das Projekt "Bewegte Steiermark” vor und stellt das dazugehörige Evaluationskonzept sowie die Strukturevaluation ins Zentrum.

What I think:

The empirical second part of the thesis presents how the project "Moving Styria" was accomplished, and presents the concepts, methodology and structure of the project.

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3 Answers 3

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Another offer:

The second, empirical part of the thesis presents the project 'Aktion' and focuses on both the concomitant evaluation concept and the structure evaluation.

The original sentence is a horrible example of pseudo-scientific style in academic texts simulating precision by inflated formality - please do not take this as a model on how to write in German!

As noted in the other responses, Strukturevaluation is a vacuous term without context information which might mean structural evaluation(addressing a technique employed), evaluation of some structure (addressing the object of the evaluation; the 'structure' could be abstract or physical), or which could even be a technical term of the research domain.

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  • This helped me understand the meaning, I now have: The empirical second part of the thesis presents the project "Action", describes the concepts used for evaluation and details the methodology for consideration of the project's structure. Mar 31, 2014 at 11:59
  • Das dürfte sinnvoller sein, Antwort entsprechend korrigiert.
    – collapsar
    Mar 31, 2014 at 11:59
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Not quite. I'd offer:

The empirical second part of the (diploma) thesis presents the project "Aktion", focussing on the associated concept of evaluation and the structural evaluation.

I'm not sure about "strucural evaluation", since I don't know what "Strukturevaluation" means in this context (seems like a technical term). The same holds for "concept of evaluation". It might also be "concept for evaluation" or a similar thing. It seems that the project entails some concept of/for evaluation and that is put into focus ("stellt ... ins Zentrum").

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To start with, this is a terrible sentence. Lacking context I do not know what "Evaluationskonzept" and "Strukturevaluation" exactly refer to. The first is just a concept for evaluating something, and the second is the actual evaluation (of some structure). So in total we have something like

The empirical second part of the thesis introduces the project "Action" and focuses on the corresponding [concept for evaluation] and the [evaluation of some structure].

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  • Why is that a "terrible sentence", exactly?
    – Emanuel
    Mar 31, 2014 at 10:32
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    "stellt ... vor" + "stellt ... ins Zentrum" is an awkward combination. "Evaluationskonzept" and "Strukturevaluation" do not mean anyting by themselves. It is a common problem of German academic texts that they try to sound difficult and by doing so conceal their actual meaning. But, after all, this is obviously a subjective judgement. Other people may and will think differently, which is a good thing.
    – Matt L.
    Mar 31, 2014 at 10:41
  • I agree with the "stellen vor/stellen ins..." is not very nice but as for "Evaluationskonzept" and the other one... scinetific texts are for a scientific audience and those people will likely know those terms and they (the terms) may just be the most concise way to express that. I do agree that scientific text are sometimes trying too hard but not every term is guilty of that so unless you know what the text is about and who it is for, you shouldn't judge it, just because the terms don't mean anything to you. Neither does "Sciurus vulgaris"
    – Emanuel
    Mar 31, 2014 at 11:49
  • @Emanuel How come you think I don't know anything about red squirrels???
    – Matt L.
    Mar 31, 2014 at 13:04
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    I believe it's simply a sentence that is meant for an educated reader. I have found articles describing the words in detail, for example: quint-essenz.ch/de/tools/1062 Mar 31, 2014 at 13:53

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