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I wrote my bachelor's thesis, and just now I got a question in my head that should have been asked long time ago. Originally the thesis is written in Polish, but I'm also obligated to translate my topic to English.

So, is "Computer networks security threats analysis" correct? I can't change it any more, so I just want to know is this correct?

In my thesis I am analysing a few computer networks security threats. But I think it's obvious.

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    More idiomatic in English would be "Computer Network Security Threat Analysis" (i.e. drop the plural s from both network and threat). That said, your phrasing isn't in any way "wrong", just likely to strike a native speaker's ear as awkward. We might also delete security as redundant, because contextually for computer networks threat analysis implies "security".
    – Dan Bron
    Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 20:16
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    Well it sounds a bit weird to me as well, but I couldn't think of something better, like removing the s's. Glad to hear it isn't wrong anyway, thank you.
    – undefined
    Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 20:18
  • It is not wrong. There may be a stylistic question of whether to use plurals or not, but the plurals you have used are used correctly and consistently.
    – Roaring Fish
    Commented Sep 24, 2016 at 7:25
  • I would probably have called it "An analysis of threats to computer networks" but then I'm old.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Sep 24, 2016 at 7:35

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Networks and threats do not need to be plural. It's not idiomatic. It's basic grammar. Nouns are used as adjectives here. And the nouns are non-count nouns, so they should be singular.

See Azar et al. in Basic English Grammar, 4th ed. For non-count nouns, see Oxford Learners Dictionaries. They don't have any special term for dual-usage count and non-count nouns.

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  • This is not the reason that the words should not be pluralised. They are not non-count nouns, but they are noun adjuncts or attributive nouns: nouns which function as adjectives. Adjectives are never inflected for number.
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented Sep 24, 2016 at 15:19
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Sep 24, 2016 at 18:14

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