Academic writing – the basics

Writing an essay or assignment is a challenging activity which brings together all your relevant knowledge and
understanding of a topic in response to a particular task. From writing tasks, you will gain both dexterity in use of
language and the associated critical thinking skills with you into your professional life after university. Writing well is
an integral facet of the skills set that you take away with you from the university experience. However, it takes time
and dedication to acquire and develop the competence in writing that you will need. This means that the act of
writing essays will help you to hone your writing skill into an increasingly effective communication tool.

This focus on manipulating writing is important for a number of reasons:

 it demonstrates your ability to group ideas in a logical way

 it allows you to exploit the flexibility that language offers you to express thoughts and ideas as clearly as
possible, and
 and it ensures that you maintain the reader’s attention and interest

Compare these two versions:

Version A2 gives more

relevance (through
prompting) to the
conditions or context, so it
is clearer and more
persuasive.

Version B2 is more concise

and to the point, which is
achieved by using
academic vocabulary.

Version C2 is clearer
because it is more precise
(better punctuation gives
prominence to the
reason) and it does not
combine over three
different ideas.

N.B. All examples are excerpts from McMillan, K. & Weyers, J. (2010)
How to Write Essays and Assignments. Harlow: Pearson.
Formal/Academic vs. Informal registers
There are two major caveats that prevent you from using your usual English: register and objectivity. General
spoken English is not suitable for the more formal register of academic essay-writing and speaking. A piece of text
that is written in an informal manner may fail to communicate ideas for a number of reasons:

 Informal language is, by its very nature, limited and imprecise and can may rapidly become dated and
obsolete if it contains slang or fad expressions
 Informal language is more emotive and less objective in its tone
 Informality in writing may not be interpreted as a serious attempt at putting ideas coherently

Similarly, if to communicate clearly in written assignments, it is important to adopt a style of writing that conveys
your ideas in a way that presents an objective perspective on the topic. A subjectively worded commentary will be
less likely to consider your work a professional piece of writing.

Important: read the introductions and conclusions in academic essays and papers closely so as to learn about the
adequate register, vocabulary and other writing tactics.

Essay targets (general marking criteria)

These are the standards you hope to reach in for a written academic text to be successful. A concise module
assignment will be required to, in fewer than 400 words:

 Contain all the information required with no or very few errors

 Show evidence of having read relevant literature and use this effectively in the answer
 Address the question correctly, understanding all its nuances
 Contain little or no irrelevant material
 Demonstrate full understanding of the topic within a wider context
 Show good critical and analytical abilities
 Contain evidence of sound independent thinking
 Express ideas clearly and concisely
 Use appropriate written structure and good standard of English
 Present correct citation and works cited section, where required

Features of writing that can obstruct the understanding of the reader (the marker) are the use of cliché expressions,
colloquial language, subjectivity, poor sentence structure or punctuation, lack of agreement or tense mix-up, bad
spelling, and unnecessary repetitions.

Also, your essay will need a clear structure. Not only is

important to ensure that sentences are concise and well
structured, but also that paragraphs are coherent and well
ordered. An identifiable and coherent introduction will
help the reader to understand the writing that follows.
Markers will also value a main body where the points are
signposted clearly: for example, guiding the reader
through the logic of causal relationships, analysis of a
problem, or comparisons and contrasts. If this is followed
by a tightly summarised analytical conclusion, then the
marker is in a good position to assess the overall
construction of the argument and more likely to reach a
positive evaluation.

Important: please read and observe marker feedback so that your next essay improves on your previous efforts.
Sample paragraph structure

Sample topic development

Sample essay
How to organize ideas before actual writing
Academic writing, which assumes that something meaningful is going to be said on a given topic, requires
preparation. There are key issues to observe:

 Make sure you fully grasp the nature of the task. Analyse the phrasing carefully to make sure you understand
all possible meanings. Then write down a brief description of the aspects you wish to address – this will help
you to organize the ideas in the text better.
 Organise your approach to the task. You might start with brainstorming to identify potential solutions or
viewpoints. Consider the issue or question from all possible angles or positions and write down everything
you come up with. You may wish to use a mind map or graphical organization to lay out your thoughts,
which arranges your ideas into categories or sub-headings, or group them as supporting or opposing a
viewpoint. Finally, you need to analyse and decide about the relevance of the grouped points to the original
problem. Reject trivial or irrelevant ideas and rank or prioritise those that seem relevant.
 Get background information (from reputed academic sources) from a range of texts to see how others
interpret your topic, and check your comprehension of the facts. You will need to gather relevant
information and ideas to support your thoughts, provide examples or suggest a range of interpretations or
approaches. You will use citation for those words and ideas that are not your own, so it is a good idea to
note down details about author, title, date, and page number.

These steps involve critical thinking. Conversely, avoid common pitfalls of shallow thinking. Try not to:

 rush to conclusions  use fallacious arguments

 generalise  think in terms of stereotypes
 oversimplify  make value judgements
 personalise

Tip: word limits are imposed to train you to be concise in your writing and to analyse the topic carefully to decide
what to keep in and what to leave out. Also, they will make it easier for you to keep a balance among the sections in
your writing – which must be kept in longer assignments too.

Academic wording
Academic style involves the use of precise and objective language to express ideas. It must be grammatically correct,
and is more formal than the style found in novels, newspapers, informal correspondence and everyday conversation.
This should mean that the language is clear and simple (that is, not unnecessarily complex or pompous) but, above
all, academic style is objective: with an impersonal tone and a more succinct/exact vocabulary, not involving
personal, colloquial, or idiomatic expressions.

Key strategies to show objectivity are:

 Avoiding personal pronouns – try not to use the following words: I/me/one, you (singular and plural), we/us.
 Using the passive rather than active voice – try to write about the action and not about the actor
 Using more nouns (We applied the method to.. -> The application of the method…)

For general statements, you could use a structure such as ‘it is . . .’, ‘there is . . .’ or ‘there are . . .’ to introduce
sentences. For more specific points relating to statements you have already made, you could use the structures ‘this
is . . .’ or ‘these are . . .’; ‘that is . . .’ or ‘those are . . .’ with appropriate tense changes according to the context. Do
not forget that there should be no ambiguity over the word or phrase to which they refer.
Academic language is specific, which means that, generally, words from Latin origin are preferred (see Academic
word lists in the e-Campus, and read academic texts to write down useful expressions), as well as specialized (or
more concise) vocabulary:

Tip: where needed, gender-specific language is to be avoided. Do this by using the plural. If writing about any
student (who could be male or female) do not use he or she (nor ‘he or she’ or clumsy solutions such as s/he), or his
or her. Use the plural they and their, even if the subject is singular. Ex.: When a student fails, they need to re-enrol.

Other common issues:

 Do not use verbal contractions. It’s -> It is; they’ve -> They have
 Acronyms must be written in full on first use. Ex. The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) has close links
with the European Community (EC). Both EFTA and the EC require new members to have membership of the
Council of Europe as a prerequisite for admission to their organisations.
 Absolute terms must be avoided, unless you can provide evidence for them. Ex. Students who do not study
will always fail -> Students who do not study enough may fail.
 Clichés are also to be chided. Long-winded expressions add nothing to logical reasoning and cut down space
for relevant ideas. Ex. First and foremost (first); last but not least (finally); at this point in time (now). This
procedure is the gold standard of hip replacement methods. (This procedure is the best hip replacement
method.)
 Colloquial language needs to be replaced. Not to beat about the bush, increasing income tax did the
Chancellor no good at the end of the day and he was ditched at the next Cabinet reshuffle. (Increasing
income tax did not help the Chancellor and he was replaced at the next Cabinet reshuffle.). Avoid phrasals
too: the parcel was picked up -> collected; Samuelson wrote down the idea -> noted.
 Hedging, or being cautions and tentative, must be enforced. Even for seasoned academics, it is often
impossible to state categorically that something is or is not the case. There are verbs that allow you to assert
without negating other possibilities: it seems that, it looks as if, it suggests that, it appears that, etc. this can
also be achieved with modal verbs. Ex.: Students can/cannot could/could not may/may not might/might not
pass if they do not read enough before writing.
 Jargon must be included, but explained to non-specialist readers. Ex.: Transitivity, a property of verbs that
relates to whether a verb can take direct objects, is highly lax in English.
 Rhetorical questions must be used sparingly, or best left for journalistic styles. Academic language generally
states; it does not pose questions. Ex.: How do plants survive in dry weather? -> It is important to
understand how plants survive in dry weather.
 Specificity. Be more specific by using adequate vocabulary (students in a degree –> undergraduates), more
adjectives or pre-modifiers (the book -> the best-selling volume; the response -> the quick response), more
adverbs (poetry sales decreased –> poetry sales decreased dramatically), avoiding phrasals
 Value judgements are statements in which the author is imposing their views or values on to the reader.
This is disrespectful and unpersuasive. For example, a writer who states that ‘Henry VIII was a misogynist’
without giving supporting evidence for this statement is not making an objective comment in a professional
manner. You need to find ideas and reasons supporting the view, either your own or based on other
published materials (properly cited).

Enhancing your academic vocabulary requires sustained effort. You need to read extensively, but also
intensively, using a dictionary and a thesaurus. This generally improves your draft before submission, but be
careful about becoming exceedingly wordy (nobody wants to read bombastic, pompous or sesquipedalian
language). Look up words in the dictionary, but also note their various forms, particularly nouns, adjectives,
adverbs and other derivations: to avoid -> avoidance (N), avoidable (Adj.), avoidably (Adv.), etc. You will also
need a thesaurus, to avoid repetition and find new academic words: know (V) -> understand, appreciate,
experience, notice, perceive, recognize, apprehend, differentiate, discern, discriminate, grasp, etc. Finally, you
will also need to be aware about common collocations, or words that naturally come together in a language.
Note these in the texts you read, and use collocation dictionaries to find more: a war can be limited | holy, just |
civil, global, world | air, guerrilla | atomic, nuclear | cold | economic, trade | price | class; it can be fought,
made, waged | won | lost | declared | averted or prevented. It also comes into play with other nouns (hero,
poet, correspondent), prepositions (against, between, on, with), etc. Keep a structured list of academic
vocabulary so that you can re-use these words in the future. This will help you write increasingly faster and it will
also impact on your spoken fluency and accuracy.

Tip: there are links to various electronic tools in the e-Campus which may help
Sample essay correction of non-academic conventions
Citation
An author-date (such as Harvard, and unlike MLA) is favoured, with no footnotes. Each style comes with their own
word cited format. Bear in mind that the actual citation style will be usually decided by a third party. There is
extensive documentation in the e-Campus on how to cite. Find two examples below.
MLA style (no author-date)
Harvard style (author-date)