{"id":181,"date":"2023-07-05T16:53:53","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T16:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/?p=181"},"modified":"2023-07-11T10:04:05","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T10:04:05","slug":"academic-writing-style","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/2023\/07\/05\/academic-writing-style\/","title":{"rendered":"Academic Writing Style"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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We\u2019re often asked to teach students how to write with an academic style. That\u2019s quite a tricky one, as different subjects each have their own way of communicating their knowledge in an appropriate, conventional way, so there are as many academic writing styles as there are subjects. A physics paper is written in a very different style to an English Literature article. Even \u201crules\u201d such as \u201cnever use the first person I\u201d are not actually true across all subjects; social sciences subjects may favour it as it acknowledges the role of the researcher in research, and it\u2019s necessary for reflective writing when you\u2019re writing about yourself.<\/p>\n

One common piece of advice is to avoid colloquialisms in your writing, elements which are more characteristic of informal speech than formal writing. In practice, I don\u2019t often see many examples of \u2018chatty\u2019 writing; I find the real danger is going OTT and too formal, which can both obscure the meaning and come across as pompous! What\u2019s really going on here is that there are a number of turns of phrase which can come across as colloquial as they don\u2019t measure up to the kind of persona readers expect you to create in your work.<\/p>\n

However, there are a few principles that can guide you in developing and editing your academic writing style. Think about the persona you\u2019re trying to project through your writing, and what qualities this \u2018voice\u2019 needs to convey to your reader:<\/em><\/p>\n

Formal and professional<\/strong>: we avoid things like contractions (e.g. isn\u2019t, can\u2019t<\/em>) because the full version (is not, cannot<\/em>) is more formal, even if it costs us another word. Not all formal alternatives are longwinded though \u2013 phrasal verbs (e.g. to think about<\/em>) take two words when one word would do (e.g. to consider<\/em>), and as well as being longer, they don\u2019t sound quite so good. Other examples of the formal being more concise than the colloquial include \u2018lots of\u2019 instead of \u2018many\u2019. We\u2019re not talking too formal though \u2013 if you\u2019re uncomfortable with a word, don\u2019t use it \u2013 it\u2019s probably OTT and not going to help your message get across (technical terms excepted). We\u2019re talking \u2018business suit\u2019 formal, not \u2018top hat and tails\u2019 formal!<\/p>\n

Precise and unambiguous<\/strong>: in speech, we often try to persuade the listener using emotive tactics, by using exaggeration and vagueness to convince them of the importance of what we\u2019re saying. Think of the way we use terms like \u2018lots of\u2019. In academic thinking, we need to be absolutely precise so the reader knows exactly what we\u2019re talking about, and is persuaded by our logic, not our feelings about the subject. Consider the commonly used phrase \u201cMany scholars agree\u2026.\u201d. The writer is using \u2018many\u2019 as a way to impress on the reader that agreement on this topic is overwhelming, and therefore can\u2019t be questioned. The academic reader, however, is thinking \u201clots of scholars? How many? Three? Thirty? Three hundred? What does ‘lots’ mean to you? And which scholars, exactly?\u201d Quantify what you mean by lots\u201d, and give references or examples that the reader can see.<\/p>\n

Logical and objective<\/strong>: Similarly, think about an intensifier like \u2018really\u2019: \u201cit is therefore really important that\u2026.\u201d. The writer wants to stress the importance of their conclusions. The reader is thinking \u201c if you lay out your reasoning with evidence, conclusions drawn and implications noted, you\u2019ll persuade me that it\u2019s really important without having to say as much!\u201d Absolute terms like \u2018completely\u2019 or \u2018totally\u2019 also make an academic reader suspicious \u2013 very little in academia is that black and white! It\u2019s often better to acknowledge any nuances or complexities as a sign of your ability to self-critique, than gloss it over to impress the reader.<\/p>\n

Impersonal<\/strong>: This is where the common advice comes from\u00a0to avoid ‘I argue’ and use the passive ‘it is argued that’. Basically, these are ways of saying to the reader, “don’t look at me, with all my human flaws and fallibility – look at my ideas”. Avoiding ‘I’ takes us out of the picture, letting the focus fall on the quality of our thinking. It’s also redundant – if there is no reference provided to attribute\u00a0the work\u00a0to someone else, then of course the ideas are yours, it’s your essay! And no need to argue ‘I think that’ – just argue it, state it,\u00a0and let it stand by the quality of its logic. Some subjects are less strict on avoiding ‘I’ than others though, and in some cases, the passive can make a sentence more convoluted than\u00a0necessary \/ a sentence can be made more convoluted than necessary by the passive.<\/p>\n

Concrete and functional<\/strong>: spoken language is often metaphorical, using imagery to attract attention and make a topic more lively. This is also true, of course, of literary writing, which uses metaphors to express truths in a different way to academic writing. Academic writing is very literal and functional though \u2013 no need to grab the reader\u2019s attention \u2013 they are already invested in reading about the subject, and it\u2019s the reasoning which will appeal to them. Metaphors like \u2018in a nutshell\u2019 or \u2018crystal clear\u2019 don\u2019t add anything to your reasoning, and aren\u2019t concrete \u2013 there are no actual nuts or crystals here! Spoken language often has these metaphors as common idioms, which become so \u2018well worn\u2019 (there\u2019s a metaphor right there!) that we don\u2019t notice them.<\/p>\n

Above all of these qualities, however, is that of clarity<\/strong>. Academic writing is functional, and the reader above all wants to be able to pick up your message without wondering what you\u2019re on about, if you mean what they think you mean, or why you think what you do. Spoken language is supplemented by body language, facial expressions, and the ability to ask for more clarification- writing has to stand by itself. Colloquialisms like the ones we\u2019ve looked at get in the way of clarity. If you think about projecting the qualities we\u2019ve looked at here through your writing, the style will probably take care of itself.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted by Helen<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re often asked to teach students how to write with an academic style. That\u2019s quite a tricky one, as different subjects each have their own way of communicating their knowledge in an appropriate, conventional way, so there are as many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11117,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-at-newcastle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":562,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}