Academic writing: 7 top tips for students

Writing Tips

31 Oct

Your essay, dissertation or thesis is the culmination of months, or even years, of your hard work and research. To be taken seriously and to help you gain good marks, your work will benefit from being written in an academic style. Using an academic writing style allows you to show that you have a clear understanding of your subject and can present your research, evaluation and arguments in an informed and concise way.

To get you started, here are seven tips to help you write up your paper.

1 | Stop procrastinating and start writing!

I know from painful experience that just starting to write up your research can be extremely difficult! Many people (not just students!) are experts in the art of procrastination – and there are many, many tips online to help you with this. You could procrastinate all day searching for them…

So my first tip is simply to start writing as soon as possible. You may not feel in the slightest bit ready, have no fully formed ideas, and are positive you haven’t done enough research – but believe me when I say this is true for every writer. You will never feel totally ready, so just get on with it!

Make sure you spend a set amount of time each day writing something. It doesn’t have to be large chunks of time every day – in fact, just a couple of hours on a regular basis works really well. As long as you spend this time actually writing. Not editing. Not adding your citations. Not formatting your paper. That all comes much later.

As you write, you will find that your ideas also direct your research, so don’t waste your time reading everything around your subject before putting pen to paper (or finger to keyboard).

2 | Outline your paper

Most subjects have a standard required layout. The absolute basic layout should include:

the introduction – this section should describe your subject area, objectives and hypotheses
the body – this section is for analysing your evidence and evaluating your results
the conclusion – use this section to bring everything together and summarise your findings.

You should already have your title and objectives, so once you have your basic outline (as recommended by your university, subject or academic style), you can add chapters to the body of your paper as your ideas become more rounded.

A good outline will help you to organise your thoughts and ideas into a coherent and evaluative piece of work. And, you don’t have to write it in order. In fact, it’s better to get the body and conclusions written up before tackling the introduction – it’s only then that you have a clear idea as to what you’re introducing.

3 | Always keep your objectives in mind

To avoid going off on a tangent, either with your research or your writing, make sure you keep your main argument at the front of your mind at all times. To maintain clarity and conciseness, every word of your paper should be relevant to your title and objectives.

When writing both my bachelor’s dissertation and my master’s thesis, I kept a printout of my title and objectives on the wall next to my desk throughout the entire process! It might sound a bit over the top, but it helped to keep me on track.

4 | Use reliable sources of information

The credibility of your sources is one of the most important considerations in academic writing. If your sources are not credible, then your finished paper won’t be either.

Here are a few pointers to help you evaluate your sources:

Has the information come from a reputable organisation? Was the paper written by a prominent researcher/credible authority in their field? Are there references or citations that lead you to further reading?
Is the information relevant to your subject and objectives?
Does the author seem to be biased or motivated by an agenda? Are there hidden interests?
Is the methodology clear? Does it lead to sound conclusions?
Is the information clearly presented?
Is the material up to date? If not, does the age of the material matter for your purposes?

5 | Know who you’re writing for

Most academic writing is aimed at readers with knowledge of your subject. Your knowledge of grammar and punctuation and your use of language is important in academic writing. You are trying to persuade your reader that you are knowledgeable about your subject and can evaluate the research clearly and concisely. If you make basic errors with your grammar and punctuation, you risk your paper being misunderstood and not taken seriously.

Your ‘tone of voice’ is also an important consideration. Academic writing is very different to writing a message to a friend or posting on social media. Your language should be formal but not stuffy and over-complicated – be careful not to use big words for the sake of it. If you sound like you’ve swallowed a thesaurus, it can seem as though you’re trying too hard to sound clever. This is very off-putting to the reader and can detract from your argument.

6 | Use reference management software

Reference management software is an absolute godsend! I only have experience with Mendeley, but there are others available, such as Zotero, EndNote and RefWorks. A reference manager enables the user to save resources and store citations in the correct format for their academic style (Harvard, Vancouver, APA, etc.). This allows for the easy insertion of citations in your document and less time spent formatting pages of references at the end of your research.

I would urge any researcher, whatever their subject, to use a reference manager.

7 | Check your work

You’ve done it! Your paper is finally finished! However, I have one final tip before you submit your magnum opus – make sure you’ve allowed at least a week or two between the completion of writing and your deadline. This will give you time to put your paper down for a day or two and come back to it relatively fresh for editing and proofreading.

Don’t underestimate the importance of this stage. Mistakes are easily made and can be just as easily missed by the writer. The last thing you want to do is let yourself down or lose precious marks by submitting a paper sprinkled with typos, grammatical errors and punctuation slip-ups.

Proofread, proofread, proofread

Check for any spelling, grammar and punctuation errors in your work. For a basic spelling and grammar check, a free software package, such as Grammarly or the spellchecker that comes built-in with your word processing software, is adequate. However, you should also be aware that there are certain errors which software won’t spot but a human will, such as the difference between correctly spelt words used in the wrong context, for example, there|their|they’re, your|you’re, it’s|its, whose|who’s, to name but a few. Check out my post on homophones for more examples.

Check your references

Your paper must be your own work. You will need to reference absolutely everything that has come from somebody else’s ideas or risk accusations of plagiarism and earn you an immediate fail of your paper. Your reference list, in-text citations, and footnotes and endnotes should follow your reference style consistently. Make sure your citations match up with your source references as well – if you get this bit wrong, you will definitely lose marks.

Check your structure and formatting

Good formatting can significantly improve how your writing appears on the page and its readability. At the marking stage, your paper will be checked for consistency in your use of fonts for your titles, subtitles and body text; the in-line spacing, section breaks and page margins; and the formatting of all headers and footers. Think of your marker as well – when reading through your thesis, a well-formatted piece of work makes the life of your marker so much easier – they should be able to navigate through the main points of your research with ease.

Before you hand in your masterpiece, do one final check to make sure your paper is presented to a high academic standard.

Chapter headings should follow a logical structure, be correctly formatted and match your contents page.
Pages should be numbered consecutively and match your contents page.
Figures, charts and tables should be listed and labelled correctly. Check your institution’s style guide for instructions.

Finally…

One last piece of advice – and I can’t stress this enough! – make sure you have left enough time to allow for a final read-through of your paper and to make any last-minute corrections before your submission deadline is due.

Good luck!

And don’t forget, if you need help with polishing your paper before submission, check out my student proofreading package or get in touch for more information and a no-obligation quote.