The purpose of academic writing is to convey your ideas, and the evidence which supports them, as clearly, concisely and smoothly as possible.
In order to do this, you need to:
write in standard, grammatically correct English. | |
understand and follow the main academic writing conventions of formality, objectivity and clarity. |
Academic writing conventions
For example
Formality
Avoid casual language: including slang, contractions (e.g. shouldn’t, can’t), clichés and abbreviations.
Avoid jargon: use appropriate terminology for your subject but steer clear of jargon.
Objectivity
Third person: with the exception of reflective writing, most essays require you to use the third person (‘it’ and ‘they’, rather than ‘I’, ‘my’ and ‘we’). This helps convey your objectivity.
Caution: with a few exceptions (perhaps the Laws of Physics) nothing is 100% certain. Demonstrate awareness of this with careful use of language.
Criticality: show that you have analysed and evaluated evidence by using key critical phrases.
Non-judgemental: avoid emotional and judgemental language (e.g. ‘horrendous’, ‘terrible’), allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions based on the evidence presented.
Clarity
Precision: say what you mean as clearly as possible; do not make the reader have to guess.
Conciseness: do not use five words when one will do. This will allow you extra room for evidence to enrich your argument.