Academic Style
Learner Enhancement Team
[email protected]
Variety is the Spice of Life!
Different Schools…
….Different Rules
– Can you use ‘I’ in an academic text?
– Should an essay have section headings?
– How long is a report?
– Do you use primary or secondary research?
– Footnotes, endnotes or no notes?
– Harvard style referencing or MLA? What about APA?
Which school are you in? What is acceptable and what is
unacceptable in your field?
Always check in your module handbooks or with your
tutor if you are concerned about appropriacy
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Academic Style Aims
— To look at what is meant by Academic Style
— To consider the elements of Academic Style
— To practice Academic Style
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Task
Which of these words do you think describe Academic Style?
Lots of long
sentences
It should be
complicated
Scientific
Repetitive
Only facts –
no opinions
Difficult
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Academic Writing Style
There a number of things to bear in mind about Academic style:
— Academic style is not ‘better’
• … just an academic ‘lingua franca’… a ‘code’
— Needs to be universally understood
• Conversation is about interaction & relationships; academic writing also
contains elements of these, but is more about clear articulation of
‘information’ and thought. It uses different features.
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Five Elements
There are five elements to Academic Style. With a
partner, discuss what you think these elements refer to:
— Concise
— Precise
— Academic, fact-based criticality
— Formal
— Serious
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Five Elements, Six Steps
There are six steps to being concise, precise, critical, formal &
serious:
1. Precise Language
2. Remove redundancy
3. Love nouns
4. De-personalise
5. Clarity
6. Caution and distance
We will look at each of these steps in turn
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Task
Which of these texts seems more ‘academic’? How do you know
this?
ONE:
TWO:
Why are there so many jams on the
roads these days? One thing is that
public transport like trains, buses etc
is so dear. A long time ago cars cost a
lot but now, unfortunately they’ve
got much cheaper. Another thing is
that driving is a lot nicer than
waiting for a bus. The trouble is that
if everyone buys a car the roads get
packed.
The increased frequency in road
congestion may be due to the high
costs of public transport (Lee & Smith,
2011), and the lower costs and
convenience of car ownership (Green,
2012).
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Notice: TWO is
much shorter
than ONE. In
fact, it is quite
simple!
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Step One – Precise Language
What is the effect of using these informal phrases on text one?
ONE:
TWO:
Why are there so many jams on the
roads these days? One thing is that
public transport like trains, buses etc
is so dear. A long time ago cars cost a
lot but now, unfortunately they’ve
got much cheaper. Another thing is
that driving is a lot nicer than
waiting for a bus. The trouble is that
if everyone buys a car the roads get
packed. (66 words)
The increased frequency in road
congestion may be due to the high
costs of public transport (Lee & Smith,
2011), and the lower costs and
convenience of car ownership (Green,
2012). (31 words)
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Step One – Precise Language
With a partner, complete the gaps:
Anglo-Saxon
Latin-French
go after
pursue
go on
continue
build
construct
make
fortunately
need
desire
make up with
advantage / benefit
get better
satisfactory
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Step One – Precise Language
With a partner, complete the gaps:
Be careful!
Anglo-Saxon
Clarity is king
in
academic
go after
writing
Latin-French
pursue
go on
continue
build
construct
make
create?
luckily?
fortunately
need
require?
Want to?
desire
make up with
reconcile?
good thing?
advantage / benefit
get better
improve?
OK / alright?
satisfactory
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What does ‘redundant’ mean?
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Step Two – Remove Redundancy
‘Redundancy’ means saying more than you need to. Look at these sentences –
where is the redundancy?
1.
Postpone system changeover to
a later date
2.
Downtime data is absolutely
perfect
3.
The company will revert back to
the previous MIS
4.
It was really impossible
5.
It is so important to make it safe
and secure to pay on the
internet
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1.
Postpone system changeover
2.
Downtime data is perfect
3.
Will revert to the previous MIS
4.
It was impossible
5.
Online payment security is crucial
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Step Two – Remove Redundancy
What has changed in this sentence, once we remove the
redundant word(s)? How does this affect the style of the
sentence?
— It is so important to make it safe and secure to pay on the
internet
— Online payment security is crucial
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Step Three – Love Nouns
Another way to remove redundancy is to consider your
verbs. Verbs are ‘doing’ words, like run, write or sing.
Look at this example:
They will consider the issue during the user training
We will change the verb, consider, into the noun,
consideration:
Consideration will be given during the user training
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Task
With a partner, decide how you can transform the underlined verbs into nouns:
They eventually permitted us to include a shopping cart.
1.
•
2.
Permission was given for the inclusion of a shopping cart?
They have transferred the money to the bank account.
•
3.
The money transfer went ahead?
They will present the website awards after the speeches.
•
4.
The award presentation is after the speeches?
They will not announce the findings until next week.
•
5.
The announcement will be next week?
They demolished the building in only two days.
•
6.
The demolition took only two days?
They will produce the new software by outsourcing.
•
Outsourcing will account for software production.
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Changing focus…
By changing the verbs into nouns, you also had to change the structure of the
sentence:
—They eventually permitted us to include a shopping
cart.
—Permission was given for the inclusion of a shopping
cart.
Often students write phrases such as ‘many studies have shown…’ or ‘many
researchers believe’….
This is problematic for academic writing. Why?
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Step Four – De-personalise
What’s the difference between these sentences?
— “I broke your iPod.”
— “While you were away your iPod was broken.”
— “I made a mistake.”
— “Mistakes were made.”
— Brown (2011) suggests using air filtration systems on trains to…
— Air filtration systems could be used on trains to… (Brown 2011).
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Step Four – De-personalise
Academic writing should appear objective. One
of the ways to achieve this sense of objectivity is
to de-personalise your writing. Look at these
examples:
Many students struggle with
the concept of plagiarism, not
least because often universities
have unclear guidance on the
subject. Not only that, but I
have found that in some cases
lecturers do not follow these
guidelines or are even unaware
they exist. In order to counter
this issue, I propose that…
© Middlesex University
Notice that
option two is
shorter! Why?
Many students struggle with the
concept of plagiarism, not least
because often universities have
unclear guidance on the subject.
Not only that, but in some cases
lecturers do not follow these
guidelines or are even unaware
they exist. In order to counter this
issue, it is proposed that…
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Task
What is the difference between a basketball net and a fishing net?
Ideally, your writing will be like a fishing net, capturing all the ideas and arguments,
not letting anything ‘slip through’. Gappy writing, like a basketball net, allows rigour,
research and critically to escape. We need to close the net!
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Step Five - Clarity
What’s wrong with this?
A lot of people think that the weather is getting worse. I think
that they are quite right. Research tells us that we now get
storms etc all the time.
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Step Five - Clarity
What’s wrong with this?
Who? Your
gran??
Worse? Worse
than what? What
does this mean,
really?
A lot of people think that the weather is getting worse. I think
that they are quite right. Research tells us that we now get
storms etc all the time.
Etc?
Rains
of
frogs?
Good for you.
Yawn.
Oh yeah,
every ten
minutes…
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What research?
Who is ‘us’? Am
I you?
Whaaaat?
The AWL Open Workshop Critical
Thinking and How To Write Effective
Paragraphs may help your clarity.
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Step Six – Caution & Distance
What is wrong with the following?
Men and women are different. Men like money and power but
women like relationships and emotional concerns. Males take
turns in speech whereas females speak at once. Females touch
and care for people while males only do so by providing for
them with things they can buy. Women focus on the journey or
process but men think only about the destinations or results.
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Step Six – Caution & Distance
— Men like money and power
— Women like relationships and emotional concerns
— Males take turns in speech
— Females speak at once
— Females touch and care for people
— Males only do so by providing for them with things they can buy
— Women focus on the journey or process
— Men think only about the destinations or results
This is extremely generalised. It reads more like a ‘coffee shop’
argument than an academic argument. One way to improve this would
be to add references – however, even with references a number of
readers would take issue with the generalised tone of this piece. How
might a writer deal with generalisations?
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Step Six – Caution & Distance
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Task
Modal verbs can help to show distance and caution. What is
the difference(s?) between these sentences?:
— It might be argued that …
— It has been argued that …
— It could be argued that …
— It can be argued that …
— It should be argued that…
— It must be argued that…
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Step Six – Caution & Distance
Here are some ways to show caution and distance in your
work:
— De-personalisation removes ‘you’
— Modal verbs and caution
— Academic writing means using sources:
•
•
•
•
Experts, scholars ….
Direct/indirect references
Argument and counter-argument
The voices of many! How they relate to each other
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Polishing Your Argument
— Paragraphing clear? (helps reader)
— Academic (not spoken) style?
• Concise, uses abstract nouns, verb clauses collapsed to noun groups
• Precise and formal (‘higher’) words
• De-personalised, distanced to sound neutral
(as needed)
• Is cautious, thus accurate
• Some emphasis
— Accurate: grammar (check a friend’s)
— No plagiarism?
The AWL Open Workshop How To
Proofread Effectively could also
help you to polish your work.
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Final Task
Look at the text handout and discuss with a partner ways it could
be improved, based on the content of this session.
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Where now?
— Need more detailed assistance? Book a tutorial!
— Want feedback on a specific section? Drop in to Getting Your Assignment
Ready!
— Want somewhere quiet to write, and get on the spot assistance? Try The
Writing Space!
— Got a few quick questions? AWL Office Hours at [The Study Hub] are for
you!
— AWL Open Workshops can be booked here!
• Suggestions:
– Critical Thinking
– How To Write Effective Paragraphs
– How To Proofread Effectively
– Book a tutorial
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Academic Style
© Middlesex University
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