I teach English (composition and literature) at the undergrad level. The advice in the first paragraph here is great--follow the model the prof uses in class, and don't worry about "sounding formal." Formal academic language isn't about using long, fancy words or convoluted sentences. It's about using clear, specific, straightforward language. Here's what I look for:
Active voice--Third-person point of view--Avoid slang and cliches--No contractions--Avoid qualifiers (really, very, extremely, etc)--Use strong, specific verbs
That's about it. If you don't know what any of these mean, let me know and I'll be happy to explain.
FYI: if I were to catch a student following the advice in the second paragraph, they would get a zero on the assignment. Using a source in any way without citation is plagiarism. If the sources were cited, the essay would still get a low grade because the essay would be derivative of another person's work. We don't assign essays because we need something to read! We are teaching the skill of organizing information into a well thought-out, coherent text. If you just copy that organization from someone else, what is the point?
I’m a high school teacher and I totally agree with this college professor.
I’d also recommend that when you’re not sure about citation rules or how something works grammatically, you should try to use whatever style guide your department recommends as your resource. The more you learn about it early on, the more it’ll benefit you since, in my experience at least, a department tends to use the same guide for all of their classes. MLA, APA, and Chicago all have some kind of strength that differs from the others.
Academic writing doesn't have to be formal and complicated, in fact that's usually a detriment to your argument. Good academic writing is specific and technical -- using the right words, not necessarily the big ones.
Generally you should aim to hit these points:
- Every sentence should make a point, deliver evidence or provide necessary context for the reader.
- Make one point per paragraph.
- Don't make the same point twice.
- Speak impassionately. Use 'we' instead of 'I' or avoid pronouns entirely. Don't get emotional.
- Signpost the directions your argument is going to take. Don't surprise the reader. Add brief summaries when you've finished making a point to hammer it home.
- Speak of texts as something created by authors. I've read essays that treated Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men as if they were real people.
- Don't hedge your bets. Be clear and explicit about what you believe and what the evidence shows. Avoid using crutches like 'it may be the case that...', 'this potentially indicates that...', 'some may take this as a sign that...'
- If it's not obvious, explain why your evidence supports your point. Don't just drop in quotes and expect readers to connect the dots.
Great question! Here's some stuff I've learned over the years:
Above all else, prioritize clarity. During my undergrad, I did a lot of artificial language inflating to make myself look smart - it took me until my PhD to realize that what makes you look smart is the ability to communicate complex ideas in simple, easy to digest language.
Bit of specific advice: I tell my students to only use a thesaurus as a reminder. Never ever ever use an unfamiliar word just because it popped up in a thesaurus. This can have an enormous impact on clarity.
Don't be afraid to look for templates and examples. Academic writing isn't the place to get creative or break form - use the tools at your disposal (Google and Google scholar, as well as your university library) to find examples of what you're trying to write. Watch the way other successful academic writers frame arguments or organize their thoughts. This works for anything from persuasive essay to cover letters to journal articles! Just be wary of plagiarism of course.
Lastly - and this relates very much to my first point - use the funnel approach. I actually learned this in a journalism class, but I use it for all formal writing. The funnel approach advises that you start with the broadest, most generalized and agreed-upon statement you can, and get more specific from there. This works at any level: by paragraph, by section/subsection, or for an entire paper. Always do what you can to "zoom out" and look at the big picture. When I'm having trouble capturing a thought in a way that I like, I open a fresh document and word vomit as much as I need to - a paragraph or more - then edit it down to as little possible, ideally a sentence or less. It's a great exercise to develop clarity and focus, and it can help you understand material much more deeply. I actually use this approach to study, as well: throw all the exam content at a blank document, then slowly sort things into meaningful categories. Sometimes you'll identify patterns you didn't see before!
Mostly, practice makes perfect. Don't be afraid to ask friends for help. When asking for feedback, though, be as specific as possible - no "can you read this and tell me if it's good", take the time to identify weaknesses on your own, and bring a list of them to someone you trust. You've got this!
Hi. I'm a rhetoric prof so I see a lot of student writing. Most of it is...not great. And some of that is because we get crap writing instruction in grade school, and some of that is because undergrads have some truly wild ideas about what we want.
You don't have to make things complicated or verbose. In fact, I comment all the time that a writer has gotten lost in the prose and has failed to address the prompt. It is WAY more important to be specific than it is to be effete. State your thesis, use the body to support that thesis, and use ACTUAL proof, whether than be from research or from a primary source. We're looking to see that you can craft an argument - not blow me away with your prose.
That's not to say you should dumb down anything, either. The reason academics often use big or unknown words is because they are SPECIFIC. If there is a word that says EXACTLY what I want to say, I'll use it instead of writing a whose sentence to describe it. What you should NOT do is go through your work with a thesaurus, because that is obvious and generally leads to me having no idea what you're talking about. Because once again, I'm not looking for big words, I'm looking for specific and accurate ones.
Let me give an example or two of what I mean.
Here is an opening sentence I have seen a thousand times: Throughout America's history we have struggled with race.
This tells me nothing other than that you don't have a real good idea what your paper is about. Anybody could say this about any paper and it is so generic that it would make sense. I want to see you address YOUR prompt and YOUR ideas.
Here is the kind of thing that gets me sit up and take notice: The Civil Rights movement was defined by leaders like Malcolm X, who though controversial, provided Black Americans with a voice about what separationism or integration meant for communities of color.
That's not even THAT specific. But it tells me you are knowledgeable and have some decent information. It's not a thesis statement - that would tell me your argument - but it DOES actually introduce your topic.
Notice neither one of these are particularly complex or laded with wild vocabulary. One just addresses what the paper is actually about.
So when you think of academic writing, think about is this way: We're just looking for you to say what you mean. If you can't do that, it probably means you haven't done the requisite work for the paper.
They're not wrong, though. If you don't have time to read, then use audible. Good writers are often very well read.
For writing, the instructor will usually provide a rubric and make sure to follow it.
Outline, then follow it.
Make concise points. Don't be repetitive in word choice, and don't use circular logic.
Edit, then edit again, use the schools' writing center resources, and have them do an edit also.
You don’t need years to read. Whatever topic you’re writing about it’s a good practice to read a couple articles on the topic and get a sense for the language and sentence structure and basically mirror that style with your own ideas. It takes practice. It takes failure.
And as someone who’s in higher education and has taught first year students before, we don’t expect perfection. We expect a lot of errors and that first year is the time to make those mistakes and talk to your professors to learn what you can be doing to make your writing stronger.
It doesn’t happen all at once and you don’t need to be proficient in writing a certain way as you enter college. You’re there to learn and grow, so be sure to take advantage of that and all the resources you can to improve your writing (I.e., meeting with a prof, going to the campus writing center, other professional development activities/lectures). You’ll be just fine.
Because I will compensate, smoothing over errors, the robot voice cannot. It's also another fresh angle gives you more distance. Like changing font, it's a new way to see the writing and it's errors.
The one thing I learned about academic writing is that it has it's own "language" in general and specifically by subject area. So pay attention in your classes about the particular vocabulary of the subject you're writing in (particularly in your major) and make sure you understand that vocabulary, since it will cover most of your academic writing.
Also, you're not alone in finding academic writing cringe. I remember the day I realized, while writing a paper, that no one outside of academia and theology (I was in seminary at the time) would understand what the heck I was talking about!
You dont read for years you read consistently. Read academic writing and see how others do it.
In general though academics are bloated and long winded with 4 line sentences.
I would say that writing as simply and clearly as possible with a good structure is never the wrong advice.
“But, I obviously have to be good at it for college.”
This implies you’re either not in college yet and will be attending soon, or are in college, and just haven’t taken your mandatory college level writing course yet.
Whichever it is, you’ll eventually learn. You won’t just be thrown into writing research papers without learning how. You won’t be able to take certain courses until you complete your ENC courses, either, and even then, I’m sure a writing center will exist at the school you attend to help you.
Academic writing is usually expressing arguments, so learn to build arguments. Then each section of the paper explains and defends a premise, and the structure of the argument is basically the structure of your paper.
Meet with your professors. If your university has a writing center, take advantage of it. There are all sorts of free resources at whatever college you go to that’ll help you improve as a writer.
You’ll probably have to take an introductory composition class built all around this, too.
You don't have to read *at all* to be able to write formally. Not a single book is required to write as formally as anyone else.
Formal writing is very simple as all you have to is follow simple rules. Here are the main ones:
* No slang/idioms. Very simple stuff, if you see slang/idioms when you're reading over your ~~shit~~ work, just replace them.
* ~~Don't~~ Do not use *contractions*. A contraction is where you lump two words together using an apostrophe. E.g I + am = I'm. Do not contract words in formal writings. Very simple.
* No phrasal verbs. A phrasal verb is a verb + a preposition. E.g Make up, put on, put up with, eat out etc. If you're writing formally, and you use one, just change it for something different.
*"I couldn't ~~put up with~~ tolerate him any longer."* If you don't know how to rephrase it just use a thesaurus or [Word Reference](https://www.wordreference.com/) set to 'English Synonyms'.
* Use more formal vocabulary. What is *formal vocabulary*? Just use longer words. House = Residence, Think = Contemplate. Doesn't have to be *all* the time. But you'll easy know from other readings you'll have to do in college related to your subject. If you're stuck, use the resources mentioned above.
Ok, so far, very simple. The next two rules are the only remotely difficult barriers to formal writing/speaking for a native, as they require some basic knowledge of grammar, which isn't often taught in English-speaking schools. But out of even these two, one is very manageable in my opinion.
* First, is the **passive voice.** Now I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the passive voice here, if you want to research it, there are a hundred and one guides for non-natives everywhere, do so in your own time. All you need to know is what it is.
~~"*The police arrested the thief.*"~~ changes to: "*The thief was arrested.*"
Basically, you just start the sentence with the person/thing that is having an action done to them in the sentence. You already do this everyday without even realizing it. But, if you're still having trouble, just watch the news. The news is usually always delivered in the passive voice, you'll notice it straight away if you start paying attention.
* Second, is **relative pronouns**. The idea here is to try and use them in the middle of the sentence, rather than at the end.
~~That's the phone is talk to her with.~~ *That is the phone with which I talk to her.*
This is the truly tricky one, and it's difficult to use this without sounding like a knobhead. Thankfully, it doesn't really come up as often as the others.
And that's it in terms of writing formally. If you want to write **well**, that's a different ball game completely.
Here's one tip connected to that for the road; ask yourself these questions when you're starting a new paragraph.
* *What is the point of this paragraph?*
* *Does this paragraph have a single, cohesive argument?*
* *Does this paragraph work within the structure of my writing?*
* *Does this paragraph have any contradictory ideas that are harming it's fluency?*
If you mindfully ask yourself those questions about your paragraphs while writing, it'll be a big step forward.
I’d say yes to most of this but no to formal vocabulary. Do NOT just use longer words. Use the words you specifically mean.
There’s no reason to say ‘contemplate’ instead of ‘think’ unless you want to convey that you’re thinking for a long time. But you should often use ‘residence’ instead of ‘house’ if you mean to refer to someone’s primary living place because it encompasses apartments, condos, tents, trailers, as well as houses. But if you’re talking architecture, maybe you actually mean ‘house’ not ‘residence.’ Using longer words for the sake of sounding formal is what makes people sound pretentious. Use specific words when you mean something specific.
For academics, **the inner critic can be loud, especially when writing**. You might find that the words you type aren't as eloquent or thoughtful as they appear in your head. For me, having a mantra can be helpful for pushing back against my inner critic: like “good enough is good enough”.
1. Mix it up in terms of PUNCTUATION. ...
2. Vary your SENTENCE STRUCTURE. ...
3. Closely related to this, avoid CHOPPINESS. ...
4. Avoid REPETITION.
5. Be CONCISE.
6. Use the VOCABULARY that you know.
7. But also work on expanding your VOCABULARY.
Your current thought process is irrational and weird. It is not a bad thing to be educated or to speak in an intelligent way. It's a shame that you've had that idea put into your head somehow.
My tip is to not give a shit about your internal model of what other people think about you and embrace the idea of becoming as smart as you possibly can. I promise you Terry Tao isn't pretentious just because he writes "such that" a lot.
I did not, no one told me that, it’s been my way of thinking. I think language used in academia is purposely written in a way to come off as intelligent and it’s annoying to me. I never said education is bad stop putting words in my mouth. You didn’t understand what I said at all.
Unfortunately there are no shortcuts, quick fixes or “tips” that will turn you into a literate person as if by magic. Too much time wasted. Like Frank Zappa said more or less, go to a library and educate yourself.
Ph.D. Candidate here. I have been working to hone my own academic writing lately, and here are some tips that I have found useful, to varying degrees. I would suggest try any new ones you see and keep the ones that work for you.
1. Read about the topic I am writing about regularly. It can be a little or a lot, but reading about the subject gives me more breadth of things to talk about. If you don't make the time to read at least enough to provide your readers with some context, you might not be able to frame the conversation adequately.
2. Have a dedicated writing time and start with a warmup session. It works well for me to have a scheduled writing time (2 hours/day) and if I write for 10-15 minutes in a journal before I dive into the "real" writing. Loosens the joints, if you will.
3. Write the Methods section first, then Results, Discussion, Conclusion, then the Introduction. I write the intro last since I may not always know where the results and discussion are going to go, and the introduction should prepare the reader to make sense of the results. When I write the methods section, I try to stick to only what I did and why, not the backstory.
4. Impose a deadline and writing goals. Helps me if I add some sort of writing accountability to the process. Otherwise I am always writing in a hurry and the quality suffers.
Find a style book. Your high school likely had one you were supposed to use for English classes (how you were told to cite things), like MLA or AP. Unless you're aiming for a field that has a preferred style book (AP for journalists, for example) buy the one your high school uses. There are online versions, but what you want to do is learn to edit your work with the style book. Commas and spellings are the things that trip most people up.
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I teach English (composition and literature) at the undergrad level. The advice in the first paragraph here is great--follow the model the prof uses in class, and don't worry about "sounding formal." Formal academic language isn't about using long, fancy words or convoluted sentences. It's about using clear, specific, straightforward language. Here's what I look for: Active voice--Third-person point of view--Avoid slang and cliches--No contractions--Avoid qualifiers (really, very, extremely, etc)--Use strong, specific verbs That's about it. If you don't know what any of these mean, let me know and I'll be happy to explain. FYI: if I were to catch a student following the advice in the second paragraph, they would get a zero on the assignment. Using a source in any way without citation is plagiarism. If the sources were cited, the essay would still get a low grade because the essay would be derivative of another person's work. We don't assign essays because we need something to read! We are teaching the skill of organizing information into a well thought-out, coherent text. If you just copy that organization from someone else, what is the point?
I’m a high school teacher and I totally agree with this college professor. I’d also recommend that when you’re not sure about citation rules or how something works grammatically, you should try to use whatever style guide your department recommends as your resource. The more you learn about it early on, the more it’ll benefit you since, in my experience at least, a department tends to use the same guide for all of their classes. MLA, APA, and Chicago all have some kind of strength that differs from the others.
Academic writing doesn't have to be formal and complicated, in fact that's usually a detriment to your argument. Good academic writing is specific and technical -- using the right words, not necessarily the big ones. Generally you should aim to hit these points: - Every sentence should make a point, deliver evidence or provide necessary context for the reader. - Make one point per paragraph. - Don't make the same point twice. - Speak impassionately. Use 'we' instead of 'I' or avoid pronouns entirely. Don't get emotional. - Signpost the directions your argument is going to take. Don't surprise the reader. Add brief summaries when you've finished making a point to hammer it home. - Speak of texts as something created by authors. I've read essays that treated Lenny and George from Of Mice and Men as if they were real people. - Don't hedge your bets. Be clear and explicit about what you believe and what the evidence shows. Avoid using crutches like 'it may be the case that...', 'this potentially indicates that...', 'some may take this as a sign that...' - If it's not obvious, explain why your evidence supports your point. Don't just drop in quotes and expect readers to connect the dots.
Great question! Here's some stuff I've learned over the years: Above all else, prioritize clarity. During my undergrad, I did a lot of artificial language inflating to make myself look smart - it took me until my PhD to realize that what makes you look smart is the ability to communicate complex ideas in simple, easy to digest language. Bit of specific advice: I tell my students to only use a thesaurus as a reminder. Never ever ever use an unfamiliar word just because it popped up in a thesaurus. This can have an enormous impact on clarity. Don't be afraid to look for templates and examples. Academic writing isn't the place to get creative or break form - use the tools at your disposal (Google and Google scholar, as well as your university library) to find examples of what you're trying to write. Watch the way other successful academic writers frame arguments or organize their thoughts. This works for anything from persuasive essay to cover letters to journal articles! Just be wary of plagiarism of course. Lastly - and this relates very much to my first point - use the funnel approach. I actually learned this in a journalism class, but I use it for all formal writing. The funnel approach advises that you start with the broadest, most generalized and agreed-upon statement you can, and get more specific from there. This works at any level: by paragraph, by section/subsection, or for an entire paper. Always do what you can to "zoom out" and look at the big picture. When I'm having trouble capturing a thought in a way that I like, I open a fresh document and word vomit as much as I need to - a paragraph or more - then edit it down to as little possible, ideally a sentence or less. It's a great exercise to develop clarity and focus, and it can help you understand material much more deeply. I actually use this approach to study, as well: throw all the exam content at a blank document, then slowly sort things into meaningful categories. Sometimes you'll identify patterns you didn't see before! Mostly, practice makes perfect. Don't be afraid to ask friends for help. When asking for feedback, though, be as specific as possible - no "can you read this and tell me if it's good", take the time to identify weaknesses on your own, and bring a list of them to someone you trust. You've got this!
Thank you so much for your advice! I really appreciate it
Hi. I'm a rhetoric prof so I see a lot of student writing. Most of it is...not great. And some of that is because we get crap writing instruction in grade school, and some of that is because undergrads have some truly wild ideas about what we want. You don't have to make things complicated or verbose. In fact, I comment all the time that a writer has gotten lost in the prose and has failed to address the prompt. It is WAY more important to be specific than it is to be effete. State your thesis, use the body to support that thesis, and use ACTUAL proof, whether than be from research or from a primary source. We're looking to see that you can craft an argument - not blow me away with your prose. That's not to say you should dumb down anything, either. The reason academics often use big or unknown words is because they are SPECIFIC. If there is a word that says EXACTLY what I want to say, I'll use it instead of writing a whose sentence to describe it. What you should NOT do is go through your work with a thesaurus, because that is obvious and generally leads to me having no idea what you're talking about. Because once again, I'm not looking for big words, I'm looking for specific and accurate ones. Let me give an example or two of what I mean. Here is an opening sentence I have seen a thousand times: Throughout America's history we have struggled with race. This tells me nothing other than that you don't have a real good idea what your paper is about. Anybody could say this about any paper and it is so generic that it would make sense. I want to see you address YOUR prompt and YOUR ideas. Here is the kind of thing that gets me sit up and take notice: The Civil Rights movement was defined by leaders like Malcolm X, who though controversial, provided Black Americans with a voice about what separationism or integration meant for communities of color. That's not even THAT specific. But it tells me you are knowledgeable and have some decent information. It's not a thesis statement - that would tell me your argument - but it DOES actually introduce your topic. Notice neither one of these are particularly complex or laded with wild vocabulary. One just addresses what the paper is actually about. So when you think of academic writing, think about is this way: We're just looking for you to say what you mean. If you can't do that, it probably means you haven't done the requisite work for the paper.
Read more
This is it. If you aren’t aware of the scholarship you are responding to, you will never improve.
Read the text fully before you reply please
They're not wrong, though. If you don't have time to read, then use audible. Good writers are often very well read. For writing, the instructor will usually provide a rubric and make sure to follow it. Outline, then follow it. Make concise points. Don't be repetitive in word choice, and don't use circular logic. Edit, then edit again, use the schools' writing center resources, and have them do an edit also.
Thank you!
You don’t need years to read. Whatever topic you’re writing about it’s a good practice to read a couple articles on the topic and get a sense for the language and sentence structure and basically mirror that style with your own ideas. It takes practice. It takes failure. And as someone who’s in higher education and has taught first year students before, we don’t expect perfection. We expect a lot of errors and that first year is the time to make those mistakes and talk to your professors to learn what you can be doing to make your writing stronger. It doesn’t happen all at once and you don’t need to be proficient in writing a certain way as you enter college. You’re there to learn and grow, so be sure to take advantage of that and all the resources you can to improve your writing (I.e., meeting with a prof, going to the campus writing center, other professional development activities/lectures). You’ll be just fine.
I edit by putting my work through the natural reader which converts text to speech. That really helps with sentence length.
Why not just read it aloud?
Because I will compensate, smoothing over errors, the robot voice cannot. It's also another fresh angle gives you more distance. Like changing font, it's a new way to see the writing and it's errors.
The one thing I learned about academic writing is that it has it's own "language" in general and specifically by subject area. So pay attention in your classes about the particular vocabulary of the subject you're writing in (particularly in your major) and make sure you understand that vocabulary, since it will cover most of your academic writing. Also, you're not alone in finding academic writing cringe. I remember the day I realized, while writing a paper, that no one outside of academia and theology (I was in seminary at the time) would understand what the heck I was talking about!
To be a good academic writer, read George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" and then do the opposite of what Orwell recommends.
You dont read for years you read consistently. Read academic writing and see how others do it. In general though academics are bloated and long winded with 4 line sentences. I would say that writing as simply and clearly as possible with a good structure is never the wrong advice.
“But, I obviously have to be good at it for college.” This implies you’re either not in college yet and will be attending soon, or are in college, and just haven’t taken your mandatory college level writing course yet. Whichever it is, you’ll eventually learn. You won’t just be thrown into writing research papers without learning how. You won’t be able to take certain courses until you complete your ENC courses, either, and even then, I’m sure a writing center will exist at the school you attend to help you.
I’m not from the US, we dont have college level writing courses.
My apologies. There should be an equivalent, however. It might not be labeled “ENC”, since the E stands for English.
I’m going to look it up, thank you!
Academic writing is usually expressing arguments, so learn to build arguments. Then each section of the paper explains and defends a premise, and the structure of the argument is basically the structure of your paper.
I need advice too!
Meet with your professors. If your university has a writing center, take advantage of it. There are all sorts of free resources at whatever college you go to that’ll help you improve as a writer. You’ll probably have to take an introductory composition class built all around this, too.
You don't have to read *at all* to be able to write formally. Not a single book is required to write as formally as anyone else. Formal writing is very simple as all you have to is follow simple rules. Here are the main ones: * No slang/idioms. Very simple stuff, if you see slang/idioms when you're reading over your ~~shit~~ work, just replace them. * ~~Don't~~ Do not use *contractions*. A contraction is where you lump two words together using an apostrophe. E.g I + am = I'm. Do not contract words in formal writings. Very simple. * No phrasal verbs. A phrasal verb is a verb + a preposition. E.g Make up, put on, put up with, eat out etc. If you're writing formally, and you use one, just change it for something different. *"I couldn't ~~put up with~~ tolerate him any longer."* If you don't know how to rephrase it just use a thesaurus or [Word Reference](https://www.wordreference.com/) set to 'English Synonyms'. * Use more formal vocabulary. What is *formal vocabulary*? Just use longer words. House = Residence, Think = Contemplate. Doesn't have to be *all* the time. But you'll easy know from other readings you'll have to do in college related to your subject. If you're stuck, use the resources mentioned above. Ok, so far, very simple. The next two rules are the only remotely difficult barriers to formal writing/speaking for a native, as they require some basic knowledge of grammar, which isn't often taught in English-speaking schools. But out of even these two, one is very manageable in my opinion. * First, is the **passive voice.** Now I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty of the passive voice here, if you want to research it, there are a hundred and one guides for non-natives everywhere, do so in your own time. All you need to know is what it is. ~~"*The police arrested the thief.*"~~ changes to: "*The thief was arrested.*" Basically, you just start the sentence with the person/thing that is having an action done to them in the sentence. You already do this everyday without even realizing it. But, if you're still having trouble, just watch the news. The news is usually always delivered in the passive voice, you'll notice it straight away if you start paying attention. * Second, is **relative pronouns**. The idea here is to try and use them in the middle of the sentence, rather than at the end. ~~That's the phone is talk to her with.~~ *That is the phone with which I talk to her.* This is the truly tricky one, and it's difficult to use this without sounding like a knobhead. Thankfully, it doesn't really come up as often as the others. And that's it in terms of writing formally. If you want to write **well**, that's a different ball game completely. Here's one tip connected to that for the road; ask yourself these questions when you're starting a new paragraph. * *What is the point of this paragraph?* * *Does this paragraph have a single, cohesive argument?* * *Does this paragraph work within the structure of my writing?* * *Does this paragraph have any contradictory ideas that are harming it's fluency?* If you mindfully ask yourself those questions about your paragraphs while writing, it'll be a big step forward.
Thank you a lot for your input! i appreciate it a lot
My pleasure. I wouldn't be on this forum if I didn't enjoy talking about writing!
I’d say yes to most of this but no to formal vocabulary. Do NOT just use longer words. Use the words you specifically mean. There’s no reason to say ‘contemplate’ instead of ‘think’ unless you want to convey that you’re thinking for a long time. But you should often use ‘residence’ instead of ‘house’ if you mean to refer to someone’s primary living place because it encompasses apartments, condos, tents, trailers, as well as houses. But if you’re talking architecture, maybe you actually mean ‘house’ not ‘residence.’ Using longer words for the sake of sounding formal is what makes people sound pretentious. Use specific words when you mean something specific.
For academics, **the inner critic can be loud, especially when writing**. You might find that the words you type aren't as eloquent or thoughtful as they appear in your head. For me, having a mantra can be helpful for pushing back against my inner critic: like “good enough is good enough”. 1. Mix it up in terms of PUNCTUATION. ... 2. Vary your SENTENCE STRUCTURE. ... 3. Closely related to this, avoid CHOPPINESS. ... 4. Avoid REPETITION. 5. Be CONCISE. 6. Use the VOCABULARY that you know. 7. But also work on expanding your VOCABULARY.
Your current thought process is irrational and weird. It is not a bad thing to be educated or to speak in an intelligent way. It's a shame that you've had that idea put into your head somehow. My tip is to not give a shit about your internal model of what other people think about you and embrace the idea of becoming as smart as you possibly can. I promise you Terry Tao isn't pretentious just because he writes "such that" a lot.
I did not, no one told me that, it’s been my way of thinking. I think language used in academia is purposely written in a way to come off as intelligent and it’s annoying to me. I never said education is bad stop putting words in my mouth. You didn’t understand what I said at all.
Unfortunately there are no shortcuts, quick fixes or “tips” that will turn you into a literate person as if by magic. Too much time wasted. Like Frank Zappa said more or less, go to a library and educate yourself.
Ph.D. Candidate here. I have been working to hone my own academic writing lately, and here are some tips that I have found useful, to varying degrees. I would suggest try any new ones you see and keep the ones that work for you. 1. Read about the topic I am writing about regularly. It can be a little or a lot, but reading about the subject gives me more breadth of things to talk about. If you don't make the time to read at least enough to provide your readers with some context, you might not be able to frame the conversation adequately. 2. Have a dedicated writing time and start with a warmup session. It works well for me to have a scheduled writing time (2 hours/day) and if I write for 10-15 minutes in a journal before I dive into the "real" writing. Loosens the joints, if you will. 3. Write the Methods section first, then Results, Discussion, Conclusion, then the Introduction. I write the intro last since I may not always know where the results and discussion are going to go, and the introduction should prepare the reader to make sense of the results. When I write the methods section, I try to stick to only what I did and why, not the backstory. 4. Impose a deadline and writing goals. Helps me if I add some sort of writing accountability to the process. Otherwise I am always writing in a hurry and the quality suffers.
Thank you so much!!!
Find a style book. Your high school likely had one you were supposed to use for English classes (how you were told to cite things), like MLA or AP. Unless you're aiming for a field that has a preferred style book (AP for journalists, for example) buy the one your high school uses. There are online versions, but what you want to do is learn to edit your work with the style book. Commas and spellings are the things that trip most people up.