Academic Writing is a type of professional Writing that follows a well-structured format and factual content that helps provide a solution to a problem statement. Since they follow a formal tone, they must be well-researched and written in the most professional format, which requires immense patience and practice.
There are different types of college paper writing styles, but the essential tips mentioned in this article can be applied to all styles.
The most common types of academic Writing are:
- Essay writing
- Research paper
- Thesis and dissertation
- Annotated bibliography
- Literature review
- Lap report
- Research proposal\
- Book report
- Journal articles; and many more
Tips to enhance academic Writing
Use active voice
Using an active voice is the best way to hold authority and make people trust you. For instance, instead of saying, ‘The owner’s house was cleaned by the maid,’ you can write it in the active voice – ‘The maid cleaned the owner’s house’. By doing so, the readers will believe the details written in the paper.
Mix different types of punctuation
Mixing up punctuation means mixing sentences and the emotions conveyed by a sentence. Using the right punctuation can prove much more formal than it sounds. Semicolons, commas, hyphens, and other punctuations, when used in the right way, can provide to hold the reader’s attention for a longer time.
Experiment with the sentence structure
Although writing shorter paragraphs has proved to hold the reader’s attention span for a longer time, splitting a long sentence into unnecessary short ones, separated by commas and full stops, can be annoying. Moreover, since academic Writing demands formally structured sentences with the right use of academic jargon, it is essential to curate sentences understandably and formally.
For instance, instead of Writing – ‘She was at the station. She was waiting for a bus. The bus was late by 10 min’, you can write – ‘She was already at the station, waiting for a bus which was running late by 10min’. In any form of Writing, especially academic papers, chopping sentences unnecessarily can result in a negative review.
Avoid repetition of sentences.
Sometimes, students repeat sentences in different forms by adding fillers and synonyms to fill in the word count and gaps in a paragraph. For instance, ‘The sisters were jealous and envious of her,’ where jealous and envious are closes related. So a better sentence would be, ‘The sisters were envious of her’.
Use good vocabulary
It is a common misconception that using big words can make an essay look more complicated and authoritative. However, this technique usually backfires on students because they’re often unaware of the vocabulary they use, which can lead to misusing them. Instead, it is better to use simple and understandable terms along with the jargon of the subject.