Top 10 Tips to Improve Academic Writing

Our world is constantly evolving due to new subjects and trends. Competition is also increasing in the academic sphere. Several new industries are emerging with a wide range of careers that we can pursue. Passion is one of the key factors that drive our career choices.

However, it will not be wrong to state that financial stability is equally essential. Academic writing is one such skill that provides us with the opportunity to gain high scores in class and pursue our choice of profession. Considering the growth of academic writing skills demand it is obvious that there are certain criteria that one needs to know to excel in this skill.

You will learn about 10 tips for academic writing in this blog post that will improve your capability in academic writing. You can utilise these tips to train your students to increase the performance quality of your institute.

Here are the top 10 academic writing tips in 2023

1. Aim for clarity
2. Work for an outline
3. Be aware of the 80/20 rule
4. Research adequately
5. Pay attention to paragraphs
6. Pay attention to sentences
7. Write in an active voice
8. Avoid vague pronouns
9. Start from the middle
10. Edit by cutting and pasting

 

We also provide the reasons for suggesting these tips and introduce you to its beneficial aspects in academic writing:

1. Aim for clarity

It is important to understand the importance of academic writing. Clarity is essential to begin writing as, without it, you may end up writing content with excessive errors. Explain your ideas as clearly as possible. Articulation is necessary for the writing to be easy to understand for the readers.

We would suggest making the writing clear, imagine you are explaining to a seven-year-old. This way, the writing should be simple and free of jargon or difficult words.

2. Work for an outline

Make an outline of the ideas you want to cover in your write-up. It is essential among the 10 rules of academic writing. Although your plan may change as the article develops, it is good to keep an outline of ideas ready at first.

For instance, if you need to cover certain keywords or key issues for your topic, an outline can be useful to ensure to meet those requirements. Including an outline will help to keep your vision clear and make your article efficient in quality.

3. Be aware of the 80/20 rule 

The 80/20 rule suggests that you can develop 80% of the content within 20% of the total time. It may not be always possible to do so as the difficulty level of the article is influential on the speed of writing.

However, practicing to aim at finishing the majority of the content within a shorter time will enhance your writing speed. We would be honest, academic writing can become pressurising at times in which case, speed will be your helping hand. You can start writing a messy draft at first. Do not attempt to write a perfectly referenced sentence in the first go.

You will learn as you practice more and achieve perfection in academic writing. Practice will help you to speed up academic writing sessions in class. It will also benefit you during examinations.

4. Research adequately

Among the 10 rules of academic writing, researching is the most important one. Muddled writing is a symptom of muddled thinking. It means that if you write something without proper knowledge it will reflect upon poor content. You would like want to avoid such an error.

Do proper research for writing key points in your article. Research work will provide you with enormous information that you can paraphrase and write the rest of the content yourself. A properly researched article brings perfection to academic writing which is your ultimate goal.

5. Pay attention to paragraphs

Write relatively short paragraphs. It is better to prefer writing a paragraph not more than 10-12 sentences. You can make sure that paragraphs are of proper length by not exceeding the word limit beyond 200.

This works like magic as the reader can concentrate on one idea described in a single paragraph. Avoid confusing the reader by ensuring that your paragraphs are crisp and to the point to obtain perfection in academic writing.

You need to make sure the first sentence of each paragraph tells the reader what the paragraph is about. One should be able to understand the article by reading the first sentence of every paragraph.

6. Pay attention to sentences

Sentences are key elements that form paragraphs. You need to pay attention to your sentence construction for understanding the importance of academic writing efficiently. Keep sentences short and to the point.

Avoid run-on sentences or complicated sentences as it makes the article critical to read through and comprehend. Fragment sentences should also be avoided as it looks like poor language skills.

We would advise reading books to improve your vocabulary and grammar. Sentence construction requires good vocabulary and grammar. Make sure that a sentence does not have more than 30 words as that would be too long.

 

Try our free grammar and spell checker tool now!

 

7. Write in an active voice

One important tip to improve academic writing is to write in an active voice. Using an active voice will make your point more effective as it is a part of the 10 rules of academic writing.

Imagine yourself as the person doing the action that you are writing about. Put the person in front of the action instead of putting it after the action.

For instance, "Jack demonstrated that communication skills are important" is active voice and easy reading. "Importance of communication skills has been demonstrated by Jack" is a passive voice that needs to be avoided.

8. Avoid vague pronouns

Any form of the difficult word needs to be removed from your article for perfection in academic writing. Vague pronouns like “this” and “it” needs to be avoided as much as possible.

I can give an example that will show how it makes a difference in quality. "This made the girl feel sad as it was done by me" is an example of a sentence with vague pronouns. Instead, you can write "My actions made the girl feel sad".

It is much simpler to understand and comprehend for the reader. Using vague pronouns can confuse the write-up which sounds like trouble.

9. Start from the middle

We know that academic writing can be a lengthy task and bring boredom at times. You can reduce boredom by motivating yourself. Starting from the middle means that you should start writing from the section that most interests you.

Doing so will motivate you to write the article with interest and enthusiasm as it is necessary for the importance of academic writing. See, we cannot ignore the fact that eventually, you have to write all the sections.

Although, writing for the portions you are comfortable with will improve your speed and sustain motivation. For instance, you may not like to start with the introduction section. You can begin with the body section and later on return to complete the introduction.

However, you need to keep in mind that sometimes few sections are interrelated and in those cases, the order cannot be flexible.

10. Edit by cutting and pasting

Editing is a common requirement in academic writing. Cutting an article of 15000 into 7000 can be a challenging task. It becomes difficult to understand what portion should stay and what be erased.

Oftentimes, you may become attached to certain portions of the article you have written. In case you need to cut those portions, it can be painful to accept the assignment. You can provide yourself some relief by cutting the unrequired portions and pasting them into another file.

This way it will give you psychological relief and you will be able to edit the article with concentration. Eventually, you will get used to the process of editing articles to attain perfection in academic writing and this attachment issue will not rise.

 

      To Conclude 

     Academic writing skills are essential for individuals to thrive in the academic field. Performance in class can be improved by                    academic writing efficiency. Teachers can enhance the quality of academic writing of students through these tips provided in this            blog post. Students can experience better performance in a class by using these academic writing tips.

   Applying these10 tips in academic writing would be beneficial to excel in performance and score well in class. Ensuring that                     academic writing skills are improved would provide better opportunities for the future.