Academic Writing in English

Dr Radu Negoescu, RKC

March 21, 2020

Abstract
This short document gives a primer on academic writing, outlining
some of the easiest ways to get started, some caveats, and some advice
for tools and writing approaches. Academic writing may be dierent
than the simply writing you are used to, but it is not rocket science.

Contents
1 Introduction 2
2 Common English mistakes 2
3 Academic writing 3
3.1 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3.2 Clarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.3 Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.4 Quotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

4 Use the right tool for the job 7

5 Conclusion 7
References 7

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1 Introduction
Academic writing, and in particular, academic writing in English, can be
quite dierent from other languages or undergraduate level writing. As such,
at Robert Kennedy College we decided to give you, as a Master student, a
quick primer to academic writing in English.
This document is by no means exhaustive. Its main purpose is to help
RKC students, regardless of their programme, prepare high quality material
for their required coursework at Master level, often in the form of essays.
As such, a very concise list of guidelines is provided here, with pointers to
more extensive pieces of work detailing dierent aspects of academic writing
in English.
This document is structured as follows: in Section 2 we will review some
of the most frequent mistakes made while writing in English, in Section 3 we
briey discuss academic writing in particular, and we give some hints about
tools you might nd useful in the last section.

2 Common English mistakes

In this section we give you a quick overview of the most common mistakes
found in student submitted works, which have an impact on the nal quality,
and thus mark, of the papers.

Spelling

Some people are better than others at detecting typographical mistakes. As

long as you have an occasional typo or two in your document, it should be
ok. However, if each paragraph has a mistake, things are much more serious.
Always use a spell checker, it will at least help you eliminate most of the
accidental typos, even if it will not detect things like "spot" and "spit".
In what concerns the British versus American spelling, either is accepted,
but do be consistent! If you spell neighbor, also spell labor, and not labour.
Research the internet for "spelling dierences between British and American
English" for a more detailed look at this issue.

Contractions

Do not use verbal contractions in writing, such as:

• can't - always use cannot or can not ,

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 • don't - always use do not or does not ,

• we'll or I'll - always use we will or I will / I shall ,

• wouldn't - always use would not .

Sound-alikes

Be aware of words or phrases that sound alike and are written dierently, as
you form the idea in your mind your ngers might trick you into writing the
incorrect form. Examples include:

• they're - their ,

• it's - its ,

• we'll - will ,

• suites - suits ,

• he's - his .

You will notice that if you consistently avoid verbal contractions, you are
much more likely to be safe from this kind of error.

3 Academic writing
There are many factors that inuence the way one should write an academic
paper. They range from venue (journal, conference, letter, essay, etc.) to
academic eld (computer science, economics, law, etc.). For our particular
case we will consider essay writing, not intended for publication in peer-
reviewed venues, but instead aimed at convincing your module tutor(s) of
your command of the material presented in the course and the achievement
of the learning outcomes.
In many cases, English is not your mother tongue. A study by Santos
(1988) looked at the way professors reacted to academic writing of non-
English speakers. Although the study was limited to only two 400-words
essays written by one Chinese and one Korean student, it was extensive on
the respondents' side, where 178 professors were asked to mark and comment
on six characteristics of the papers, three concerning content, and three
concerning presentation.

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 The results, in short, show that:

• content scored lower than language;

• professors found errors in general comprehensible, not irritating, but

academically unacceptable, lexical errors being considered the most
serious;

• humanity/social science professors were more lenient than physical sci-

ence ones;

• younger professors were much more easily irritated by language errors

than older professors.

A reasonable set of conclusions follows from this study's ndings: know your
audience, strive to improve presentation by paying constant attention to
language, and, most importantly, make sure the content is right.
Cultural background may also play an important role in the way dierent
students will approach academic writing in English. An interesting book on
the subject is that of Fox (1994), Listening to the World.

3.1 Structure

You should always strive to provide your reader with a map to your work.
The easiest way to accomplish this is to have clearly numbered and delimited
sections. This document's structure is something you may want to replicate
in your work.
You would normally have an abstract (which is not part of the paper
itself, but is rather a single paragraph selling your paper to the reader,
which is why it appears before the table of contents and is not listed in it).
A table of contents might not always be necessary, depending on the
length of the essay, but it surely would not hurt. Most people have a very
good visual memory, so providing a table of contents will surely help them
understand your paper better.
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In general, a structure like the one used here should be sucient for a
10 to 30 pages piece of work: an introductory section lays the background
for the paper, with subsequent sections containing the actual content of the
work. You might, for example, include in the introduction a description of
the task you are trying to solve, and if several questions are asked of you,

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Although this statement may sometimes prove to be true, it is not backed up by any
studies in any relevant eld of study. It is the kind of statement you should avoid in your
written essays, and for which points will be deducted!

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make sure you treat each of them in their own sections. The last paragraph
of the introduction is typically one that explains where we can nd what in
your paper.
There is then a range of main-body sections, for example a literature
review, one or more case studies, etc.
The papers typically end with a conclusion pulling all the argument to-
gether - conclusions do not discuss new literature, only restate the most
salient points already made.

3.2 Clarity

Without structure, your valid and critical thinking may be lost in the chaos
of a single paragraph spanning 20 pages. If structure is obvious and clear,
you still face the nontrivial task of writing your thoughts, ndings, and
recommendations in a clear and comprehensible way.
A few simple guidelines may help you to pass your message across. Keep
your sentences short, and do not try to t more than one idea per sentence,
or even per paragraph, as this practice tends to push the working memory
of a normal person to its limit of around 7 items, and use semi-columns
sparingly and think about the structure underlying your ideas and try to
nd the best way to present it as to make everything easier to understand
by the person reading your work.
The previous paragraph is obviously an exaggeration, used as a counter
example. You will surely agree that the guidelines are more clearly presented
this way:

A few simple guidelines for passing your message across:

• keep your sentences short;

• do not try to t more than one idea in a sentence or even

in a paragraph;

• think about the underlying structure of your ideas, and

present them accordingly.

3.3 Citations

Whenever you are making an assertion (such as the earlier statement on a

helpful table of contents in Section 3.1), you must provide one or multiple
sources that verify those facts, unless they are universally accepted truths or
obvious to those with an extensive knowledge of the eld. Referencing is also

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a way of acknowledging your sources, and avoiding plagiarism suspicion when
presenting somebody else's ideas as your own without proper attribution.
In terms of referencing style, the accepted standard for Master submis-
sions is the Harvard style, sometimes called the author-year style. This
document's References list and in-text citations' style is a good example,
and most modern text processors will be able to assist you in creating such
a presentation automatically.

3.4 Quotations

Sometimes confused for citations, quotations are word-for-word quotes from

other authors' work. When using quotations, you must use double quotations
marks to clearly identify the text as not-yours, you must provide an in-text
citation including the page number where the quote can be found, and it
is also good practice to indent the paragraph for good measure. There can
be no doubt that the text in question is NOT yours.
Consider this example.
Talking about "analysis" with world majority students always involves
talking about cultural expectations. As I have tried to show, this thing we
call "critical thinking" or "analysis" has strong cultural components. It is
more than just a set of writing and thinking techniques - it is a voice, a stance,
a relationship with texts and authorities that is taught, both consciously
and unconsciously, by family members, friends, teachers, the media, even
the history of one's country. This is why "critical analysis" is so hard for
faculty members to talk about; because it is learned intuitively it is easy to
recognize, like a face or a personality, but it is not so easily dened and is
not at all simple to explain to someone who has been brought up dierently.

versus
Talking about "analysis" with world majority students al-
ways involves talking about cultural expectations. As I have
tried to show, this thing we call "critical thinking" or "analysis"
has strong cultural components.It is more than just a set of writ-
ing and thinking techniques - it is a voice, a stance, a relationship
with texts and authorities that is taught, both consciously and
unconsciously, by family members, friends, teachers, the media,
even the history of one's country. This is why "critical analysis"
is so hard for faculty members to talk about; because it is learned
intuitively it is easy to recognize, like a face or a personality, but
it is not so easily dened and is not at all simple to explain to

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 someone who has been brought up dierently. Fox (1994, p.
145)

4 Use the right tool for the job

In recent years, Microsoft's Oce 365 and Google's Docs have made signi-
cant advances in references list management and are now relatively straight-
forward to use - with the added advantage of integrated cloud backups for
all your work. Pick the one that works best for you. Also check the Univer-
sity's website, your IT account with them typically gives you access to free
Oce365.

5 Conclusion
Academic writing may be somewhat dierent than normal writing, but it
is not rocket science. With a structured approach to writing, and a bit of
attention to details and a few caveats as outlined in this paper, you will
transition successfully to writing academically. We wish you the best of
success in your studies.

References
Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing.
National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL.

Santos, T. (1988). Professors' Reactions to the Academic Writing of

Nonnative-Speaking Students. TESOL Quaterly, 22(1):6990.