Academic Writing

Academic work intending to be thorough and persuasive in content is particularly demanding in terms of presentation. There are both normal external standards relating to the English language and internal academic conventions. These conventions developed to improve the standards of work. Academic writing in terms of content should lock into the tradition of work, that is work already done. The ideal is to add something extra to that body of work. To get there needs:

1. Writing correctly
2. Writing by Conventions
3. Honest Attribution
4. Accurate Description
5. Comprehension and Analysis
6. Critique and Evaluation
7. Summarising, Concluding and Introducing

(1) Writing Correctly

Whilst English is a language where rules are broken for creative effect, academic writing demands a more restrained correct English. Correct English is arguably demanding.

• Make sure that a sentence is complete and is not a fragment.
• A sentence should not begin with a conjunction (a rule that is often broken).
• Verbs should agree with their subjects.
• Sentences should not end with prepositions.
• Infinitives should not be split (yet often are for impact).
• Apostrophes indicating possession need to be properly placed: before an s for singular possession and after for plural possession. There should be no apostrophe in plural acronyms and for decades.

(2) Writing by Conventions

• use of 'I' or 'me' is frowned upon unless necessary. Equally avoid "the author states" (and "author" variants) when it is oneself.
• Infinitives should not be split (accurate writing does not need this method of impact).
• Avoid alliteration, that is prevent a string of words each starting with the same letter.
• A string of adjectives or adverbs to add emphasis creates redundancy.
• Do not make a habit of parenthetical clauses within sentences: either use alternative punctuation or create more sentences.
• Apostrophes facilitating contraction should be avoided.
• Exclamation marks are too excitable and add little meaning.
• No longer are italicised foreign phrases deemed to add anything, so English is quite adequate. Some English includes foreign phrases but meaning should be precise.
• Pleonastic expressions like "useless redundancy" should be avoided.
• An important convention of attribution is consistent referencing; the style should be the same throughout.

(3) Honest Attribution

This is about:

• Ownership of academic material should be clearly and unambiguously declared.
• There should be a clear distinction between someone else's thinking and the addition of one's own thinking.
• There should be a clear distinction between attitudes displayed by the author and attitudes displayed by the present writer.

Completely avoiding plagiarism requires effort because it can happen accidentally as well as deliberately, and is still the supreme academic crime. It can apply to small quantities of text, a large quantity of text and rip offs of other pieces of work. This is why writers need to know the tradition and body of knowledge by previous writers, so that accidents are avoided as well as incidents rejected.

The only possible exception to accurate attribution is the maintenance of confidentiality. However, deception and false trails should be avoided.

Therefore all material used in the body of a text should be referenced; and in addition no references should be given that are not used. If the original source for a text is not found, but instead someone else's use and interpretation, then give that original source but "quoted in" what was actually consulted. It is often far more refreshing and revealing to get the original because everyone interprets.

(4) Accurate Description

One function of proper attribution is that material is accurate. Even in a narrative led, postmodern condition of a flux of meaning, accurate treatment of claims, statements and sources is necessary.

• Avoid baseless generalising.
• Loose comparisons add nothing.
• Avoid words like 'obviously': very little is obvious and if it is then the argument needs to rise to a more advanced stage.
• Statements should be focussed and specific.
• If a claim is made, then make sure it is justified and sourced. Sourcing is a form of justification, even if it is passing the buck.
• Unfounded claims with no evidence create pointless work.
• Avoid long windy sentences full of redundancy.
• Clichés should be avoided.
• Non-inclusive language suggests partiality

(5) Comprehension and Analysis

Carrying out analysis can be shown to be related to linguistic tropes (derived from an application to history by Hayden White, 1973 and 1976, in Green, Troup, 1999, 207-208).

• Metaphor is risky in academic writing because it implies imaginative external connections more appropriate to other style of writing, although it can have evaluative power (see below).
• Irony is postmodern yet in bare text alone is not detectable and instead performs better in speech: the explanation needed in writing loses intended impact. In any case such impact is usually inappropriate. Over use of irony is deliberately to make a mockery of any source.
• Synecdoche is a categorical hierarchy of reference which properly constrains academic writing. Either the parts stand for the whole or the whole stands for the part and this reflects closely the process of doing analysis.
• Metonymy is relationship through direct association by some attribute, cause or effect, or something related for the thing itself and this can be useful for a dynamic analysis.

So this means analysis is converting a concept or event into its constituent elements or indeed causes and effects. This reveals what is otherwise concealed.

Some of this analysis means discussing the author's opinions and intentions, and also breaking these up into smaller intentions.

Linkages and contrasts may be found between theories and authors of them as analysis extends more towards evaluation.

(6) Critique and Evaluation

All academic writing should include argument. It may be weaved in and out of analytical evidence but it should be distinct enough from evidence. The reader should be able to make up his or her mind in that retained separation because academic writing is about facilitating the accurate comprehension of the evidence and the issues involved.

This is where, once concepts have been revealed, connected and contrasted, some sort of judgment can be made regarding the collection of evidence and force of analysis and argument in terms of merits and faults.

• In terms of language tropes, this connects with metaphor, where one at last can go outside the strict confines of the preparatory discourse.
• Irony has a theoretical relevance when like is written to impress that it is not alike. Again this is likely to be over creative impact and rubbishing, which would be inappropriate.

This trope theory does not imply flights of rhetorical fancy. It means that boundaries are more external and comparative in terms of evaluation. Connections beyond are made, parallels are brought in, matters discussed in other fields which suddenly become relevant. So the metaphor is a reaching out. It is as though the accurate fieldwork description has been analysed, seeing the whole and the parts more clearly, and now it is possible to stand back and make broader points. This also includes what could be better and what could be worse. It can focus on the work and on the author, and on other work and other authors.

Perhaps the judgment is like that produced in a court of law through weighing up the given evidence. The judgment is comparable with other judgments in other similar cases and there may be new precedents. The tradition is reinforced and there is addition.

Approval or disapproval indeed comes into evaluation but these subjective stances should be based on consequences of the evidence as clearly laid out in analysis.

(7) Summarising, Concluding and Introducing

Once the evaluation is done, there needs to be a skilled summary of the evidence and a conclusion restating the critique and evaluation. Summary and conclusion should not be new material. They should guide the introduction too, without letting it give the denouement or findings away. An introduction is a signpost: it should also obey the narrative fiction of something beginning and where the whole may go, whilst of course this is only really known when the work has been completed. The reality is that the conclusion, when completed, does rewrite the introduction. A good piece of work is a circle.

Reference (and inspiration)

Centre for Educational Studies, Institute for Learning (2002), Academic Writing Style, [Online], Available World Wide Web, URL: http://blackboard.hull.ac.uk, Academic_Writing_Style.doc, Hull: University of Hull, [Accessed September 24, 2000, 01:59]

Green, A., Troup, K. (eds.) (1999), The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 204-213.

Rapport, N., Overing, J. (2000), Social and Cultural Anthropology: The Key Concepts, London: Routledge, 41-51, 236-245, 283-290.