Academic writing refers to a particular style of expression that researchers use to define the intellectual boundaries of their disciplines and their areas of expertise. It is characterized by a formal tone, use of the third-person rather than first-person perspective (usually), a clear focus on the research problem under investigation, and precise word choice. Being a specialist language, academic writing is designed to convey agreed meaning about complex ideas or concepts for a group of scholarly experts.
Adapted from Academic Writing. Writing Center. Colorado Technical College; Hartley, James. Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Handbook. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Want to know if your academic prose is "flabby" or "fit"? If so, take the WritersDiet Test! This writing test uses a simple algorithm to identify "some of the sentence-level grammatical features that most frequently weigh down academic prose."
Sword, H. The Writer's Diet. Retrieved from http://writersdiet.com.
This productivity tool will help you plan an academic paper by providing a timeline and targeted writing guidance:
These resources will help you write an academic paper:
Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) provides myriad guides on writing topics including:
The University of Manchester has developed the Academic Phrasebank to help academic writers find the right words.
The content is centered on the following areas of writing:
Amherst College Writing Center: Online Resources for Writers
George Mason University Writing Center: Quick Guides
Harvard College Writing Center: Writing Resources
Northern Illinois University Writing Center: Resources for Writers
Penn State Graduate Writing Center: Writing Resources
University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu: UHWO Composition Resources
University of Houston-Clear Lake Writing Center: Writing Resources
University of Massachusetts Lowell: Writing Resources
University of Nevada, Reno: Writing Resources
Grammar handouts:
Editing, proofreading, and revising checklists: