10 Practical Tips for Academic Writing
- Every academic article is about a story from the beginning until the end. Make sure you have a consistent story throughout your article.
- Write in short and precise sentences. Use simple words. Bear in mind that your readers might not be a native English speaker. Science is already hard, do not make it harder for people to understand.
- Always write in the present tense, even if you refer to a past study. For example, instead of writing “Munim et al. (2017) found that…”, write “Munim et al. (2017) find that…”.
- Always use active voice. Passive voice is like a crime in academic writing. It confuses the reader. Avoid the passive voice as much as possible.
- Never write “paper”, write “study”. For example, write “This study finds that…” not “This paper finds that…”.
- When referring to any number below 10, use the textual form. For example, write “seven”, not “7”.
- For each paragraph, make sure to start with a topic sentence and end with a transitional sentence to the next paragraph. In between these two, write detail facts about the topic of the paragraph. A topic sentence is a sentence that summarizes the main idea of a paragraph.
- Many argue against using the first person singular pronoun “I” in academic writing. You will find many single-author studies published in top journals that boldly use “I”. However, it still recommend not using “I”. Use 2This study…” “This research…“ — this will help you to avoid passive voice in sentence structure. It is also common to use “we”, where we refers to the author and the reader.
- Do not repeat any information/facts throughout the article except for the conclusion. Mentioning a fact only once is sufficient. You are allowed to repeat what you have done and what you found only in the conclusion section.
- Finally, be careful of plagiarism. Academia has low tolerance for plagiarism. You may get away with publishing a plagiarised article for the time being, but eventually, it will bring consequences in later years.
Complimentary free tips: Always keep your paragraph justified (CTRL+J) and insert page number at the bottom. Use a professional proof-reader or at least Grammarly before submission to a journal.