It is important that academic writing has a clear and limited focus. Having a clear focus means that the topic of your writing, whether it be within a specific paragraph or within the assignment overall, should always be clearly communicated and obvious to the reader. Having a limited focus means that you should write only within the scope of the requirements for the task or assignment question - stay on target and avoid 'going off on a tangent'.
To help you maintain a clear and limited focus, it is important to analyse your task before you start writing your assessment. This will help you identify the directive, content, and limiting words within the assignment question, which will then help you keep your focus as you begin writing in response to these. Table 1 provides a quick summary of these words, but please refer to the Analysing assignment questions and Research skills tutorial library guides (links below) for more detailed guidance on this.
Type of word | What does this tell me? | Examples |
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Directive | Instruct you on what you need to do in your assignment. Helps you structure and break down tasks. | Explain, compare, discuss, analyse, evaluate |
Content | Indicate what to write about in your assessment. Helps you focus on the subject and research, highlighting relationships between concepts. | Theories, disciplines, events, topics |
Limiting | Defines what is or is not relevant to include in your research. Helps you set the boundaries or scope of your topics/ | Only, excluding, focusing on, limited to |
Consider the below question adapted from Turner et al. (2011):
Explain why reading is generally considered important at university. Assess to what extent students are required to read critically during their course work.
Answer the following questions:
Once you have some answers to these questions, navigate to the tab titled 'Activity answer' to check your work!
Directive words:
Content words:
Limiting words:
All academic writing - including each of your assignments - has a structure. Sometimes, the structure will already be set and specified in your course materials, such as scientific reports and case studies, whilst others will require you to create your own structure.
When deciding on a structure, have a look at the following as a guide:
Whether you are trying to structure a single paragraph, a section of a report, or an entire essay, it may be best to start by brainstorming a few ideas in an outline form before you start writing. An outline should provide the basic plan for your written work and is a great way to help you keep focused to begin writing with a clear structure in mind (The University of Sydney, 2024). Some strategies for making a good outline include:
Once you have your outline, you are ready to start writing! Remember to check your outline throughout this writing process to ensure you are following your plan. The following tips may also be helpful to keep in mind as you write:
Have a look at the Paragraph writing library guide below for more assistance on paragraph structure, and check out the Academic skills guide for more specific help with different assignment types:
Navigate through the tabs above to compare the three sample paragraphs from an essay. Decide what role each paragraph plays in the structure of the essay by identifying:
Once you have identified the structure, navigate to the 'Activity answer' tab to check if you were correct!
Developing awareness of cultural diversity and greater understanding around the values and beliefs held by people from other societies and cultures were found to enhance optimal care in the health field. Literature reports that work towards improved cross-cultural communication skills and improving higher education training better prepare health professionals for challenges encountered in daily interactions with clients. It was also noted that health professionals cannot become experts on all multicultural issues. Although, it is clear that devoting time to enhance practitioner knowledge of one ethnic group or community was found to build awareness and sensitivity to other groups. Such practices are demonstrated as methods to ensure and maintain standards of care and satisfaction for both client and caregiver.
Australia’s health professionals may encounter challenges when working in a multicultural society, especially if education and training have not prepared those professionals to operate effectively in different contexts. Health practitioners need to develop awareness around the specific needs, beliefs and experiences different cultures may have regarding illness and health; this is essential for optimal care to be provided for a diverse range of individuals and clients. Communication, education and training are of paramount importance to meeting patient health needs. Providing resources and health education sensitive to cultural issues can enable more efficient utilisation of carer expertise in the health field. Such factors are vital in supporting health professional interaction with diverse cultural groups.
Cultural differences are also significant in the field of health prevention. Gifford (2017, p. 13) asserts that ‘the slow development of a disease in healthy individuals is not necessarily a culturally shared concept’. This study demonstrated examples of patient acceptance of ill health as being viewed as a matter of destiny; a belief found typical of Italian and Macedonian cultures. Additionally, James et al. (2016) found that the women of Latin cultural groups carried an attitude of not wanting to know if they had cancer because they believed such knowledge would shorten their lives. It was also believed that attending a screening program might actually cause cancer (James et al. 2016). Therefore, it seems clients with diverse cultural beliefs regarding disease development, while accepting treatment for immediate and acute conditions, may not necessarily understand the need for disease prevention.
Paragraph | Where does it belong? | How can I tell? |
Paragraph 1 | Conclusion |
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Paragraph 2 | Introduction |
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Paragraph 3 | Body |
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Good writing requires you to move beyond a description or summary of other people's ideas and instead explain, analyse and evaluate how these ideas relate to your task. To do this, aim to provide an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into the task discussion by summarising, paraphrasing, and synthesising ideas. We will focus on this final synthesising step here, but please check out the Writing with evidence library guide (link below) for more detailed guidance on integrating evidence in academic writing.
To show that you are synthesising information and therefore thinking critically, consider using some of the key words and phrases given in Table 2 below to group sources or information together (The University of Manchester, 2023):
Introductory phrases | Referring to other studies | Identifying contention in the literature |
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Check out the Academic Phrasebank from The University of Manchester for more sentence starters and examples of different writing styles for different purposes:
Navigate through the tabs above to compare two paragraphs, Version A and Version B. In terms of evidence-based arguments, which version is a good example, and which is a poor example?
Once you have identified the best version of this work, navigate to the 'Activity answer' tab to check if you were correct!
Many, if not all, of the authors identified compassion as a key core value for health professionals in the end stages of life. Author et al. (2016) found family members and carers were better able to move through challenging emotional situations. Also, Jones' (2019) study stated connectedness and comprehension are improved with cultural consideration. Compassionate care provided by the health professional should be inclusive of different cultural needs, as stated by Author et al. (2018).
There is considerable consensus on the importance of ensuring the cultural needs of patients and carers are met during end-of-life care (Author 2018; Author et al. 2020; Author & Author 2015). Studies by both Author et al. (2016) and Author (2018) found that family members and carers are better able to move through challenging emotional situations when compassionate care provided by health professionals is inclusive of cultural needs. Additionally, Jones (2019) has recently shown how a sense-of-connectedness and understanding are improved when cultural considerations are taken into account by health professionals.
Version A is the poor example and Version B is the good example.
Comment on Version A: This sample text is not well synthesised as it is just describing one source after the other. Avoid a "he said, she said" style. It is better to rework each paraphrase to group ideas and authors together into the same sentences.
Comment on Version B: This sample text provides better synthesis of ideas to support the topic of 'cultural needs'. The text evolves from a summary of common information in several studies, as supported by a list of sources at the end of the sentence, to include detail from more specific sources that are grouped, where possible (e.g. 'both').
Vocabulary in academic writing will be technical where relevant and formal elsewhere. You may have noticed this when reading your course readings or researching sources for assignments! Writing technically requires a bit of background research and time spent learning the language of your discipline, whilst writing formally is one of the four main features of academic style. We will go through all of these in more detail below.
Each area of study has its own specialised vocabulary. You will begin learning this specialised language when you begin your degree and should aim to be fluent by the time you finish. Below are some tips to help you learn this vocabulary and implement it into your writing:
When writing academically, it is important to write in an objective, precise, formal, and tentative manner. These features all constitute 'academic style', and although the specifics of these features may differ according to the discipline, they can be applied to all assignment types as per Table 3 below.
Features | Good example (source) | Poor example | |
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Objectivity |
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A recent survey on the sporting preferences of Australian university students revealed...
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A recent survey on the sporting preferences of Australian university students gave unbelievable results. |
Precision |
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Of the survey respondents, 70% reported to have stopped playing sport during their teenage years. |
Of the people who completed the survey, most of them said they stopped playing sport as a teenager. |
Formality |
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Author A and Author B agree there is a link between physical activity and wellbeing, with emphasis on the benefits of playing a team sport beyond teenage years. | This isn't very good news for students' wellbeing, so what should we do to promote sport in higher education? |
Tentativeness |
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Implementing programs to promote team sport engagement whilst studying at university may therefore help student wellbeing. | Programs must be implemented to promote team sport at university, otherwise everyone's wellbeing will be impacted. |
Consider the below excerpt from Lans et al. (2011):
A growing volume of research acknowledges that entrepreneurial core processes are enabled by specific competencies that can be developed (Baron & Ensley, 2006; DeTienne & Chandler, 2004; Ucbasaran et al., 2008). Entrepreneurial competence is not only a matter of predisposition, but also dependent on learning and experience. This notion is important for those involved in stimulating nascent entrepreneurship as well as those engaged in sector development and fostering entrepreneurship education and learning. Much competence research has been conducted since the 1980s (Bartram, 2005; Boyatzis, 1982), but this research tradition aims at the development of managers or employees in large firms. Limited attention has been given to the development of entrepreneurial competence in existing small firms (Rae, 2007; Sadler-Smith et al., 2003).
Answer the following questions:
Once you have some answers to these questions, navigate to the tab titled 'Activity answer' to check your work!
Question 1.
Question 2.
The text uses a combination of technical and formal terms. Technical words are shown in red writing below, including words such as "entrepreneurial core processes" and "firms", whilst formal terms are shown in blue font below, including words such as "predisposition" and "development".
A growing volume of research acknowledges that entrepreneurial core processes are enabled by specific competencies that can be developed (Baron & Ensley, 2006; DeTienne & Chandler, 2004; Ucbasaran et al., 2008). Entrepreneurial competence is not only a matter of predisposition, but also dependent on learning and experience. This notion is important for those involved in stimulating nascent entrepreneurship as well as those engaged in sector development and fostering entrepreneurship education and learning. Much competence research has been conducted since the 1980s (Bartram, 2005; Boyatzis, 1982), but this research tradition aims at the development of managers or employees in existing large firms. Limited attention has been given to the development of entrepreneurial competence in existing small firms (Rae, 2007; Sadler-Smith et al., 2003).
Consider the below paragraph:
People use too much water all over the world, but the real problem is groundwater. Groundwater is underground water which is stored in aquifers and they are usually deep down under the surface. About a third of the people in the world use water from aquifers, but they take thousands of years to develop. Because there is a lot of water in aquifers, humans have been using it without thinking about the future. Payal Sampat says that around the world, we use 200 billion cubic metres more water than we can replace, which means we’re steadily using up our water and we’ll run out.
Answer the following questions:
Once you have some answers to these questions, navigate to the tab titled 'Activity Answer' to check your work!
Question 1:
Question 2:
An alternative or improved version of the paragraph may therefore look something like this:
Overuse of water resources is a major global problem. The crisis is particularly acute in relation to groundwater reserves which lie deep below the surface in aquifers. One third of the global population depends on these aquifers, which have taken thousands of years to develop (Brown 2001). As the aquifers hold large volumes of water, they have been used without thought of the future. Sampat (2015) states that worldwide, water consumption is about 200 billion cubic metres more than can be replaced. In other words, global water capital is steadily decreasing.
Question 3:
In the above version from Question 2, ideas are named rather than people, making it more impersonal and more objective. References are used correctly and indicate these arguments are evidence-based rather than reliant on personal opinions. Language is more technical and adheres to academic style conventions.