Academic writing

This resource will help you:

• Improve your writing using two different strategies.
• Explore tools to enhance your academic writing.
• Choose the best vocabulary for your task.

Imagine this scenario: you have done all your research, have all the information you need, and you know what you want to say. The problem is, every time you sit down to start writing, you find that you do not know how to put all the information together into paragraphs! If you can relate to this frustrating scenario, do not worry - it is a common challenge, but it can be conquered!

A good piece of advice for improving your academic writing (or any kind of writing) is to find a good example and use that as a template. We can do this on a large-scale, such as looking at a structure of an example essay or report, or on a small-scale by using 'sentence skeletons' (Swales & Feak, 1994). If you are struggling with putting your information into writing, you may want to start with these sentence skeletons.

To make a sentence skeleton, follow these steps:

Step 1: Choose

• Choose an example of good writing that is similar to what you are trying to write. To decide if something is well written, ask yourself "how clear was the text?". If you can easily understand the writing, especially if the information is quite complex, then the writing is probably good. On the other hand, if you have to reread a lot of the text and find yourself confused, this is a good sign that the writing is probably bad, especially if the information is not complex. Good academic writing is clear and simple, so that we can understand and think about complex ideas. When you find good academic writing, save a copy and in a folder called "Good examples of writing" so you can easily refer to it again.

Step 2: Delete

• Delete all the content words from the sentences, leaving only the structural language. Put simply, go through each sentence and delete or white out all the content words. Content words carry all the information in the text, and copying those would amount to plagiarism. Deleting content words shows the information is different between our writing and the example we are analysing. As you repeat this process for each sentence, you will be left with the skeleton structure of the paragraph.

Step 3: Analyse

• Analyse the function of each sentence and how they fit together to structure and develop the paragraph. This will help build your understanding of the structure of academic writing.  

Step 4: Write

• Write in your own content and adapt the sentences to make the writing your own. Now that you have a skeleton structure of a complete paragraph, you can add in your own content. When you start adding your own content into the sentence skeletons, you will almost always have to edit the sentence to make your content fit. Sometimes the changes will be minor. Sometimes the changes will be major. Importantly, every edit makes your writing different to the good example you analysed.

At this stage, you should be asking...is this plagiarising? Ultimately, using sentence skeletons is about learning how to write from good examples. It is not about copying other people's work. What we are copying is the way the author structured their writing. Do not ever copy their content.

Writing assessments is a complex task and it can become overwhelming, sometimes even leading to writer's block. While it is easy to say that you just need to start writing words, it is not always easy to do. To help you overcome this challenge, try breaking down the process into smaller pieces. This strategy breaks down the writing process into three simple steps, with some help from a very handy website called Academic Phrasebank (link below). This website supports you to concentrate on adding your own content without having to overthink your sentences, reducing your cognitive load and stress so you can quickly put your ideas into words.

To use Academic Phrasebank most effectively, follow the following three steps:

​​​Step 1: Create an outline

• An outline is useful, because it forces you to think about the structure of your document and how all your information fits together. Planning your outline carefully can save you a lot of editing time. However, you can dwell on the details of your outline so much that you frustrate yourself and get writer's block. If you have an outline in front of you, you can use Academic Phrasebank to help get words on the page quickly. 

Step 2: Add a relevant sentence template for each part of your outline

• Academic Phrasebank is essentially an online catalogue of sentence templates and phrases used in academic writing. These templates are clearly organised by the main areas of a research paper (the menus across the top) and by general language functions in academic writing (the menu down the left-hand side of the page). Using the outline you created in step 1, you can now go to Academic Phrasebank and find the sentence templates you need for your outline.

Step 3: Add in your own content

• At this point, you now have sentence templates that match your outline and you are ready to add your content. This step is similar to adding content to sentence skeletons. Remember to re-read your sentences when you are adding in your content and edit the sentences accordingly to suit your writing.