16 posts tagged with "academic writing"

Academic writing can be hard--hard to read and harder to write. But does it have to be?

Does academic writing have to be so hard?​

What rule states that academic writing should be heavy and exhausting to read?

Can your structure be simple, even if your subject matter is complex?

Will readers understand your complicated topic better if they first have to untangle a complicated structure?

Can academic writing be easy to read? Even, dare I say it, enjoyable?

How often do you stop to reflect on the purpose of your research and the purpose of the article or book you are writing?

Photo by Ian Schneider

Why are you doing that research? What is your ultimate reason for writing that article?

• To get your PhD?
• To make yourself look smart?
• To be respected?

Or maybe

• to convey your research results and implications as clearly as possible?

How do we learn to "write academically"?​

Let's talk about comparisons.

Comparisons, or comparative sentences, are a blind spot for many academic writers, but especially those for whom English is not a native language.[^1]

Academic writing can and should be clear and easy to read.

In my experience, academic writers only need a few strategies to drastically improve the quality of their text. Will you start using these strategies?

Three ways to quickly improve your academic writing​

Let's break the cycle of long, complicated, hard-to-read prose. How do you write about your research clearly? It takes effort and focused attention, but if you understand a few basic ideas, it does not have to be so hard.

To improve your writing, learn these three strategies first:

1. Use parallelism everywhere
2. Use precise verbs instead of zombie nouns
3. Use the (given to new) information flow principle

Get a free writing consultation for your current project​

November marks academic writing month, and we have just launched ReallyWrite, a platform dedicated to improving your writing skills.

We want to help you with your writing and get valuable feedback at the same time.

Make the biggest impact with your research​

You're deep in your research and you're excitedly writing a paper to share all the details with the world. But how can you make the biggest impact?

Most of us are so involved in our text that we forget to pay attention to the other player in this game: the reader. We find it hard to stop and think about where our reader is, what our reader is thinking of, and what our reader needs. Instead, we focus on ourselves: "What do I want to say here?" and "What do I find important?"

Many readers struggle to read academic articles. But you can make a difference by making your article easy to read and thus increasing its reach.

There is one basic way to improve your writing skills: shift your perspective.