Essential Tips for Producing Excellent Academic Writing

Essential Tips for Producing Excellent Academic Writing
A great deal of time and effort is dedicated to the production of the best academic and scientific writing, so the tips I offer here are not intended to save time, but to promote the kind of excellent work that is most likely to earn an author publication via a scholarly journal or press. The advice is rather simple on the surface and it is also far from new, since teachers and writing coaches have been guiding students and other authors to create prose that is clear, concise and engaging since teachers and writing coaches have existed. However, actually producing prose that is consistently clear, concise and engaging is neither simple nor as common as it should be, so some discussion of what these three qualities entail might prove useful.

Scholarly writing must be clear in order to communicate the processes and findings of advanced research accurately, and only when language is correct can it truly be clear, especially when content is complex and convoluted, as is often the case with academic and scientific writing. Whether you are reporting your research briefly in a short paper or at length in a long monograph, it is essential to choose your vocabulary with care, use correct grammatical constructions, ensure that the structure of clauses and sentences is effective, apply appropriate punctuation patterns and avoid spelling and typing errors. Scholarly prose should always be proofread thoroughly to refine communication and eliminate problems, and it is wise to have another qualified individual read your work as well and offer feedback before you finalise it for publication.

Scholarly writing should also be concise, conveying information in as few words as possible. Ensuring that your prose is correct and effective will often help you achieve a concise writing style, and using precisely the right word rather than a word that is almost right will certainly contribute in positive ways, but there is generally more to being concise than that. Often decisions will need to be made about what readers require and what might be deleted as extraneous, so it is important to remember that one revealing and convincing example described with precision and explained thoughtfully can achieve more than many examples slapped down on the page in an attempt to be thorough. Using tables, notes or appendices for information that may be interesting or useful for readers but would clutter the main discussion can enable a concise style appealing to a wide readership without compromising the detail specialist readers will want.

Although some academics and scientists seem to forget this vital point at times, scholarly writing should also be engaging. Indeed, given that researchers dedicate entire careers to exploring the problems and phenomena discussed in scholarly writing, it should be among the most interesting and exciting text available to readers. Sadly, this is not always the case, so it is wise to remember what initially attracted you to your field of study, why the problem you are investigating is so important, who suffers because of the problem and who might ultimately benefit (or already has benefitted) from your research. You obviously find your research interesting, exciting and valuable, but you will also need to convey those sentiments to your readers.