Academic Style (Academic Writing)

The do's and don'ts of academic writing. 20 key points on how to write academically with practice activity for low-level academic international learners.

Disclaimer: There are many ways to write academically, this is just a basic overview. The best way is to check with what your department want. UK students are usually provided with a handbook at the beginning of their course and this will highlight the academic conventions for that particular course. It is also necessary to look closely at the language being used in the journals / books / papers you are being set to read on your course to help evaluate the academic style and language used in your discipline.

Academic Style worksheets / lessons.
1: Academic Style: 20 key features to writing
This lesson brainstorms academic style / formality in writing. Teacher conducts feedback by using visual highlighting and explaining the concepts. There are also 10x practice exercises from informal to formal

2. Academic Style 2: Paragraph analysis, comparison and discussion
This lesson compares two paragraphs on CSR (informal and formal), discusses the conventions of academic style and finishes with a sentence re-writing activity

3. Academic Style 3: Vocabulary (AWL & Nominalisation)
This lesson focuses on two key areas of academic writing: AWL and nominalisation. There are three worksheets comprising of a number of different activities to practice categorisation and reformulation at sentence and paragraph level.

More on Academic Writing:

Book discussed in video is:
Academic Writing Book 4th ed by S.Bailey

[AcademicEnglishUK]

Hi, please read this before commenting.
In the description of this video, it states that this lesson is for low-level international students and also includes a disclaimer (there is not one way to write academically). I’ve been an EAP teacher for 15 years, working at some of the top U.K. universities. We see that many of these students tend to write in spoken English when they first come to a U.K. university. Most universities ask academic English departments to teach academic style and highlight what is ‘generally’ acceptable for academic writing. Academic style is also part of the writing marking criteria and students need to understand what it is so they can do well in their summative tests.

I think a common misconception lies in looking at a student’s academic writing journey from a bottom-up perspective; seeing the discrete taught items of academic style, passive grammar, hedging and the AWL as significant factors that influence a student’s writing. Naturally, this isn’t an accurate evaluation of a student’s evolution in academic writing. When you take a more top-down approach and focus on the student’s journey throughout their academic English course and university, you see that they have constant exposure to academic content and a range of academic writing styles. The academic style lessons are a stepping stone at the beginning of academic course to instil a sense of mindfulness towards academic language and activate an inquisitiveness towards noticing language being used in an academic context. This then becomes part of the students’ experience in growing and flourishing as an academic scholar and writer.

Generally, when you take the top-down approach to look at the full process of how a student’s academic writing develops, then to make claims that by teaching the conventions of academic style (passive, personal pronouns, hedging, etc..) is wrong, seems slightly naive.
Two more points:
1) We receive many comments that academic journals encourage active voice. Yes, that's true but this is a lesson for low-level international students writing academic essays not academic journals.
2) Some academic disciplines encourage the use of 'I' in writing. Yes this is true too especially the humanities & social sciences. However, the majority of international students who come to the UK to study at university study business and STEM courses who all advocate a reduced use of personal pronouns in students' writings.
Thank you for reading this.
AEUK

[DorjiWangchuk]

Thanks. This helped as I completed writing my dissertation

[thinginground]

Question: some examples in this video use a lot of 'passive' writing styles, when I heard that in academic writing, you should try using 'active' writing as much as possible.

[londonproofreaders-academi]

this is actually a great overview of academic writing...thanks!

[kubradag]

This video is so helpful for a bachelor level student. May you prepare another video about "how to write a dissertation in advanced level ?" Because ı can not break my level from B2 toward C1. And, ı will write my thesis in english. If you do a video which in this context, ı would be grateful. Thank you so much !

[francessingson]

Thank you for this. I have learned so much just from watching this video.

[fan_juggler]

Passive voice and nominalisations are actually the opposite of what journals actually want. Read Nature style guides for example

[anukunju]

Sir, can we use punctuations like semicolon and colon?

[MuhammadUsman-cmfu]

What should be the alternate word for "its good" in academic writing?

[shaniahflores]

Oh my gosh I like your content it will really help me to survive my college life.♥️

[Max-rgts]

Thank you for helping me write academically

[romanstaszak]

I am very please for your marvoules work especially in British English language as I am interested in particular. Thank you for your time and every effort you take to make those videos. I do appreciate so much ❤️😃🌞 Have a great day 🌞😃❤️👍

[chrispinemukosha]

Thank you for the video, it is well explained.

[ramandeepsingh]

U said that it is inappropriate to use phrase and collocations in academic writing whereas the ielts discriper encourages to use the both for getting higher bands, could u plz elaborate

[tharindumadusanka]

It important to know the writing patterns because i took long effort to remove i, we from my vocabulary.

[connoisseur]

Regarding punctuation also I need a video

[innojeanas]

But the sentences didn't mention year - why mention years in your paraphrasing?

[dhyeymehta]

I am not getting first you changed only words and in 2 sentences you changed the whole sentence

[lividmatter]

"has been proposed that . . . will have possibly been . . . "
What does one mean by beating around the bush....

[disappointment]

NOTE: It has been is a passive voice I think this also not acceptable