5 Basic Language Rules to Excel in Your Academic Writing

Students and researchers ought to develop academic writing as a critical skill. It requires clarity, accuracy, and following certain formal language rules. From an essay, research paper, dissertation, and thesis writing to the basic rules of academic writing, you have to be professional in each kind. In this blog post, we will look into five basic language rules to improve your academic writing ability and how you should use these together with some examples.

Five Basic Rules to Get Success in Academic Writing

What is important to know here is that succeeding in academic writing rests on practices that maintain basic rules of writing. These rules enable the document to be clear, professionally written, and credible. When these crucial rules, including formal tone, accuracy in the work done, and so on, are followed by any academic work, there will be an immense improvement in the work done. These five fundamental rules make up the core of highly efficient and engaging writing.

Rule 1. Write in Formal and Objective Style

The incorporation of formal, objective language is a quintessential part of writing within the academic sphere. Your writing should not be personal or contain contractions, colloquialisms, etc. This type of academic writing is more serious, so you need to pay attention to word selection and what you believe about the topic.

 

How to Use a Formal Tone:

• No slang, idiomatic expressions, or informal phrases
• Write full forms of words and not contractions (e.g. Write cannot instead of can’t.
• Avoid using too many personal or subjective terms.
• Write in the 3rd person unless instructed otherwise by your institution
• Formal vs. Informal Language: English Example Format
• Informal: “Well, there’s not enough evidence, so you can’t tell if this works.”
• Less: “There is not enough evidence to determine how well this works.”
• This imparts a more professional tone to the formal version, and it relies on exact language to make a stronger argument.

 

Objective Language:

Linguistic rules in academic writing are supposed to be based on objectivity, which essentially means facts and evidence, not subjective feelings or opinions. No matter how justified you think your opinion or belief is, an argument has to be evidential. Instead of saying, “This theory is correct,” say all the evidence and reasoning that supports the theory.

Example:

For instance; instead of saying you can say; “As much as everybody thinks this policy does not work,” you can say, “From the figures, this policy seems not to have been effective.”

Rule 2. Ensure Clarity and Precision

Explanation is key to academia. The best sentences you can write are those that are easily understood by the reader, with no ambiguities along the way. Confusing your readers with vague or too complex language. Academic writing is not about showing off your vocabulary, but about expressing ideas clearly, and a dissertation editing service can help refine your work for better clarity and precision.

Tips for Clear and Precise Writing

• Talk like you normally would, not how you think a professor might use long words instead of just getting to the point.
• Instead, we could split sentences into shorter pieces.
• Use simple and easy-to-understand language so your reader can effortlessly engage with the narrative and avoid jargon or technical terms that may be vital to the topic.
• Anticipate the question and get straight to your answer without any extra fluff.

 

Examples of Clear vs. Vague Language

• Unambiguous: Exceptional face of the policy, no incentives from other participants, and, most importantly, no proof that this technique will work.
• The clear version explains why the policy failed, which strengthens it and makes it clearer.

Rule 3. Keep your Tense and Voice Consistent

Academic writing grammar usually attempts to have a consistent tense and voice throughout the piece of written text so that the reader will not be confused. Present tense This is the most common tense (uses of English word form). But if it is research or historical information; then you can use the past tense.

Tips for Consistent Tense:

• Past tense should be used to report facts or events in the past (e.g., “He has proposed. This century), and present tense should be used when citing established knowledge or literature, e.g. “Smith argues that.).
• For specific research actions or historical events, use the past tense (e.g., The subjects raised the bar.)

 

Example of Inconsistent vs. Consistent Tense

• Inconsistent: If the researcher conducts an experiment and finds significant results.
• Consistent: One experiment was conducted by a researcher and the experiment yielded positive results.”

 

Ensuring that you remain in the same tense will make your writing sound more natural and readable because it does not confuse the reader.

Voice in Academic Writing:

Academic writing mainly uses the passive voice, but then in some fields, active writing is slowly gaining popularity. The passive voice is used to draw attention to the action itself rather than the doer of the action, making it well-suited for an objective style. But try not to use passive voice too often- it will sound indecisive. For students needing guidance on balancing these styles, seeking dissertation help can provide valuable insights.

• Active voice example: The researcher experimented.
• Passive Voice: The researcher experimented.
• You could use both, but the passive is usually used when it is more about the action than who does it.