academic writing

Essay writing toolkit – Reference books

While you are writing essays it is useful to have some reference books to hand. Although there is a great deal of material online to help with general reference queries, websites are not always reliable. It pays to have some decent reference books. Some of these will be available to borrow from the local library or university library, so that you can try them out and see which titles you prefer. However, in time you will probably want to buy several of these. Below we deal with some of the general language texts that can help you with your writing and essay proofreading.

Essay writing tips: academic writing

You need to strike a balance between academic writing and pompous writing. You want to sound erudite, but not arrogant. The best way to learn how to achieve this balance is to read as many academic articles or chapters as you can by established and respected academics.

Equally, you don’t want to use long or complex words simply to show off or try to sound intelligent. The best plan is to stick to John H. Patterson’s advice: “Use small words, big ideas, and short sentences”.

Assignment writing in essay format

An assignment is a piece of work that you are given by your tutor to be completed outside class time. If you are given research assignments, often the material collated from the research will appear in essay format. For example, an assignment which requires an investigation into the impact of the smoking ban on the English pub, might require the student to problem solve by developing a questionnaire to discover people’s opinions. The results would be collated and presented in an essay format. In this case, assignment writing will need the same skills that would be used for academic essays.

Effective essay writing: academic style

One top essay writing tip is to use hedging. In your writing, ‘to hedge’ means that you protect yourself from criticism by using language that doesn’t commit you firmly to a particular point of view.

This means you use words and expressions like “It may be”, “Mitchell’s work appears to say”, “It could be concluded that”. Academic writers use careful words so that they don’t make claims that are definite when the evidence is uncertain. This may be particularly useful when you want to criticise another writer’s work. You don’t want your assertion that their work is wrong to sound like a personal attack, so writing something like “Mitchell’s work seems to ignore the changing economic circumstances” is not as combative as “Mitchell’s work completely ignores the changing economic circumstances”.

Essay writing format: paraphrase and summary

As you write essays you will need to paraphrase or summarize the work of others. How can you do this effectively and what are the likely errors when trying to use this vital essay writing skill? Paraphrasing is not as straight forward as it appears.

UK essays: grammar skills

Your essay editing or dissertation writing wouldn’t be complete without a look at grammar. Many students are now showing an interest in grammar. Internet use and text speak have eroded the way we use language and it has got to the point where sometimes we don’t have any idea about correct usage. Students also feel confused over whether they should be using American English or British English for their UK essays. The popularity of authors like David Crystal and Lynne Truss shows that many people care about good language use and want to feel confident about their writing.

Write my essay with style!

We’ve looked at some of the essay writing style rules that you need to handle with care: libellous statements, exaggeration, conversational writing and pronoun genders. Here are a few more style tips that can help you write your essays in a scholarly way.

Essay writing tips: online essay writing guides

There is so much academic writing available online, from sites offering free essay advice, through to help with writing exam essays and revision notes. There are some first rate sites out there, but some writing blogs and websites can provide dubious advice. Some sites are easy to discount. These are the ones that are pure gibberish. Sentences make no sense and may even be written by a software package that jumbles words together, rather than being written by a human being. These are easy to spot!