writing tips

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.

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.

Exam essay techniques: planning under time pressure

It’s that time of year again; exams are looming and revision is your highest priority. But don’t forget, just learning the facts isn’t enough to score you the high marks you deserve. It’s also crucial to spend some time brushing up your exam essay writing technique, to save valuable minutes when you are under time pressure and stop you from panicking when you get into the exam room.

Essay writing guide: the essay introduction

You want to make a good impression on the marker from the start of your essay, but how do you know if you are getting the essay introduction right? A good introduction should be like a map; you are telling the reader what to expect and how the terrain of the essay is set out. Here are some important essay writing dos and don’ts:

Essay writing: Critical Analysis Essay

What exactly is critical analysis? Your tutor may have told you to be more critical in your essays. This does not mean that you have to be nasty or rude about anyone or another writer’s point of view. What it means is that to succeed at good essay writing you need to be assessing the facts and making your own mind up about what it all means.