Academic Writing in English

Dr Radu Negoescu, RKC January 22, 2012

Contents
1 Introduction 2 Common English mistakes 3 Academic writing 3.1 Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Clarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Citations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Referencing using the Harvard method 3.3.2 Conventions for the Bibliography . . . 3.4 Assignment front cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Presentation of your assignment (checklist) . 2 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8 9

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Ver. 1.23, January 22, 2012

Introduction

Academic writing, and in particular academic writing in English, can be quite dierent from other languages or undergraduate level writing. As such, Robert Kennedy College (RKC) and University of Cumbria (UoC) leaders of this programme decided to give you, as an MBALS student, a quick primer to academic writing in English. This document is by no means extensive. Its main purpose is to help RKC and UoC students prepare high quality material for their required course-work in the MBALS programme, often in the form of essays. As such, a very concise list of guidelines is provided here, with pointers to more extensive pieces of work detailing dierent aspects of academic writing in English. This document is structured as follows: in Section 2 we will review some of the most frequent mistakes made while writing in English, and we briey discuss academic writing in particular in Section 3.

Common English mistakes

In this section we give you a quick overview of the most common mistakes found in student submitted works, which have an impact on the nal quality, and thus mark, of the papers.

Spelling
Some people are better than others at detecting typographical mistakes. As long as you have an occasional typo or two in your document, it should be ok. However, if each paragraph has a mistake, things are much more serious. Always use a spell checker, it will at least help you eliminate most of the accidental typos, even if it will not detect things like spot and spit. In what concerns the British versus American spelling, either is accepted, but do be consistent! If you spell neighbor, also spell labor, and not labour. Research the internet for spelling dierences between British and American English for a more detailed look at this issue.

Contractions
Do not use verbal contractions in writing, such as: cant - always use cannot or can not,

 dont - always use do not or does not, well or Ill - always use we will or I will / I shall , wouldnt - always use would not.

Sound-alikes
Be aware of words or phrases that sound alike and are written dierently, as you form the idea in your mind your ngers might trick you into writing the incorrect form. Examples include: theyre - their , its - its, well - will , suites - suits, hes - his. You will notice that if you consistently avoid verbal contractions, you are much more likely to be safe from this kind of error.

Academic writing

There are many factors that inuence the way one should write an academic paper. They range from venue (journal, conference, letter, essay, etc.) to academic eld (computer science, economics, law, etc.). For our particular case we will consider essay writing, not intended for publication in peerreviewed venues, but instead aimed at convincing your module tutor(s) of your command of the material presented in the course and the achievement of the learning outcomes. In many cases, English is not your mother tongue. A study by Santos (1998) looked at the way professors reacted to academic writing of nonEnglish speakers. Although the study was limited to only two 400-words essays written by one Chinese and one Korean student, it was extensive on the respondents side, where 178 professors were asked to mark and comment on six characteristics of the papers, three concerning content, and three concerning presentation.

The results, in short, show that: content scored lower than language; professors found errors in general comprehensible, not irritating, but academically unacceptable, lexical errors being considered the most serious; humanity/social science professors were more lenient than physical science ones; younger professors were much more easily irritated by language errors than older professors. A reasonable set of conclusions follows from this studys ndings: know your audience, strive to improve presentation by paying constant attention to language, and, most importantly, make sure the content is right. Cultural background may also play an important role in the way dierent students will approach academic writing in English. An interesting book on the subject is that of Fox (1994), Listening to the World. You can also nd a more comprehensive guide for academic writing in Swales and Feaks book Academic writing for graduate students: essential tasks and skills (Swales and Feak, 2004).

3.1

Structure

You should always strive to provide your reader with a map to your work. The easiest way to accomplish this is to have clearly numbered and delimited sections, like, for example, this document. In general, a structure like the one used here should be sucient for a 10 to 30 pages piece of work: an introductory section lays the background for the paper, with subsequent sections containing the actual content of the work. You might, for example, include in the introduction a description of the task you are trying to solve, and if several questions are asked of you, make sure you treat each of them in their own sections. A table of contents might not always be necessary, given the length of the essay, but it surely would not hurt. Most people have a very good visual memory, so providing a table of contents will surely help them understand your paper better.1
Although this statement may sometimes prove to be true, it is not backed up by any studies in any relevant eld of study. It is the kind of statement you should avoid in your written essays, and for which points will be deducted!
1

3.2

Clarity

Without structure, your valid and critical thinking may be lost in the chaos of a single paragraph spanning 20 pages. If structure is obvious and clear, you still face the nontrivial task of writing your thoughts, ndings, and recommendations in a clear and comprehensible way. A few simple guidelines may help you pass your message across. Keep your sentences short, and do not try to t more than one idea per sentence, or even per paragraph, as this practice tends to push the working memory of a normal person to its limit of around 7 items, and use semi-columns sparingly and think about the structure underlying your ideas and try to nd the best way to present it as to make everything easier to understand by the person reading your work. The previous paragraph is obviously an exaggeration, used as a counter example. You will surely agree that the guidelines are more clearly presented this way: A few simple guidelines for passing your message across: keep your sentences short; do not try to t more than one idea in a sentence or even in a paragraph; think about the underlying structure of your ideas, and present them accordingly.

3.3

Citations

Whenever you are making an assertion (such as the earlier statement on a helpful table of contents in Section 3.1), you must provide one or multiple sources that verify those facts, unless they are universally accepted truths or obvious to those with an extensive knowledge of the eld. Referencing is also a way of acknowledging your sources, and avoiding plagiarism suspicion when presenting somebody elses ideas as your own without proper attribution. In terms of referencing style, the accepted standard for MBALS submissions is the Harvard style, sometimes called the author-year style. This documents bibliography and citations style is a good example, and most modern text processors will be able to assist you in creating such a presentation automatically.

3.3.1

Referencing using the Harvard method

Making references to the published work of other writers, and quoting from these works to illuminate or support your argument, is a vital aspect of academic writing. Such quotations should be an integral part of your discussion and should be accompanied by some critical comment - not presented as if they were the last word on the subject. Whether they are direct quotations or indirect paraphrases from the original, they should always be fully attributed to their source (see below, conventions on bibliography). The convention of referencing preferred is known as the Harvard method. It has been selected because it is ecient, convenient, easy to use and probably the most commonly used style in educational publications. The Harvard method uses the name of the author and the date of publication as a key to the full details of the reference, which are set out in the bibliography section at the end of the assignment. When an authors name is mentioned in the text, the date is inserted in brackets immediately after the name, as in: it has been argued by Smith (1998), however, that... When a less direct reference is made to one or more authors, both name and date are bracketed, with the references separated by a semi-colon, as in: several authors have noted this trend (Carr, 1989; Grundy, 2000; Kemmis, 2001) When the reference is to a work of dual or multiple authorship, use only surnames of the abbreviated form, as in: Salter and Tapper (1991) or Broadfoot et al. (1988) If an author has two references published in the same year, add lower case letters after the date to distinguish, as in: Smith (1994a, 1994b) For direct quotations, you should include page numbers in the reference, as in: Jones (2001:57) If you wish to omit some words/sentences in a quotation, indicate this by using three dots ([...]) in the appropriate place. If you wish to use information in a text and you do not go to the primary source, you should indicate this as follows: Gardner and Lunzer (cited in Beard, 1987) suggest... Brief quotations should be incorporated in the text of the assignment, and set within quotation marks; lengthy quotations should be indented at the left margin and should be single-spaced. All quotations should be fully referenced. 6

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Conventions for the Bibliography

Each assignment should include a bibliography in alphabetical order, whose content and format conform to the following examples: Book Wells, G. (1997) The Meaning Makers. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Multiple thor AuMacLure, M., Phillips, T. & Wilkinson, A. (1988) Oracy Matters. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Blyth, W.A.L. (1990) Social Demands and Schools Responses. In N. Proctor, (ed.) The Aims of Primary Education and The National Curriculum. Basingstoke: Falmer Press David, T. (2000) Is Nothing Important? Education 3 - 13, 17 (1), 15-18. OHear, A. (1999) Learning One of Lifes Mysteries. The Times Education Supplement. 29th June 1990: 20. The Times Education Supplement. (1993) Call for Nursery Expansion. 29th June 1993: 3. Department of Education and Science (1989) From Policy to Practice. London: H.M.S.O. Smith, A www.learningatwork.co.uk/resources at 17/10/2003

Article in an Edited Volume

Article in Journal Articles in newspapers and periodicals or, if author not given Ocial Reports and Publications Websites

3.4

Assignment front cover

Student ID number:

Module name:

Assignment title:

Assignment deadline:

Eective number of words used:

I conrm that I have read the University regulations on plagiarism, and that this assignment is my own work.

3.5

Presentation of your assignment (checklist)

1. Is the work presented legibly, and in a form which the marker will nd acceptable? 2. Is the work submitted in time? Deadlines for submission should be strictly adhered to, except in exceptional circumstances and after prior consultation with tutors. 3. Is the electronic copy of the assignment in an accepted format? (pdf or Word format). Make sure you also retain a copy for safe-keeping. 4. Does the work have a cover page (as on page 8), giving your student id number but no name? This ensures anonymity during the marking process. The cover sheet includes a statement that indicates that you have read the University requirements with regard to plagiarism (see the Policy on Cheating and Plagiarism in Unit 5 of the Induction module), and by submitting this with the assignment you are agreeing that you understand and will abide by these requirements. 5. Has the work properly anonymised company and personal names if accounts of past or present personal experiences are required? 6. Line spacing should be set at 1.5 or double. Pages should be numbered sequentially, including appendices.

References
Fox, H. (1994). Listening to the World: Cultural Issues in Academic Writing. National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, IL. Santos, T. (1998). Professors reactions to the academic writing of Nonnative-Speaking students. TESOL Quaterly, 22(1):6990. Swales, J. M. and Feak, C. B. (2004). Academic writing for graduate students: essential tasks and skills. University of Michigan Press, 2 edition.