Academic style is the formal, professional language used in research.
Academic style comes with practice and experience and can take time to get right. All academic writers, regardless of experience, tend to go through drafts and revisions, and this is a key part of the writing process. There is no magic formula for producing academic writing, but there are some typical features that you’ll notice that you can use to help you develop as an academic writer.
Typical features of academic writing
Here’s an example
Here’s a sample paragraph which has an informal tone. Although this isn’t ‘wrong’, it doesn’t meet the expectations for academic writing and wouldn’t be appropriate to submit.
Corrected paragraph
Procrastination is a significant issue for many students. Research conducted by Klassen, Krawchuk and Rajani (2008) found ‘It’s not unusual to find reports that puts the prevalence of problematic procrastination in undergraduates as being 70% or above’. In order to understand this issue and provide strategies to help overcome procrastination, several theories have been developed. The first is Temporal Motivation theory. Steel and Konig developed this theory in 2006 using factors such as motivation, expectation, value, impulsiveness, and delay in a formula. They argue that these factors are common across all students, and that by adjusting one or two, significant changes can be made and a person’s likelihood to procrastinate will reduce. However, Konig and Steel took a very theoretical stance, and although considered aspects of psychology, have only conducted minimal empirical research. Overall, the application of this theory seems very limited and may not account for complex factors students may have to face.
Some feedback this piece of work might receive
‘Lots of students really struggle with procrastination.’
This is too vague – try to avoid expressions like this as we don’t know how many people are affected. Research would indicate how many, and a number would strengthen this point and make it more precise.
‘“It’s not unusual to find reports that puts the prevalence of problematic procrastination in undergraduates as being 70% or above”.’
Although using evidence helps build an argument, there is no reference here and no signposting, so we don’t know where the information is from, or how it fits in with the rest of the text and how it helps answer the question.
‘There has been a bit of work looking into this, as obviously it’s not good to put things off for a long time.’
‘A bit of’ is quite vague. It is also best to avoid words like ‘obviously’. This is subjective and academic writing tends to be objective. The use of phrasal verbs like ‘put off’ and contractions might be considered informal.
‘The research isn’t really that conclusive and doesn’t give any clear answers, so I don’t think there is anything that can be done with people who don’t do the work they need to, they should just get on with it in my opinion.’
Although a conclusion is drawn, we don’t know how the author has reached this and it seems like a generalised opinion. In academic writing, you as the writer can comment, but this needs to be based on the evidence presented. You can also see that the writer has used contractions here which isn’t appropriate in this context. There is also a lack of caution in this sentence, and the author is making a generalisation. One way to avoid overgeneralised statements is to use cautious language. The sentence ‘I don’t think there is anything that can be done with people who don’t do the work they need to’ is a very strong statement to make based on limited evidence. In academic writing, a writer would take a more cautious stance. For example, ‘it may be difficult to support some students with their procrastination issues’.
