How to Develop Your Academic Writing Skills

Are there any ways to improve your writing skills? And what about academic writing? Can students write better if they don’t visit special courses for writers or don’t have an outstanding talent in a creative writing? And why do on some occasions words just flow out of you while on other days you can’t even start the first paragraph of your assignment?

Writing is not difficult. At least, it shouldn’t be. You can have problems with writing a 200-page novel, but not with an average essay you get at college. If you struggle writing a simple essay or a research paper at college or university, you do something wrong. The chances are that you have the problems with the way you structure your writing process, but not with the writing itself. So, what should you do to improve this? Today, we’re going to discuss a couple of useful ideas on how to improve your academic writing skills on a daily basis. In case the following recommendations won’t be enough for you, use creative writing services help from a team of the qualified writers.

 

student's pad and paper

 

Improve Your Academic Writing

First of all, let’s make it clear that academic writing slightly differs from creative writing when you think about the plot but not a research. In academic writing, every technical detail is very important. While working on research papers and dissertations, you should pay attention to the following things in order to get a qualitative academic content:

 

  • The structure of paragraphs and sentences. In academic writings, you have to be concise and accurate with your ideas. The structure of the sentence matters. When explaining your idea you have to remember that the first part of the sentence provides the new information while the second part explains it. So, if you’re talking about some key points and major ideas, always put them in the first part of the sentence.

 

  • Use simple words. Academic writing doesn’t always mean extraordinary or unusual vocabulary. Usually, an academic paper already includes a lot of complicated terms and complex notions. So, if it is possible to write about a research in your own words. Still, don’t use slang words, cliches, and conversational abbreviations. If a complicated word can be replaced by a simpler version of it, do it.

 

  • Don’t write too much. Sometimes students replace the absence of the ideas or the absence of a desire to think on their assignment by using a large number of unnecessary words. Don’t do it. If something can be said in two sentences, don’t make a whole paragraph instead. Be clear and specific.

 

  • Use present tense for statements. So many students don’t use present tense when giving the statements in their papers. But this is one of those multiple tiny elements and nuances, which differ academic and creative writing. Using present tense is not an additional option, it is obligatory.

 

  • Repeating the same idea or statement through the whole writing. Repeated information in the research papers or dissertations should be deleted immediately. A research is about developing, describing, and explaining the idea, but not repeating it all the time. The same way is with the words. Don’t repeat the same notions all the time if they can be easily replaced with the synonyms. This is that tiny element of a creative writing in the academic style.

 

student writing in notepad

 

As you can see, you don’t need any extraordinary talents or skills to become good at academic writing. All you need is a clear understanding of what your assignment requires you to do, and how to organize your ideas and thoughts in a proper way to create a concise and logical content. And the most important thing to remember is that each kind of academic writing has its own rules and requirements, following which helps you to write better.

Like it? Share it!