Good Academic Writing

Writing is a recursive act. It goes on and on.

One of the best ways to understand the tone and style of your discipline is to read articles from a top journal in your discipline.

Do not get hung up on “surface features”—spelling, grammar, mechanics, formatting—until you have fleshed out your ideas and argument.

Citations are important markers of how in-depth your knowledge of the field is and how well-grounded you are in the citation rules of the field.

There needs to be enough evidence to be persuasive; the right kind of evidence to support the thesis; and sufficiently concrete for the reader to trust it.

Order your paragraphs and evidence in a linear progression through transitions, signal phrases, and verbs that tell the reader if you agree or disagree with the evidence…

Give your readers enough information so that they will want to, will feel compelled to, keep reading, rather than continually asking themselves, “Why should I care about…

To become a good writer in your field or discipline, as Ken Hyland writes, is to pay close attention to your audience.

Your ideas are the most important part of your paper, especially as your ideas begin to form themselves into an interesting, analyzable argument.

As you read this blog, you are going to hear me say this over and over again: Academic writing is about communicating your own ideas.