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Writing 4

The document discusses four principles of academic writing: formality, efficiency, modesty, and clarity. It provides examples of mistakes students have made in their writing and explains corrections for each principle to demonstrate proper academic conventions and register. Readers should aim to identify mistakes and consider how to correct them for each presented principle.

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Alex Murray
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45 views1 page

Writing 4

The document discusses four principles of academic writing: formality, efficiency, modesty, and clarity. It provides examples of mistakes students have made in their writing and explains corrections for each principle to demonstrate proper academic conventions and register. Readers should aim to identify mistakes and consider how to correct them for each presented principle.

Uploaded by

Alex Murray
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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4 Formality, efficiency, modesty and clarity

F our p rin c ip le s of a c a d e m ic w rit ing

Glossary In Chapter 2 we looked at what the person marking your w ork wants.
One aspect of this is that you need to demonstrate that you understand
g en re (genres)
the conventions of the academic genre.
N -C O U N T
A genre is a
In this chapter we will be looking at what all academic readers want, i.e.
particular type
of literature, the type of register and style that is expected from all scholars.
painting, music,
film, or other We will look at four principles of academic writing: Formality, Efficiency,
art form which M odesty, and Clarity, and consider what they mean for the academic
people consider writer. For each principle, you will find examples of mistakes students have
as a class because
it has special made, followed by explanations and corrections. Try to work out what the
characteristics. mistakes are and how you could correct them before you read on.

F orm alit y

Glossary Before starting university, students are already aware of the need for
formal language in essays. The problem is that it can be difficult to know
fo r m a lity
what is form al and what is not. You can try to think about it in this way:
N -U N C O U N T
If you talk about words that are used a lot when speaking (e.g. ‘big’, ‘go od ’, ‘well’, ‘a lot’ ),
the formality or a technique that is used a lot in speeches (e.g. asking the audience L-—
of a person’s questions) are unlikely to be used in form al writing.
language or
writing style,
you mean that
w h a t else can, we^expect fro nc the in,tew,et? the f ir s t thii/cg w hich we expect au-d
they are using hope to have is an- improvew-en-t o f the services in, the n-earfu.tu.re.
extremely
formal academic The student asks a question here and then answers it. This is a technique
language. used in speeches to involve the audience. In academic writing, the
writer does not address the audience. An improvement would be: ‘The
future o f the internet will be decided by the needs of its customers. One
development is therefore likely to be service improvement.’ This takes out
the question, the w ord ‘hope’, which is quite personal, and the need for
‘we’, which-refers to internet customers.

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