How to correctly use abbreviations and acronyms/initialism

First, let us define the terms Abbreviation, Acronym and Initialism. According to merriam-webster.com, abbreviation is ‘a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole,’ while acronym is ‘a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major

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What are headings and why are they important?

Definition of heading A heading is a short phrase describing what the succeeding section is all about. You can think of it as the title of that particular section. Short documents usually do not require the use of headings. For theses and other complex readings, however, headings are important because they help readers identify the

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Why use styles in Microsoft Word?

Writing your thesis is taxing as it is; and formatting your thesis to make it look neat and consistent is an essential, but often tedious (and sometimes, confusing) part of the thesis-writing process. Good thing Microsoft Word has Styles—a feature that makes formatting much quicker and less complicated. But what exactly is a style? It

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50 linking words to use in academic writing

It’s very common for students to use long words they don’t understand very well in their essays and theses because they have a certain idea of what academic writing should be. Many students believe that academic writing is wordy and convoluted, and uses a lot of jargon. This leads many students to fall into a

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Top Tips for Tightening Your Academic Writing Style

Plan your Writing Good planning is an essential part of tight academic writing. Some of the benefits include: a clear idea of the purpose of each section of your document greater directness, brought on by greater confidence in your purpose in writing improved control over your word count lower risk of including extraneous information. Stick

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How to Write Your First Draft

After researching and arranging your information and topic sentence in an organised way, it is time for you to present your ideas or arguments in an essay. The most difficult process for many students is writing the first draft. How do you put all ideas into your first draft comprehensively and relevantly? Many times, you

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What is a Topic Sentence?

The body of an essay includes many paragraphs that each discuss a new topic to substantiate the essay’s thesis statement (i.e. answer the essay question). Before you start writing a paragraph, it is important to have a topic sentence to unify the paragraph’s content and to ensure the paragraph discusses the topic coherently. A topic

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How to Write an Introduction

Certainly, every essay must include an opening paragraph, and this is your introduction. It plays an important role in drawing the reader’s attention to what your essay will discuss. Writing the introduction can seem difficult because you might feel that you need to take a long time to sit and think about what initial word

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How to Find Academic Sources for Your Essay

When you first begin working on an essay, what is the first place you usually go for information? Most students are likely to go to the internet to look for sources. But, can we trust that the information we will find on the internet is of an acceptable standard? It is hard to think so.

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