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 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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Ten Ways to Improve Your Grades

  It is possible to improve your grades by self-editing your essay or assignment before you hand it in. Many students fail to look over their work once they have completed it, or they do not know what to look for. This means that students are handing in work that contains spelling mistakes, grammatical errors,

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How to Analyse an Essay Question

In order to write an essay that answers the essay question effectively, you first must be able to analyse the essay question. Firstly, you should know the kind of essay you are expected to write. There are two main types of essays: explanatory essays and argumentative essays. An explanatory essay, as its name implies, is

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How to Paraphrase

  Paraphrasing is a very useful skill in academic writing. It allows you to present the ideas of researchers and academics in your essay or paper in your own words and writing style, while providing a reference for where you found the information. However, if you don’t master the skill correctly, you might be accused

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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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