Academic writing

Signposts in academic writing are as important as grammar and vocabulary! In western academic writing the reader is guided carefully through an argument. Nothing is a surprise when you are reading an academic text! International students who are writing at university need to be aware of signposts. Probably most students know examples of major signposts … Read more

Some more thoughts on cohesion! Cohesion is one of the most important qualities in academic writing but it is one of the hardest things to describe and explain to students many of whom try to achieve it by simply adding lots of connecting words. But this is not necessarily a good strategy because this may make … Read more

Transition signals in writing? What do you mean? Well, I was talking to a student the other day in a tutorial after he had finished a Pre-sessional Academic English Language Course. What he said to me really made me smile: “I learned a lot about academic writing. I learned that you can’t just write anything … Read more

I saw some academic writing from some students last week which wasn’t very academic! One of the things which is really important to try and get right in your writing is academic style. I wrote a page recently in which I showed a paragraph from an academic journal and I picked out features in it which … Read more