11 Academic Style

One of the most challenging aspects of academic writing is developing a style that feels natural and comfortable for you, but that also meets typical expectations for academic work. This task is not made any easier by the fact that students typically come into college with some strong misconceptions about what academic style is – misconceptions that have been bolstered by reductive teaching practices (like “never use first person”) and bad advice from tools like Grammarly.

In reality, academic style isn’t clear-cut at all, and what exactly counts as academic writing style varies a lot depending on whom you ask. It depends on how old somebody is, what discipline they were trained in, and sometimes just their personal preferences. This chapter aims to give you a general sense of what is most common and should serve you well in many contexts. As you practice more and more, you will start to settle into a style that feels natural to you, and at the same time, develop the tools to flex that style in different directions to suit various contexts.

Density

The first and main feature of academic writing is that it’s very dense; it conveys a lot of meaning concisely. Students tend to think that academic writing is wordy because it uses a lot of big words and long sentences, and that’s not wrong. However, what makes academic writing dense is that it conveys the same amount of meaning using fewer words than you typically would to convey the same meaning in less formal writing or in speech. Therefore, on the average, academic writing is actually more concise than other forms of writing. What makes it feel so wordy is that it uses more complex sentences, often because the subject matter is complicated, and that it takes time to explain details that might go unstated in other contexts.

• Wordy: Even though it rained a lot last night, I made the decision to go ahead and take my dog for a walk in the park at my usual time.
• Not Wordy: Although it rained heavily last night, I walked my dog in the park at the usual time.

A good rule of thumb is to aim to reduce your word count by about 20 to 25 percent when you’re editing your writing. That’s painful for those of you who struggle just to reach the minimum word count, but that’s really a big part of what makes academic writing feel academic.

Precision

Similarly, academic writing necessitates precision, avoiding vagueness or overgeneralization. Some common errors students make in this regard is using phrases like “since the beginning of time” (overgeneralization) and “for many years” (vague).

Another common problem with precision that might be harder to notice initially is using the word “this” as the subject of a clause. If the word “this” is immediately followed by a verb, a noun should be inserted after “this” to clarify the referent. For example:

Imprecise: This happens because of various factors.
Precise: This phenomenon happens because of various social and economic factors.

Imprecise: This means that further research is needed.
Precise: This finding means that further research is needed.

By incorporating specific nouns after the pronoun “this,” the writing becomes more precise, and the intended referent is evident to the reader, elevating the style and making it sound more academic.

Formal Diction

You probably already know that academic writing is formal, but you might not always recognize how to make your writing seem more formal. Many students think the trick is to use a thesaurus to replace “boring” words with “fancier” words, but that often backfires. Making your diction more formal is usually easier than that!

• I see a lot of students using the words “well” and “so” used as transition words. Those are things we do in conversation all the time, but they shouldn’t make it into your edited academic writing.
• Don’t use contractions (most of the time). Attitudes about whether contractions are acceptable really vary depending on what discipline you’re in, and it will depend frankly on who your professor is and how they feel about contractions. Even though I personally think they’re fine, I expect students to practice not using them for my classes, just to get used to it.
• Rhetorical questions can also be fine, but they should never be used sarcastically or in an accusatory way. Use rhetorical questions sparingly and only to introduce a new topic or to transition into a new idea.
• Replacing two-word verb phrases with single-word alternatives is a surprisingly simple way to elevate your style. We have a lot of two-word verb phrases in English. A lot of them end with the prepositions up, down, in, out, on, or off, such as “brings up” “puts down” “gives off” etc. Change those to single word alternatives. “Brings up” can become “raises”; “puts down” can become “places”; “gives off” can become “emits.”

Informal: Well, exercise is pretty important for people’s health. It can help people lose weight, get stronger muscles, reduce stress, and improve mood. Plus, regular exercise lowers risks for diseases like heart problems and diabetes. Exercising regularly ends up making people healthier overall. What kind of person wouldn’t want that?
More Formal: Exercise is important for people’s health. It can help people lose weight, build stronger muscles, reduce stress, and improve mood. Plus, regular exercise lowers risks for heart problems and diabetes. Exercising regularly makes people healthier overall, and most people would be happy to see those benefits.

Point of View

Academic writing strives for objectivity, which generally entails maintaining distance between the writer and readers through the use of third-person pronouns (he, she, it, they, them, their). The first-person singular (I) may be permissible in certain disciplines when discussing personal experiences directly relevant to the content. For example, “I conducted fieldwork in rural Tanzania” would be acceptable. However, first-person singular is typically avoided when expressing opinions, as statements are assumed to represent the writer’s perspective unless otherwise indicated. In other words, just state your view directly and people will understand that it’s your view! Occasionally, phrases like “I think” or “I believe” may be used to explicitly signal disagreement with a previously mentioned viewpoint: “While Smith argues X, I believe Y is more accurate.”

The use of first-person plural (we, us) depends on the discipline and whether the intended audience is included in that collective pronoun. Its use is appropriate only if the writer and readers share the experiences being discussed.

The second-person pronoun (you) and imperative statements addressing the reader (e.g., “Imagine this,” “Consider the following”) should generally be avoided in academic writing. Such directives can come across as informal, instructional, or even accusatory. Removing second person from your writing is one of the quickest, easiest ways to make it sound more academic.

Second Person: If you want to learn a new language, you should immerse yourself in it as much as possible.
Third Person: If people want to learn a new language, they should immerse yourself in it as much as possible.

Explicitness

Academic writing demands explicitness, clearly articulating the connections and logical progression between ideas. You should clearly and thoroughly explain how one concept leads to the next through the effective use of transitions and various types of conjunctions. Conjunctions serve to link clauses, sentences, and concepts, guiding the reader through the logical flow of the writer’s analysis and indicate which elements are more or less important. Complex sentence structures involving subordinating conjunctions and relative clauses are frequent in academic writing.

Not Explicit: The Civil War was a significant event. Abraham Lincoln became the president, the South seceded from the nation, and the North fought the South.
Explicit: The Civil War, one of the most significant events in American history, arose from longstanding tensions between the northern and southern states. When Abraham Lincoln, who was fundamentally opposed to the expansion of slavery, was elected as the 16th president, seven southern slave states seceded from the Union, triggering the outbreak of the war.

Hedging

A common feature of academic writing is the use of hedging language to qualify claims and demonstrate the degree of certainty or limitation. Writers employ techniques such as modal verbs (e.g., may, could, can), verbs that suggest possibility (seems, suggests, tends), and the avoidance of universal statements. For instance, rather than asserting “Academic writing requires hedging,” you might state, “Academic writing tends to use hedging strategies to indicate the strength of claims.”

Excessive hedging can undermine the persuasiveness of arguments because it makes you sound wishy-washy or unwilling to commit to a point, so you want to be careful about how much you do it.

Too Much Hedging: The findings from this study may possibly suggest that there could potentially be some kind of correlation between regular physical activity and cardiovascular health.
Not Enough Hedging: The findings from this study prove that increased exercise leads to better cardiovascular health in all individuals.
Appropriate Hedging: The findings from this study suggest a positive correlation between regular physical activity and improved cardiovascular function in the study’s participant sample.

Responsibility

Lastly, academic writing takes responsibility. Academic writing provides evidence for claims and cites its sources in an accepted style. Be careful of making claims like “Studies have shown” unless you are prepared to cite some specific studies to support that assertion. You should also be careful that you don’t take for granted that commonly held beliefs are true, and write as though they are without verifying that they have indeed been researched and confirmed.

Creating Readability and Flow

Following the guidelines in this chapter’s first section will help to make your style more “academic,” but they don’t do much to make a piece pleasant or fun to read. Once you have edited your work to ensure that it follows academic conventions, you can take it to the next level by incorporating elements that will help your reader stay engaged. Many of the features described below overlap and can easily be combined.

Concrete Language

Concrete language appeals to the senses. When we read something concrete, we can picture it, or imagine how it sounds, feels, smells, or tastes. The opposite of concrete language is abstract language. These are concepts or ideas that aren’t tangible. Although academic writing often requires the use of some abstract language, it’s easy to get lost or just be bored by long strings of abstractions. Adding specifics and concrete details where possible makes the writing easier to follow and more engaging.

Abstract: The geopolitical tensions escalated into an intractable international crisis.
More Concrete: Disagreements between multiple countries over territory worsened, leading to armed conflicts that threatened many nations.

Narrative

Humans love stories. Adding occasional narratives where appropriate, such as to illustrate a point, helps keeps readers engaged. Narratives might come from real stories (your own or those gathered from research), or they can even be hypothetical scenarios or analogies. As a bonus, in addition to adding life to your writing, narratives can serve as evidence to support your claims.

No Narrative: Perseverance is essential for success in higher education because earning a college degree requires overcoming many challenges and obstacles over several years. Without the determination to persist despite hardships, the rigor and endurance required for higher learning can cause students to become overwhelmed and give up prematurely.
Narrative Added: Perseverance is essential for success in higher education because earning a college degree requires overcoming many challenges and obstacles over several years. Without the determination to persist despite hardships, the rigor and endurance required for higher learning can cause students to become overwhelmed and give up prematurely. For example, Jennifer was a college student who struggled through her freshman year, failing several classes despite studying hard. The heavy course load, pressure to succeed, and self-doubts made her want to drop out. However, Jennifer persevered, adjusting her study habits and learning how to manage her time better. By persisting through that difficult first year, she built academic stamina and a stronger drive to continue. Four years later, Jennifer proudly walked across the stage at graduation.

Sentence Variety

Sentence variety refers to variation in the lengths and types of sentences you use. Readers will become bored when too many sentences are similar, and they might also find too many long, complex sentences in a row difficult to follow.

Poor Sentence Variety: The Civil War was very important. The war started in 1861. The North and South were divided over the issue of slavery. Abraham Lincoln was the president. There were many battles. The war ended in 1865. The North was victorious.
Improved Sentence Variety: The Civil War, which started in 1861, was very important. At that time, the North and South were divided over the issue of slavery, and Abraham Lincoln was the president. After many famous battles, the war ended in 1865 with the North victorious.

Schemes and Tropes

Schemes are specific strategies for ordering words or phrases to create effects such as humor or emphasis. Tropes are types of figurative language or wordplay. There are dozens of specific types of schemes and tropes, and most of them have odd Greek or Latin names. Here are a few of the most common types used in academic writing, along with examples:

Schemes

• Parallelism – the use of similar structural patterns in words/phrases, as in “Good writing requires originality of ideas, clarity of expression, and presence of voice.” Notice how each phrase in the list is in the form of noun + “of” + noun. This use of parallelism makes the sentence more pleasing than something like, “Good writing requires originality, clarity, and presence of voice,” where the last item feels a bit out of place because it doesn’t fit the previous pattern.
• Auxesis/Climax – a type of parallelism where the parallel items show ascending importance or significance, as in “That mistake wasn’t a minor error, but a catastrophic blunder.” In this example, the two parallel phrases both are in the form of “a” + adjective + noun, but the second item is much more significant than the first, helping to emphasize just important it is.
• Antithesis – a type of parallelism where the same grammatical structure is used for contrasting ideas, as in “She was both brilliantly witty and painfully shy.” These two parallel adverb + adjective phrases express contrasting ideas, which helps to create tension and interest.
• Anaphora – repeating the same word or phrase at the beginnings of phrases or clauses, as in “They fought for freedom, they fought for their rights, and they fought for a better future.” Anaphora helps create a rhythm to the sentence and provide structure to a list of items.
• Epistrophe – repeating the same word or phrase at the ends of phrases or clauses, as in “I told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Repeating the word “truth” emphasizes its importance and makes the statement more memorable.

Tropes

• Metaphor – a comparison by way of referring to something as something else, even though they are not literally the same, as in “The light of reason must illuminate the path forward.” (Reason is not a literal light and there is not a literal path to illuminate.) Metaphor is a useful way to create vivid, concrete imagery when the concepts themselves are abstract.
• Simile – a comparison using “like” or “as,” as in “The orbits of the planets are like the cogs of an intricate clockwork.” Simile is often useful to help readers understand or visualize ideas.
• Litotes – an understatement by negating the contrary, as in “He is not unintelligent.” (We understand that the person in question is perhaps not extremely intelligent, but also not stupid.)
• Zeugma – using two different meanings of the same word/phrase in the same sentence, as in “I lost my keys and my temper.” Zeugma can create a feeling of surprise or amusement.

Using AI-Assisted Editors

You may be tempted to use Grammarly or other AI-powered editing tools to “improve” your style. However, you should be very cautious about that. While these tools can be helpful if you’re struggling to find the best way to word something, if you use them too much, they tend to create a style that is inflated, vague, repetitive, and/or filled with corporate buzzwords that don’t really belong in academic writing.

I took the following passage from a real, high-quality academic text:

The role of public research universities—particularly state flagships—in educating our population is critical to understand because of the pivotal place they hold in the ecology of American higher education. These schools bridge the elite and mass sectors of higher education (Armstrong and Hamilton 4).

Then, I asked AI to rewrite the passage so it sounded “more academic.” The following is what it produced:

The ontological significance of public research universities—particularly state flagship institutions—within the contemporary higher education ecosystem demands rigorous scholarly scrutiny. These institutions occupy a critical interstitial position, mediating between elite and mass higher education paradigms.

Some people may find the second example impressive because it uses “big words,” but it’s not good writing. It’s full of meaningless fluff that obscures rather than clarifies. Yes, some academic writing is hard to understand, but it should not be intentionally so; if the vocabulary is difficult, it should only be because the subject matter requires it to be. You are almost always better off using simpler, more direct language.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Elizabeth A., and Laura T. Hamilton. Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality. Harvard University Press, 2013.