Monday, March 16, 2015

Some good advice on good writing

This I got from my advisor. Some of the best advice I on writing I ever got while writing the zillion papers that eventually became my dissertation...:)





10 Pointers for Good Academic Essay Writing

  1. A good general rule to follow in the structure of your papers is “tell them what you’re going to say, tell them, then tell them what you said”. In the introduction, provide a roadmap of what you are going to say in the paper. It will help your own organization and organizes the paper for the reader to follow your arguments along.
  2. Be explicit about your questions, thesis, perspective, and put it up front in your introduction. It’s best not to leave your reader(s) guessing what the paper is about.
  3. Provide signposts or points to your roadmap, e.g., “in this section, the following point…” or “to summarize” or “having covered the…we will now turn to…”
  4. Section titles are also good as signposts but be sure that the content of the section reflects the title of the section.
  5. Use transition sentences that build from pervious information and connects to the next.
  6. Explain terms. Don’t put them in quotes and assume the reader will know what you mean. Try very hard not to make assumptions about what the reader knows even though you know who the reader is and he/she might be an expert in your topic. The point is for you to demonstrate that you know the material.
  7. Be consistent with your bibliographic referencing style.
  8. Be careful not to over-generalize, e.g., “many theorists…” when you are only referencing one study.
  9. Don’t assume everyone sees or agrees with your perspective. You need to convince the reader of your perspective.
  10. Summarize in the conclusion, what you wrote about in the body of the paper. Tie your conclusions back to your original question…how have you proven, answered, shown, presented information that addresses it. Don’t introduce new information in the conclusion. It detracts from the cohesiveness.


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