5 Tips and Tricks for Upgrading Your Academic Writing

Academic writing could be seen as the foundation for all types of writing. You can’t go through school without writing an essay or some report requiring sources.
 
It usually involves responding to a question posed by another person and having to answer with your opinion backed by facts to bolster your response. However, because academic writing tends to be very rigid, it can be challenging to incorporate flair while maintaining a particular voice.
 
However, there are a few tricks to help you upgrade your academic writing. Take a look at them below.

1. Manage Your Time Efficiently
Raise your hand if you’ve ever waited until the last minute to submit an assignment (don’t be ashamed). It’s a prominent occurrence in academic writing.
 
You feel like your best work comes when the pressure is on. However, although you’ve gotten away with it in the past, it might not bode well for higher education like a master's degree or Ph.D.
 
Writing an excellent academic paper requires you to use your time wisely. To do so, you’ll need to:

 
With adequate time management, you won’t have to worry about figuring out how to answer a complex question. You also won’t need to worry about the different ways you can hit the word count. With the help of the Word Counter and your notes, you’ll have a well-structured essay that meets all the requirements.


2. Read, Read, Read
Throughout your academic career, you’ll often hear people say that reading is fundamental to having a solid essay. Besides the fact that you’ll enhance your reading speed, vocabulary, and overall knowledge, it can also benefit your writing by:

 
Although academic writing follows a specific structure, there’s no limit to the tools you can add to your repertoire to enhance your skills.

3. Differentiate Your Sentence Structure
Yes, academic writing can sound robotic at times. But what you want to avoid is a paper with a monotonous tone all the way through. For example, if you were writing about the distance between the Sun and the Moon, this is how you don’t want your sentences to look:
 
“The Sun is far from the Moon. It will take you 30 billion light-years to get there. You will need a large supply of oxygen.”
 
As you can see, those sentences sound boring and won’t entice the reader to continue reading, even if the topic is engaging. Instead, here’s an example of what you could say to add a bit more flair to your essay:
 
“The Sun is approximately 30 billion light-years from the Moon, meaning you’ll need a large oxygen supply for the journey. However, since you’re in for the long haul, space debris might also be an issue.”
 
For the second example, the sentences were combined into one thought, and you were able to expand on it a bit further by talking about space debris. The additional details give the sentences more fluidity and make them easier for readers to enjoy.
 
Now that’s not saying that you should avoid short, choppy phrases all the time. But limit them where possible to make your writing more appealing.
 
4. Use An Active Voice
A critique you may have heard about your writing in the past is that most sentences are in passive voice. Do you know what that looks like? If not, here’s an example:
 
“Brenda was helped by the professor.”
 
It’s seen as a bad writing habit because it can make your writing seem weaker and dull. Instead, you should use an active voice to help it stand out. This is what it would look like:
 
“The professor helped Brenda.”
 
As you can see, an active voice makes the sentence more concise. While passive voice can be helpful sometimes, it would be better to use an active voice writing style to keep your reader engaged for the duration of the essay.

5. Proofread and Edit Thoroughly
Editing and proofreading can be quite the task because you’re reading over your work and looking for errors and potential changes. However, these suggestions can help your editing process: