Download Writing Workshop June 2012 - eGRS

JCU Graduate Research School
Writing Workshop for TTH staff
15 June 2012
[Slide 1] It is my great pleasure to join you today for this writing workshop. My
aim is to provide some basic principles and guidelines as well as practical tips for
facing the challenges of academic writing. I would like to begin by providing some
generic guidance on academic writing in this first session titled The Principles of
Academic Writing. In this, I would like to begin focusing your attention on what
academic writing is for and how its aims may be achieved. After a break, we will
then examine some ideas concerning Academic Writing in Practice. The idea here is
to present some new ways for you to approach your own writing practice armed with
some strategies for maximising your research material. After lunch I would like to
focus particularly on writing for academic journals and will ask you to put into
practice some of the principles and tips we discuss this morning by preparing a
paragraph or two of your own research writing. We will then have a general
discussion but the overall academic writing process.
[Slide 2] I would like to begin with a quote from the American writer Gloria
Steinem: “I do not like to write - I like to have written.” The writing process,
even for people who do it for a living, can seem arduous. Even that great and
prolific writer George Orwell described writing as “a horrible, exhausting struggle,
like a long bout of some painful illness.” Certainly the blank page or blank screen
can provoke anxiety. Strategies and basic skills do help you get over these empty
moments. Overcoming them and becoming confident writers is crucial to work as
researchers.
[Slide 3] Let’s step back for a moment to consider what academic writing actually is.
Perhaps this can best be summed up by saying that a scientist or academic must not
just “do” science, they must write science as well. Few other professions require
1
that every stage of one’s work be so meticulously documented and argued. This is,
of course, to fulfil the requirements of the scientific method, which is essentially a
way humans have devised to apply some rigour and objectivity to the pursuit of
scientific knowledge. This method may be imperfect but it is the best system we
have to avoid fooling ourselves. And the only way the system can work is if the
form of scientific communication used works to ensure smooth transfer of the
information. Scientific writing that is opaque, convoluted, ambiguous, poorly
argued and filled with inaccurate or technically incorrect usage will interfere with
the transfer of knowledge. It stands to reason, then, that writing research is not
only science-based, it is language-based. Writing can therefore cause some angst,
particularly those new to academic publishing and who perhaps have been drawn to
their field of expertise for reasons other than a burning desire to be a professional
writer.
[Slide 4] Bad writing can and does slow down or prevent the publication of good
research. Researchers can gather excellent data but unless that it can be turned into
good (or at least serviceable) writing, its importance can be lost. [Slide 5] But as
Charles Darwin said, “a naturalist’s life would be a happy one if he only had to
observe and never to write.” So much of the research apprenticeship that is the
PhD process is committed to designing experiments and gathering and analysing
data to find out facts about the topics that most capture your interest, but not enough
to expressing the outcomes of that data. My observations suggest that the “writeup” is often left to the end of the process, whereupon the hapless scholar races
against the clock to carry out the unnatural process of writing a whole book with few
of the skills or aptitudes that authors of books normally possess. Upon completion
of the PhD, regular publication becomes essential for all who choose the academic
path, even though the production of the PhD did not necessarily impart foundational
writing skills. Some principles will help to cut a path through this. These principles
2
should be viewed against the backdrop of a reasonable working definition of
scientific publication. Various definitions exist, but let’s just use this one:
[Slide 6] “An acceptable primary scientific publication must be the first disclosure
containing sufficient information to enable peers (1) to assess observations, (2) to repeat
experiments, and (3) to evaluate intellectual processes; moreover, it must be susceptible to
sensory perception, essentially permanent, available to the scientific community without
restriction, and available for regular screening by one or more of the major recognized
secondary services [such as Biological Abstracts, Chemical Abstracts etc].”
You will see that this definition reinforces the idea that data itself is not enough –
that language must be used to ensure proper transmission of ideas. Disclosing your
results must be in a form whereby other scientists or scholars, either now or in the
future, will be able to fully comprehend and use what you have found. And there is
the key to understanding academic writing – it must be durable, correctly positioned
within your discipline and describe activities that are able to be replicated. While I
do agree that the rigour implied by these ideas around scientific communication are
less to do with literary skill than with straightforward and organised presentation of
a persuasive, data-backed and prosaic argument, you would do well to consider
some of the basic skills of effective writing to maximise the durability and power of
your writing. I will run through a few of these ideas now.
[Slide 7] My guiding principle in teaching academic writing is always the need for
clarity. This principle has a number of consequences. First and most importantly,
clarity relies upon a robust – indeed, ingrained – understanding of the rules and
conventions of good English expression. Ideally academic writers do need to know
the basics of traditional grammar. If you know how to write a clear, grammatical
and well-punctuated sentence, chances are you can transmit your original thinking to
the audience without confusion. Every single sentence you write carries the
possibility both of clear communication and of serious misunderstanding. There
is no let-up in a piece of writing. Therefore I advocate not only strong writing skills
3
but strong editing skills as well. Editing in essence is holding each word, phrase,
clause, sentence and paragraph to the flame. Each of these elements must,
individually and collectively, pass the test of clarity.
[Slide 8] Another consequence of the iron rule of clarity is that you have to be
exactly clear in your head what you want to say, and the best way to ensure this
inner understanding is to begin writing earlier rather than later in the process. The
reason for this is simply that writing is part of thinking. Drafting and redrafting
deepens understanding. Clarity comes from moving words around both in your head
and on the page. [Slide 9] Yet another consequence of adopting clarity as a guiding
principle is that you have to question lazy but pervasive habits, such as overuse of
jargon and hackneyed expressions, in your work. Nothing wakes a reader up faster
than encountering fresh expression. New ideas demand fresh writing, and fresh
writing aids clarity.
[Slide 10] Here are a few real examples of sentences from academic papers. These
sentences are ungrammatical and therefore fail the most basic tests of academic
clarity. You will see that they are also quite ridiculous:
“A large mass of literature has accumulated on the cell walls of staphylococci.”
“The resulting disease has been described in detail in salmon.”
“This book includes discussion of shock and renal failure in separate chapters.”
“[Professor Colin Woolf] presented evidence that women who smoke are likely to have
pulmonary abnormalities and impaired lung function at the annual meeting of the
American Lung Association.”
(Examples from Robert A Day, How to Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, fifth edition, Oryx Press, Westport, 1998, p. 203.)
Before considering how to ensure that you don’t commit such solecisms in your own
work, I want to instil a primary principle: the reader-centred approach. [Slide 11]
To write a good paper, you need to think about what the reader needs to know. The
readers will be the editorial staff of the journal plus the peer reviewers, and
ultimately the journal’s audience. You must detach yourself from your work and
4
empathise with the all of these readers – indeed, I think it helps to imagine one
individual and write for that person. Your job as the writer is to make the meaning
clear. The reader’s job is not to interpret the meaning. Making people do work that
they weren’t expecting to have to do will not endear you to them. All writing,
whether academic or otherwise, must consider the reader as the most important
person in this communication transaction. Keep in mind the quote from the great
English dictionary writer Samuel Johnson: “What is written without effort is in
general read without pleasure.” Take pains with your writing.
What academic readers want [slide 12]
 A clear summary at the beginning (the abstract)
 An introduction and conclusion to match
 Clear definitions of terms
 Clearly presented evidence and reasoning
 Concise writing
 Concrete, not abstract, writing
 No jargon, circumlocution, tautology or clichés
 Good use of English: grammar, spelling, punctuation and style
[Slide 13] I would like to move now to a brief section on a key principle of
academic and scientific writing, critical thinking. I will start with a thought:
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it.” Aristotle, Ancient Greek philosopher.
[Slide 14] Critical thinking is fundamental to academic writing because it essential
for the analysis of texts and data, and also underpins all effective writing. There is
really nothing to separate critical thinking and critical writing, certainly in this
context. Good writing is presented in a logical way so that the reader can follow the
arguments and the reasoning of the writer. Journal articles must be well argued, and
5
critical writing is one way to ensure that the reader can easily see the analytical
skills of the writer. Good writing needs good thinking; and good thinking is
developed and made explicit through writing. The two, writing and thinking, are
intimately related.
[Slide 15] Here’s a concise quote by the prominent American academic of
philosophy and critical thinking, John Chaffee. He defines critical thinking as: “An
active, purposeful, organised cognitive process we use to carefully examine our
thinking and the thinking of others, in order to clarify and improve our
understanding.” (From Thinking Critically.)
[Slide 16] Critical thinking includes such “higher-order” thinking tasks as reasoning,
problem-solving, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The skills or tasks involved in
critical thinking will vary, but may include:

Developing a logical argument;

Identifying the flaws or weaknesses in an argument;

Making relevant connections or links across disciplines, or from theory to practice;

Analysing the material in a range of sources and synthesising it; and

Applying theory to particular cases
[Slide 17] An academic argument is frequently distinguished by being expansive
enough to embrace counter-arguments, so that your work acknowledges and
attempts to deal with arguments and assertions that run contrary to yours. Academic
arguments are constructed rationally and systematically to persuade, and therefore
are not made up simply of strings of facts or data – or of just assertions of opinion.
An academic argument uses specific, well explained and carefully chosen evidence
to support its claims; it rarely uses generalisations. While you may use as a starting
point a personal opinion, this will not be enough to sustain an academic argument.
6
[Slide 18] We are thinking critically when we are:
 being precise, meticulous, comprehensive and exhaustive;
 resisting manipulation and irrational appeals, and
 avoiding snap judgments.
[Slide 19] To examine what exactly arguments are, I would like to paraphrase from
the University of Colorado’s summary of academic arguments. These elements are
common to all academic arguments:

The claim must be arguable: A disagreement or a number of legitimate points of view
must exist regarding the claim you are making, or there must be significant gaps in
understanding about it.

The argument must be rational: An argument must be based in fact not emotion. The
claim must be meticulously considered, the evidence thoroughly researched and
carefully selected; the audience/readership correctly assessed.

The logic must be cohesive: A claim must be argued in a linear, step-by-step fashion,
with transitions revealing the logic that ties one point to the next. If a minor point doesn't
add to the main point, it doesn't belong.

Credit must be given where it is due: All outside sources must be documented (e.g.,
footnotes, endnotes, and in-text citations) using a citation format approved by the
academic discipline into which the argument falls.
Syllogisms
[Slide 20] To break arguments down to their fundamentals, consider the concept of
syllogisms. An argument (a conclusion with supporting evidence/premises) may be
more readily understood when placed into the syllogism framework. Syllogisms, a
form of deductive reasoning dating back to ancient times, are not without their
problems, but they are still helpful for understanding arguments and even for
identifying false arguments. In effect, syllogisms draw logical links between
general and specific facts about the world to reach a rational consequence, known as
a conclusion.
7
[Slide 21] Premise 1: All plants in which sap solidifies at the joint between leaf and stem in
autumn are deciduous.
Premise 2: All oak trees have sap that solidifies at the joint between leaf and stem in
autumn.
Conclusion: Therefore, all oak trees are deciduous.
[Slide 22] You will see that syllogisms tend to depend on a universal statement as
the first premise, then a specific example as the second premise, with the conclusion
flowing as a logical consequence from the interaction between these two elements.
[Slide 23] A good argument has reasons (premises or evidence) to support its
conclusion. This is really what a clearly written academic paragraph contains – the
recommended structure of a theme sentence and supporting evidence is an inversion
of the syllogistic framework, with the conclusion placed at the beginning for the
convenience and ready reference of the reader. We will look in more detail at the
structure of an academic paragraph a little later, but for now begin thinking about it
in terms of a unit of argument rather than a random collation of sentences.
[Slide 24] Just because an argument appears to be in a valid syllogistic form, it does
not mean that it is a valid argument. But when we use a syllogistic form, we can
more easily see where the argument has gone wrong, as the philosopher Immanuel
Kant suggested:
Premise:
All birds fly
Premise:
The emu is a bird
Conclusion: Therefore emus fly.
[Slide 25] To find the syllogistic form of an argument that you are either making or
assessing, ask these questions:

What is the main point – the conclusion?

Where are the premises/reasons/evidence to support that point?
[Slide 26] Distinctions between an assertion and an argument
8
To persuade your reader of the logic of your argument, show the reader your
reasoning processes by providing an argument, not just an assertion. An assertion is
a truth claim and may indeed be perfectly factual, but it carries the same weight as
an opinion until it is turned into an argument with the addition of evidence. For
example [slide 27]:
Assertion
Between 1945 and 1980, the Australian Senate prevented the Labor Party from governing effectively
by persistently failing to pass important legislation.
Supported Statement
Between 1945 and 1980, the Australian Senate prevented the Labor Party from governing effectively
by persistently failing to pass important legislation (Brown, 28; Smith 36-6).
Argument
Between 1945 and 1980, the Australian Senate prevented the Labor Party from governing effectively
by persistently failing to pass important legislation. For instance, in 1974 the Senate blocked 80
pieces of important legislation (Smith, 23). Brown’s analysis of Senate voting between 1950 and
1980 showed that the Senate blocked 850 Labor bills but only five of the non-Labor party bills (41).
The final paragraph allows the reader to see how the writer has argued, on what
basis the writer has drawn the conclusion, and also provides the reader with some
“meat”, something substantial and concrete to keep in mind. If readers do not have
this sort of substance, they cannot form pictures in the mind, and follow the
argument.
Opinions
[Slide 28] Opinions are not arguments, and in fact they are often not even assertions.
They are statements of belief, without supporting evidence.
For instance:

Pride and Prejudice is a great piece of literature.

Coral reefs are valuable ecosystems.

Business has a responsibility only to its shareholders.
9
These opinions may form part of an argument, if evidence and reasoning is supplied.
Check that there is always evidence for your opinions. Many alleged arguments are,
in fact, just the exchange of opinions: two people talking about a topic, but not
actually refuting each other. [Slide 29] Refuting an argument in academia is of
course different and more rigorous than refuting an argument in everyday life.
Refuting involves engaging with the premises of an argument; it does not mean
rejecting it. You must show the reasons why the premises are false, or why the
premises in the argument cannot support the conclusion. In academic writing and
reading, always look to see what the whole argument is, and how it is formed. Do
not argue just with the conclusion, but show how the conclusion is invalid.
Keeping the argument in plain view
[Slide 30] One of the problems with academic writing is that writers do not state
clearly the inferences in their arguments. The writer may wrongly assume that the
reader will follow the logic. Providing the logical pathway for the reader is your job.
Some arguments are not convincing or persuasive because the full argument is not
on the page. The reader has to guess at the conclusion (an implied conclusion) or
the premises (implied premise). The reader should never have to guess what the
writer intended. Here is a well-known example of implied premises.
Implied premises [Slide 31]
This is also known as “enthymeme”. An enthymeme is a syllogism with an unstated
assumption that must be true for the premises to lead to the conclusion. In an
enthymeme, part of the argument is missing because it is assumed or implied. For
example, Mark Twain is credited with an enthymeme. He said:
“There is no law against composing music when one has no ideas whatsoever.
The music of Wagner, therefore, is perfectly legal.”
This witty syllogism has three parts:

There is no law against composing music when one has no ideas whatsoever. Premise

The music of Wagner, therefore, is perfectly legal. Conclusion
10

Wagner has no ideas. Implied premise
In making his argument against the music of Wagner, Twain has inserted an implied
premise that must be correct for the syllogism to be valid. There are many other
examples where premises are assumed but not stated. Sometimes they are
deliberately concealed but other times assumptions are just made that the receiver of
the information will fill in the blanks. In academic writing, the premises of one’s
argument always need to be spelled out.
Hidden assumptions
[Slide 32] For example, consider this famously wrong comment by Lord Kelvin, the
Scottish mathematician and physicist (1924 to 1907) after whom the unit of
temperature is named: “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All
that remains is more and more precise measurement.” Consider some of the hidden
assumptions in Kelvin’s comment [slide 33].
 That all the laws of physics are capable of being finalised/concluded;
 That by 1900 human knowledge of the laws of physics had reached this point;
 That entities smaller than electrons, protons and neutrons did not exist;
 That Newtonian physics was the only basis for all physics understanding;
 That he (Lord Kelvin) was aware of all possible physics laws.
What other hidden assumptions can you think of?
Until the hidden assumptions are made explicit, the statement cannot be refuted (or
indeed supported). It can be rejected, but not refuted. In this example, if Lord
Kelvin had had a brief conversation with Albert Einstein some of these assumptions
might well have been overturned. Also, an examination of the history of physics
would show an ongoing process of development and refinement of physical laws.
As Newton himself had said, if he was capable of seeing further than others it was
11
only because he stood on the shoulders of giants. This implies that physics builds
through successive approximations and this is a constant process. One wonders how
Kelvin felt in 1905 when a little paper by a German physicist came out with the
amazing one-liner E=mc2.
Check for hidden assumptions [Slide 34]
 Are there reasons/facts/evidence to support each claim?
 Does the piece of writing depend upon emotive words or is the language neutral?
Checklist for good arguments [Slide 35]
1. Are the reasons adequate to support the conclusion?
2. Are there any hidden assumptions in this argument?
3. Are any central words ambiguous or slanted to incite prejudice?
4. Are there fallacies in the reasoning?
5. Is any important information or evidence omitted?
6. Is any information false, contradictory, irrelevant or irreconcilable?
[Slide 36] Grammar. Good arguments must always be accompanied by technically
correct expression if they are to have sufficient authority. Poor grammar tends to
cast doubts upon one’s other abilities. I would now like to show you some
principles of grammar and punctuation. I will not linger too long, but as I have
mentioned, good English usage is essential for good research writing. Skilful
writing is grammatical writing, but you can’t be fully in control of your writing
without understanding the basic logic and technicalities of language.
[Slide 37] Traditional grammar identifies eight parts of speech: noun, adjective, verb,
adverb, preposition, pronoun, conjunction and interjection [like hmmm, oh];
together with their equivalents: adjectival phrase, adverbial clause, etc. Each of
these parts has a conceptually different role to play, even if some individual words
12
can move between roles. There is some flow between the content words –
essentially some nouns can become verbs and vice versa, adjectives can morph into
adverbs, nouns are used as adjectives and so on. Even when the words cross over to
new roles, they must still behave in the accepted ways for nouns, verbs and so on to
behave.
[Slide 38] Traditional grammar also specifies two “numbers”: singular and plural;
five “cases”: of which the most important for our purposes are subject (nominative),
object (accusative) and possessive (genitive); three “persons”: first, second and
third; two “voices”: active and passive; and either four or five “moods” (depending
on how you define them): indicative (or declarative), subjunctive (or optative),
imperative, interrogative and infinitive. In academic writing the most useful mood
is the indicative or declarative sentence – the sentence that sets out factual
information, so that will be the main focus.
[Slide 39] English verbs have 15 “tenses”. The large number of available verbal
tenses is important in ensuring that nuanced action can be reported in sentences. For
our purposes today, it is enough to understand the basics of past, present and future.
[Slide 40] All the cases relate to nouns and their relative position in a sentence.
When a noun is in the nominative case it is the subject of the sentence. This is also
known as the grammatical topic of the sentence. Knowing this is helpful in
constructing informative sentences, because placing the grammatical subject at the
start of a sentence ensures the most efficient delivery system for written information
in English. Sentences exist to show the interrelationship of nouns, what those nouns
do and what happens to those nouns. Highlighting the dominant noun in the
sentence by placing it first helps in this process. Your sentences, therefore, should
begin with strong key words and not strings of dead words. If you rejig a sentence
13
to place the grammatical subject up front, sometimes you can eliminate half the
comprehension problems in an instant.
[Slide 41] Nouns have an associate that can carry some of their workload - pronouns.
These are words such as “I”, “we”, “it”, “him”, “her”, “their”, “this” and many
others. Pronouns are useful for making the language flow more smoothly. When
you use a pronoun, the noun to which it refers is known as its antecedent. [Slide 42]
Problems arise when pronouns float around without an obvious antecedent, which is
why – particularly in academic writing – it may be unwise to use them to start a
sentence. A floating pronoun can cause real problems for the reader, who may
either have to do extra work to figure out the pronoun antecedent, or may make an
incorrect judgement on the antecedent. Consider this example:
The rise in the dollar has been marked by reduced exports in the cattle industry. This
has worried some economists.
Does this say that the rise in the dollar or the reduced exports have worried
economists? As writer or editor, you must not hand important decisions like this
over to the possibly distracted reader.
[Slide 43] Continuing now with the parts of speech we come to the verb. Whereas
the concept of “case” relates to nouns, the concept of “tense” relates to verbs. The
verb, and specifically through a particular kind called a finite verb, lets you know
whether the action is taking place in the past, present or future. Sentences can only
be animated by finite verbs. No English sentence, at least in three of the four moods,
can properly exist without at least one noun and one verb, in direct relationship to
each other.
[Slide 44] Simple finite verbs may be in the past, present or future tense. For
example, consider:
14

wrote [past]

writes [present]

will write [future]
Verbs take different forms depending on their function in the sentence and the
subtleties of meaning they are supposed to convey. That is why there are so many
tenses, including some less familiar ones:

he had written [past perfect]

he is writing [present continuous]

he will be writing [future continuous]
[Slide 45] One of the most common self-editing tasks you will face will be making
the tenses of a piece of writing consistent. Changing tenses randomly through a
piece of writing is annoying for the reader and may be outright confusing.
Sometimes tenses can change several times within one sentence. This is where you
must be strict and have a firm of idea of what the dominant tense in the piece of
writing should be. Some academic papers are all in the past tense, some are in the
present and some dabble in the future tense (for example, this paper will examine,
will analyse, will find). As a general rule, keeping to either the past or the present,
and being consistent, is a good plan. Steer clear of the future tense.
[Slide 46] The classical declarative sentence construction in English is the “subjectverb-object” sentence, often shortened to SVO. An example might be: “Annette
writes the paper.” In this form, the verb connects the topic of sentence, Annette, to
the thing being acted upon, the object, also known as the predicate, or the comment,
or (in classical terms) the “accusative case”. In this sentence, the object is “the
paper”.
15
[Slide 47] The SVO sentence is the essential information delivery system in English.
The logical simplicity of the SVO sentence assists both writers and editors.
Understanding the dynamics of this sentence structure will help you simplify prose
and give it greater explanatory power. The basic SVO construction provides a
simple sentence that fulfils the requirements of sentences in English, to convey
meaning via a linear progression. Most sentences in reality are more complex than
this, and I will deal with complex and compound sentences in a moment, but they
still have this underlying structure.
[Slide 48] To be correct, sentences have to be powered by the right verb. In the
SVO formulation, only what is known as a “finite verb” is correct. In our SVO
example, the finite verb is “writes”. This particular kind of verb is recognisable by
the fact that it can be changed to indicate past, present or future tense: wrote, writes,
will write. [Slide 49] A common error is attempting to use the word “being” as the
driving force of the sentence. This construction, clearly a sentence that follows and
refers back to earlier information, is wrong [please do not consider the truth or
otherwise of the content – just consider the grammar]:
This being the ideal environment for coral.
[Slide 50] This is not a complete sentence because the verb is wrong. The verb that
has been used here is “being”, which will not be able to create an SVO sentence.
This string of words does not have a finite verb to power it and it can only be
grammatical if it is part of a bigger sentence:
The seawater around the reef is pristine, this being the ideal environment for coral.
The operating verb in this construction is now the word “is”, a suitable finite verb.
In this case you could quite comfortably say “was” for past tense or even “will be”
for future tense and the sentence will still hold. You cannot do this with the word
“being”. [Slide 51] Another way to fix this sentence would be to change the verb to
something suitable. This may lead to a new sentence such as:
16
This is the ideal environment for coral.
Even better, considering the need to emphasise the grammatical subject, to avoid a
floating pronoun and to perhaps provide the extra information that the longer
sentence offers, would be:
Coral grows best in pristine seawater.
More complicated sentences
[Slide 52] While the simple SVO construction is useful and often very powerful,
there are other ways to construct sentences, including using a grammatically more
complicated structure that has more than one clause. A clause is a group of words
containing a subject and verb that forms part of a sentence; it is joined with another
clause or clauses to form the complete sentence. Without getting too technical,
these kinds of sentences are known either as complex sentences (a main clause and
attached sub-ordinate clause/s) or compound sentences (containing clauses of equal
grammatical status). I generally recommend limiting your sentences to no more
than two or three clauses. If you find your sentence has six clauses, you really will
have to restructure it.
[Slide 53] Here is an example of a complex sentence containing a main clause and a
subordinate clause. Note that subordinate clauses are joined to the main clause
either by a conjunction or, in certain cases, by a semi-colon [again, disregard the
meaning of the sentence and concentrate on the grammar]:
“The Prime Minister yesterday announced a sweeping review of the 1992 Broadcasting
Act, though it was unlikely to reform the sector.”
Here the conjunction is the word “though”. There are many other kinds of
conjunctions. [Slide 54] The most common, which often though not always joins
clauses of equal status (co-ordinating clauses) is “and”, followed by “but” and “or”.
Consider this sentence:
17
“The Prime Minister yesterday announced a sweeping review of the 1992 Broadcasting Act
and the Communications Minister established an enquiry into the commercial radio
sector.”
In this case both clauses can stand alone grammatically, once you remove the “and”.
This can’t happen with the subordinate clause, earlier, where the second clause was
dependent on the first.
Subject-verb agreement
[Slide 55] The subject of a sentence must “agree” with the finite verb of the
sentence; if the subject is singular then the verb must be singular too. If it is plural,
then the verb must be plural. This means that we write:
The lawyer discusses her strategy.
…and not:
The lawyer discuss her strategy.
Most people with a reasonable grasp of English will have no problem understanding
SV agreement here. But what happens when the sentence is a little less clear-cut?
Consider these sentences [slide 56]:
The bittersweet flavour of youth – its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges – are not
soon forgotten.
OR
The bittersweet flavour of youth – its trials, its joys, its adventures, its challenges – is not
soon forgotten.
The correct sentence here has to be the second example, even if it doesn’t
immediately seem right. Words that intervene between subject and verb do not
affect the number (i.e. singular or plural) of the verb.
Active and passive voice
18
[Slide 57] In English, unlike various other languages, word order is crucial. It is not
okay to say “Annette the paper writes”. But there is another way to convey the
message in a different word order. “Annette writes the paper” is in active voice,
because it follows the SVO construction. But you can also say “The paper is written
by Annette”, and suddenly what was the object now starts the sentence instead of
appearing at the end, thus making this part of the sentence more prominent. It has
swapped positions and the subject (Annette) is now called the agent – “by Annette”.
Note also that the verb has undergone a change. You must add in a new word, in
this case “is”, to preserve the original meaning. The original verb also changes,
from writes to written.
[Slide 58] You will often hear people saying you should not use passive voice, and
some are quite dogmatic about it. One reason for this is because this voice always
guarantees a more wordy sentence: passive voice verbs are always at least two
words. But you can’t always avoid passive voice. This form of sentence may be
necessary, for example, if the active subject is unknown or not easily stated. This
lack of available information might lead to a sentence like “Walter’s father was
killed in the Second World War”, which is in the passive form and where we don’t
know who or what actually killed Walter’s father. In this case, there can be no
“agent” because we don’t have enough information to be able to say who carried out
the action of the sentence.
[Slide 59] Sometimes, even when the “agent” is known, it is not stated. Passive
voice is often used to distance the writer from the reader and from responsibility for
the action in the sentence, to lend the appearance of objectivity. This is why
academic journal articles, government papers and other official documents are filled
with sentences in the passive voice. Consider for example the passive voice
sentence:
“The hospital beds have been shut down.”
19
Again, there is no agent in this sentence, which has the effect of holding no-one
responsible for the action. It may well be that the sentence could correctly be
rendered as:
“The hospital beds have been shut down by the Health Department.”
…in which case it could be rewritten in active voice as:
“The Health Department shut down the hospital beds.”
I suggest being sparing with the passive voice, because it can remove responsibility
for actions as well as being difficult or confusing to read. You can't always
eliminate it but you can minimise it, or at least have a healthy combination of active
and passive in the final piece of writing.
[Slide 60] You can usually tell if a sentence is in the passive voice if, firstly, it has a
compound verb like “was written” and also if the word “by” is used to indicate the
passive agent. Note, however, that in those sentences where the subject is not
known (like “Walter’s father was killed in the Second World War”) or where the
agent is being concealed (“The hospital beds have been shut down.”), there is no
agent indicated and therefore no use of the word “by”.
Passive voice comes in several varieties, and so far I have just mentioned the form
most people would associate with the term. I want to draw your attention to a
particular variety that should always be edited out when you find it. The distorted
passive occurs when the true verb – the word that actually indicates the action of the
sentence – is hidden in a form of noun. [Slide 61]
1. Acid etching removed the rust.
Active voice - acceptable
2. The rust was removed by acid etching.
Passive voice- acceptable
3. Removal of the rust was facilitated by acid-etching.
DP - unacceptable
The problem with sentence 3 is that the real verb that shows the action (remove) is
lost in a weak noun (removal), and so another verb must be supplied to activate the
20
sentence. The various suggestions for filling in this gap are invariably the same
tired, weak verbs: in this example, facilitated, but you can also imagine achieved,
accomplished, carried out, performed, undertaken, effected. None of these tell the
reader what precisely was done. Only the precise verb, to remove, tells the reader
what happened. “Removal was facilitated” sounds pompous, and is inevitably more
wordy.
Rewriting Distorted Passive [Slide 62]:

Check for a weak verb such as facilitated, undertaken etc.

Find the hidden verb earlier in the sentence (in the sentence above it was “remove” from
the noun removal).

Use this hidden verb as a direct verb in the sentence.
I would now like to turn to some aspects of punctuation, specifically apostrophes,
commas, semi-colons, colons and inverted commas. The rules for the use of
apostrophes are simple and straightforward. [Slide 63] Apostrophes are used:
To indicate contraction: “It’s [It is] a pity that people don’t [do not] care about
apostrophes.”
To show possession (in nouns, not pronouns): “The editor’s lament” for singular; “The
editors’ lament” for plural.
The most common pair of errors is to leave out an apostrophe where it is needed but
put one in where it isn’t. [Slide 64] For example, the famous greengrocers’
apostrophe leads to this kind of thing:
Apple’s, pear’s, avocado’s
[Slide 65] The iron rule, easy to remember, is that simple plurals never need an
apostrophe. You need to look at a word and see whether it is a contraction or a
possessive and then apply the apostrophe accordingly. If the word is neither of these
things, do not use an apostrophe.
21
[Slide 66] Also common is leaving out apostrophes when they are clearly needed,
such as:
The prawns whiskers
The projects results
The managers decisions.
They must be edited to the correct versions:
The prawn’s whiskers/The prawns’ whiskers
The project’s results/The projects’ results
The manager’s decisions/The managers’ decisions
Note that in their original, unpunctuated, form it is not always possible to determine
whether what is being referred to is singular or plural. Correctly applied
apostrophes will tell you.
[Slide 67] Modern Australian style dictates that you do not use an apostrophe in, for
example, the 1970s or to show the plural of acronyms such as QCs or MPs. A lower
case “s” is sufficient and I think this is a good thing – it keeps it simple and elegant.
[Slide 68] Possessive pronouns such as its, his, hers, ours, theirs, yours have a
different rule to nouns. These words never have an apostrophe. They exist as words
only to show possession, and no further symbol is needed for this function.
Consider for example “The cat chased its tail” in which the possessive pronoun “its”
does not require an apostrophe. When you see the word “its” ask yourself if it is a
contraction, in which case it must have an apostrophe, or whether it is simply
possessive, in which case there is no apostrophe.
Commas [Slide 69]
Confusion over commas is more understandable than confusion over apostrophes.
The rules for apostrophes are clear-cut, but the rules for commas are not. Commas
are used to separate ideas in a sentence and to otherwise make meaning clear. They
22
are intended to provide natural pauses within a sentence, to regulate the rhythm of
the sentence in ways that assist meaning.
[Slide 70] The trend in standard Australian English is to cut down on the use of
commas where possible. That’s fine to a certain extent, but you must keep in mind
that commas can change the meaning of a sentence:
The politicians, who liked to talk, were appointed to the committee.
The politicians who liked to talk were appointed to the committee.
Here are some rules that may help comma use [slide 71]:
1. To avoid ambiguity:
“When the father finished washing, the children went to the beach.” Without a
comma here, ambiguity may arise over joining “washing” and “the children”
together.
2. Between adjectives before a noun:
A large, black van.
Note that the use of commas here is only when the adjectives modify the noun separately. If the modifying
adjectives are working more closely together, such as “The grand old duke of York”, a comma is not
required.
3. In a list to separate the elements:
The basic stages of writing an article are: outlining, researching, drafting, checking
and confirming facts, redrafting and editing.
4. To distinguish parenthetical words and phrases:
My view, therefore, is that editors should always be consistent.
[Slide 72] Pay special attention to the point about parenthetical words and phrases.
Commas must always be used in pairs in this case. You cannot open such a phrase
with a comma and not close it. In the sentence “My view, therefore, is that editors
should always be consistent”, to not place the second comma after the word
“therefore” would be grammatically incorrect. [Slide 73] An easy way to determine
23
if you need a pair of commas is to see if the word or phrase could be taken out
without damaging the grammatical integrity of the sentence. If it can be taken out,
then you must use two commas.
[Slide 73] No stray comma between subject and verb
I would like to make a strong declaration of where you don’t use a comma. You
must not let a comma stand between a grammatical subject and its verb. I will come
to a complicating factor in this in a moment, but let me show you the general
principle first:
“A grammatical subject links strongly to its verb.”
Do not write:
“A grammatical subject, links strongly to its verb.”
[Slide 74] The complication comes in when you are inserting a descriptive phrase:
“The woman, who was increasingly impatient, waited in line.”
You will see that the grammatical subject, “the woman” does have a comma after it,
and it takes a while to get to the verb, “waited”. The key point here is that the
commas enclose a parenthetical phrase that could be taken out, commas and all,
without disrupting the grammar of the sentence.
[Slide 75] Linking words or phrases at the start of sentences should, I believe, have
a comma between them and the main part of the sentence. For example, these words
and phrases should have commas: Similarly
On the other hand,
In conclusion,
Therefore,
In fact,
That is,
24
More importantly,
Namely,
Of course,
Furthermore,
Put simply,
I would like to move on to the semi-colon and the colon. [Slide 76] The semi-colon
serves a useful function, I believe: to substitute for a conjunction. That is almost its
only function, apart from separating elements of a list. It is not interchangeable with
commas. Here is an example of it being used to stand in for a conjunction:
“Mary Shelley’s works are entertaining; they are full of engaging ideas.”
Here the semi-colon is taking the place of a conjunction such as “because”.
[Slide 77] In a related function, they are used to separate two thoughts in a
compound sentence. The thoughts need to be together in the same sentence but they
also need some distance from each other. An example might be:
“They failed to convince the jury; however, the judge issued a suspended sentence.”
Another way of expressing this information would be in two separate sentences.
However, wanting the two facts to be placed together is completely legitimate but
you want to indicate a slight pause between them as well. A semi-colon is the way
to go and a comma is not.
[Slide 78] Semi-colons and colons are also not interchangeable. They have different
functions. A colon informs the reader that what follows proves and explains, or
simply provides elements of, what is referred to before. Here is an example of
correct colon use:
“The system is designed to be foolproof: a user cannot access the system without three
different user names and five passwords.”
25
In this sentence, the material after the colon explains how the system is foolproof.
Therefore, it provides back-up to the first part of the sentence.
[Slide 79] I would like to turn now to quotation marks. There are some rules around
their use and there are also some stylistic considerations. Style first – consistency is
important and if you are going to stick with, say, single quotation marks throughout
your academic paper then make sure that is what you use. But you should also
familiarise yourself with the style guides of the journals you write for. Some insist
on single quote marks, others on double quote marks. I do often see a mixture of the
two, sometimes randomly in the same sentence. I am used to double quote marks
throughout a piece of writing. [Slide 80] The exception, of course, is the quote
within a quote. For example:
She said, “I think Lynne Truss is right when she says ‘It’s tough being a stickler for
punctuation these days’.”
Note that the quote within a quote is completed inside the sentence, so you close that
quote before you close the larger quote.
Grammar exercises.
26
[Slide 1] Session 2: Outlining and abstracts, effective paragraphing, concise
and concrete writing, basic editing.
In this session I will ask you to consider some practical techniques for achieving
cogent, well-written and effective academic writing. I would also like to get you
thinking about how to edit your own work. When you are an academic writer, you
must also be an academic editor. You must be able to edit your own work because
in most cases it is only through editing that you truly come to understand your own
ideas. Ideally, your writing should begin with a process of outlining. An outline will
become an important planning document for you and you may wish to get started on
it soon.
Outlining
[Slide 2] The outline is a way of ensuring a logical and complete structure. The
outline doesn’t just name the elements involved - it fleshes out the ideas. This is the
planning needed to prepare a thesis that is: logically organised; concise and;
straightforward to read. Often, people do sketchy outlines that merely name some of
the elements involved. For instance, the following looks like a clear outline of a
document, but when you read it, consider whether you have enough information to
be able to write up a first draft. See handout part A [slide 3]:
Alcohol Testing for Mass Transportation Employees
1. Congress mandates testing for transportation
Return to duty/follow-up testing
3. Method of Alcohol Testing
employees
Blood
Background on why
Urine
Explanation of new policy
Breath
Performance
2. How and why alcohol testing is used
4. Options for Alcohol Abusers
Circumstances for Alcohol Testing
Retesting
Pre-employment
Treatment
Post-accident
Termination of employment
Reasonable suspicion
5. Conclusion
Random
27
Now compare it with the following more detailed outline
Alcohol Testing for Mass Transportation Employees
Introduction
Background on why
Truck accidents increased 25% DMR:
hospital costs increase-Smith & Wesson
225.
Explanation of new policy
Outline of whole and overall response
2. How and why alcohol testing is used
2.1 Pre-employment
Compare Williams and Smith’s studies
2.2 Post-accident :
2.3 Reasonable suspicion
2.4 Random -
2.5 Return to duty/ Follow up testing
3. Methods of Alcohol Testing
3.1 Blood
3.2 Urine
3.3 Breath
3.4 Performance
4. Options for Alcohol Abusers
4.1 Retesting
4.2 Treatment
4.3 Termination of employment
Conclusion
Data from Sweden (Smith, 234), contrasts
with Germany’s experience (Jones 236)
What constitutes drunkenness? Blogg’s
(2004) paper - but see Thomas (67) on
personal liberty and presumption innocence
Reports from random testing Sweden and
France show ambiguous results (Allan &
Jones; Smith and Willis)
Worked well in Sweden (Harris, p. 567) but
they used civilian not police testers psychological difference?
Most reliable, but invasive, danger of
contamination (contrast Hughes and Jones)
Effective - Williams’ report, but significant
chance of fraud- (both Lee and Mustafa)
Thompson and Lee, p 235-only sometimes
- but methodology of study weak? Sample
size too small?
Not effective- Johnson p. 546
USA vs Sweden’s experience Brown 1989,
Terry 26. Wills 47
USA vs Britain’s – successful only when
person willing to participate Whetherby,
249
Threats prevent effective testing, Smithers.
p.669
Enforced testing will be ineffective because
of ….
Sweden’s less costly, and more successful
program is a good alternative because…….
Conclusion
Enforced testing will be ineffective because of ….
Sweden’s less costly, and more successful, program is a good alternative because…….
28
From outline notes to full paragraph
The notes for each paragraph refer to specific articles and specific points which the authors have
made. It is also clear how the writer of the document is going to use these authors. The preliminary
thinking has been done. The supervisor has approved the outline.
Now the student can pick any of the paragraphs and start writing:
1. Theme sentence to summarise the main point for that paragraph.
2. Then the evidence to support that point,
3. Then an evaluation of that point.
Starting your first draft [slide 4]
Begin by preparing a preliminary outline, using the techniques we have just been
discussing. Divide the piece of writing into sections, and from there into subsections or paragraphs. Remember that you should have been quite specific in your
outlining and you will have placed information, for example, about the kinds of
sources or data you will use in each section.
After you have done the relevant research, revisit the outline, revise as necessary and
insert key words from your research into the relevant sections. Keep coming back to
the outline and use it as a planning document and a way of identifying any gaps in
your knowledge. Also, you may find it useful for writing your paper out of
sequence. You will be able to proceed, confident in the knowledge that the whole
structure will hold together because you have thought it through in advance.
Writing abstracts: don’t be abstract
I would now like to move on to discuss an important part of journal articles but also
a potential tool to help you stay on track with your academic writing. [Slide 5] The
abstract should still be “concrete” in that it should connect to the real world and not
make lofty and wafty statements. The word abstract has several meanings. When
we are talking about the abstract of a scientific paper we mean a summary. This is
different to the usage that denotes an intangible thought rather than a concrete object.
29
[Slide 6] The best abstracts are self-contained, tightly written and concise
summaries of the importance of your work, how you went about it and how it fits
into the broader discipline.
Not an introduction
[Slide 7] Although it appears at the beginning, an abstract is not an introduction.
The abstract has a broader role, to sum up your whole argument – to crystallise your
ideas into a brief and concise form. It does not have to contain data, but rather a
summary of the data that will be fully explained in the paper itself. In many cases it
may not even contain references, depending on the discipline.
Write it early and rewrite it often
[Slide 8] An abstract is also an organising tool that will help you crystallise your
thoughts. Use it as a means of keeping your work on track. Write your article
abstract early in the process and refer back to it frequently. I am not suggesting that
you should write it before anything else, but don’t leave it to the end either. You
will of course redraft the abstract as required, which may be a number of times
before you have finished. An abstract can be a good antidote to the tendency some
researchers have of putting off the moment of actual writing. Because it is brief and
an overview, it helps people push past the writer’s block. Use your abstract for
inspiration, clarity of purpose and discipline.
Marketplace tool
[Slide 9] The abstract is a way of “selling” the ideas in your paper to those who may
be in the market for them if you can persuade them of the importance of the ideas.
Even if you are not comfortable with the notion of your ideas being sold, do see the
abstract as an opportunity to attract the undivided attention of influential readers (i.e.
journal editors and peer reviewers) who need to be convinced by your arguments.
30
Craft your abstract
[Slide 10] Special care should be taken to ensure that it is concise and perfectly
correct in content and grammar. Ensure that your abstract engages your readers and
makes them want to read further. It is a little gem, a vignette, and it needs to be
carefully written and honed.
Not a mystery
[Slide 11] Do not hide the importance of your work, or the results of your work. It
must highlight what is interesting about your project, why it is important, what the
results are (in general terms). Do not circle around the central theme hoping readers
will work it out for themselves.
A tool for identifying gaps
[Slide 12] Gaps in research and thinking become evident when you try to write an
abstract…
….so it is useful to help you see what research is still necessary. In this sense, it is a
critical thinking tool, aiding clarity of thought.
Two words: logical and elegant
[Slide 13] If you can make your abstract both logical and elegant, your paper
probably will exhibit these desirable characteristics too. Logical means correctly
reasoned and defensible on the grounds of consistency. Elegant means ingeniously
simple and pleasing, as well as refined.
Brevity is the soul of abstracts
[Slide 14] “I apologise that this letter is so long. I did not have the time to make
it short.” Blaise Pascal, French mathematician. Making things brief but complete
takes time, thought and effort. Honing your work so that it is brief and concise is a
fine intellectual discipline that comes in handy for all sorts of professional activities.
31
Questions that should be answered in your abstract
[Slide 15] The reason for writing
Why do the study?
What is the context for the problem you will study? Position your project in the
wider debate in the literature.
[Slide 16] Problem
What is the basis for this study?
What problem does this work attempt to solve?
What is the scope of the project?
What is the main argument/thesis/claim?
[Slide 17] Methodology
How did you do the study?
The abstract of a scientific work may include specific models or approaches used in
the larger study.
Abstracts in other fields may describe the types of evidence used in the research.
[Slide 18] Results
What were your results?
Again, an abstract of a scientific work may include some specific (e.g. numerical)
data that indicates the results of the project.
Abstracts in other fields may discuss the findings in a more general way.
[Slide 19] Implications
What do the results mean for the wider world?
What changes should be implemented as a result of the findings of the work?
How does this work add to the body of knowledge on the topic?
32
Why should the reader care?
Some useful tips
[Slide 20] Use simple, clear language and short sentences.
Avoid phrases such as “I hope to”, “I expect to”, “I might”. You should be as
positive and self-assured in your language as possible. Instead of “I hope to look
at…”, just say “I analyse…”. Fewer words are more impressive.
Avoid excessive use of future tense. You have finished the work. Not “the study will
show…” but “the study shows….”. And then tell them exactly what the study shows.
[Slide 21] Avoid personal biography: the abstract is a summary of the argument, not
a narration about why you selected the topic for study.
Eliminate all excess words. Be ruthless. Each word must earn its place.
Have a friend read your draft and ask them to describe the thrust of your abstract in
their own words. If your friend can’t do this, go back to the first step and start again.
Academic paragraphs
[Slide 22] A paragraph is a unit of thought that discusses and elaborates a particular
point that you need to make for your overall argument. Although there are problems
with being too formulaic, in practice you will find that most effective academic
paragraphs will contain between four and eight sentences. An academic paragraph
will not contain just one sentence. You will know if a paragraph has gone on too
long if the point you are making morphs into a new point in the same paragraph.
[Slide 23] Academic paragraphs work best if they have a theme (or topic) sentence.
This sentence indicates what the entire paragraph is about, and is a useful tool for
both the writer and the reader. It helps the writer to work within a logical and clear
33
framework and it helps the reader to follow the argument without being lost or
confused at any time. The theme sentence is a signpost for the reader to let them
know what is coming, and so it helps the reader accompany the writer through the
argument. Some people even write the theme sentences at the outlining stage and
then it is a simple matter of moving them from the outline into the document and
begin filling in the rest of the paragraph.
[Slide 24] A theme sentence is used:
 To state the main point of a paragraph;
 To give the reader a sense of direction (indicate what information will follow);
and
 To summarise the paragraph's main point
[Slide 25] Because a paragraph is simply a developed unit of thought or argument, it
must not have more than one main idea in it – but that idea must be fully explained.
Do not leave the reader with questions. Note that every other sentence in the
paragraph apart from the theme sentence describes, illustrates, exemplifies the point
of the theme sentence. Please refer to your handout part B. [Slide 26]
THEME SENTENCE: Throughout history there have been efforts to distinguish the guilty from
the innocent and to tell the liars from the truthful. SUPPORT 1: For example, a method of lie
detection practised in Asia involved giving those suspected of a crime a handful of rice to chew.
After chewing for some time, the persons were instructed to spit out the rice. The guilty person
was expected to have grains of rice sticking to the roof of the mouth and tongue. This technique
relied on the increased sympathetic nervous system activity in the presumably fearful and guilty
person. This activity would result in the drying up of saliva that, in turn, would cause grains of
rice to stick in the mouth. SUPPORT 2: A similar but more frightening technique involved
placing a heated knife blade briefly against the tongue, another method used for criminal detection.
An innocent person would not be burned while the guilty party would immediately feel pain,
again because of the relative dryness of the mouth. CONCLUDING SENTENCE: Many of
these methods relied (unknowingly) on the basic physiological principles that also guided the
creation of the polygraph.
34
THEME SENTENCE: The teeth of carnivorous and herbivorous vertebrates are specialised for
different ways of life. SUPPORT 1: Those of carnivores are adapted for capturing and subduing
prey and for feeding largely on meat. Dogs and cats, for example, have long, sharp canines used
for piercing and molars and premolars equipped for cutting and tearing. SUPPORT 2: By
contrast, herbivores such as cows and horses have teeth specialized for feeding on tough plant
material and breaking down the indigestible cellulose in plant cell walls. Their molars and
premolars have large, ridged surfaces useful for chewing, gnawing and grinding.
[Slide 27] The academic paragraph we have just examined has the following:

Theme sentence;

Examples following the order established in theme sentence (carnivores first and then
herbivores)

Links to indicate shift of argument to reader (“by contrast”)

Emphasis of key words (carnivore, herbivore, teeth) to help continuity (but do not over use
words and bore the reader)
[Slide 28] Theme sentence: carries the central idea to which everything else in the
paragraph is subordinated. It contains the underlying idea that unifies the paragraph.
Support: The support is the evidence or reasoning by which a theme sentence is
developed. Concluding sentence: note that not every paragraph will have a
concluding sentence. The point of the concluding sentence is to clarify explicitly in
words what the point of the information in the preceding examples has been.
Linking
Use links to let reader know what is connected to what. As always, you are guiding
your reader around your argument. Do not leave them stranded.
[Slide 29] From your handout part C, compare these two paragraphs:
Each of the US manned space exploration projects had specific major goals. The Mercury
project was designed to test whether or not human beings could survive and function in outer
space. The Mercury project tested rockets with the new Mercury space capsule, which could
hold one person. The Gemini project was intended to find out whether two people could
35
work in the weightless environment of space. Gemini astronauts took “spacewalks”. They
floated outside their spacecraft in a spacesuit, connected to it by a tether. Gemini astronauts
tried out new flying skills. Some astronauts flew two spacecraft extremely close together; this
procedure was called “rendezvous”. On some Gemini flights, astronauts physically linked
two spacecraft together. Linking, or “space docking”, was a major goal of the Gemini
program. The Apollo project, with three astronauts, was intended to test spacecraft and skills
so that people could actually fly to the Moon and land on it. Performing scientific
experiments on the lunar surface and collecting rocks for study on Earth were goals.
(From: http://lrs.ed.uiuc.edu/students/fwalters/cohere.htm)
The paragraph above is difficult to read and understand because the reader has to
work hard to try and see how all the bits of information are connected. There is
nothing wrong grammatically with any of the sentences or with the information, but
it has to be grouped so that the reader can see the why the writer has chosen those
bits of information. Linking words show the reader what connects to what.
Contrast the first version with this version:
Each of the US manned space exploration projects had specific major goals. For example, the
Mercury project was designed to test whether or not human beings could survive and function
in outer space. In addition, the Mercury project tested rockets with the new Mercury space
capsule, which could hold one person. As another example, the Gemini project was intended
to find out whether two people could work in the weightless environment of space. One way
of doing this was by having Gemini astronauts take “spacewalks”. That is, they floated
outside their spacecraft in a spacesuit, connected to it by a tether. Gemini astronauts also tried
out new flying skills. For instance, some astronauts flew two spacecraft extremely close
together; this procedure was called “rendezvous”. On some Gemini flights, astronauts
physically linked two spacecraft together. This linking, or “space docking”, was a major goal
of the Gemini program. Finally, the Apollo project, with three astronauts, had the goal of
testing spacecraft and skills so that people could actually fly to the Moon and land on it.
Other goals included performing scientific experiments on the lunar surface and collecting
rocks for study on Earth.
36
[Slide 30] Linking words:
For adding things on
again… also… in addition… as well as… moreover… furthermore… still… next… what is
more… and
To give examples
for example… for instance… one example is… to illustrate… namely… as an illustration…
in this case
To contrast
however… but… although… despite… nevertheless… on the contrary… yet… even so…
even though… on the other hand
[Slide 31] To repeat
as I have said… as has been said… as has been noted… moreover… furthermore
To show argument
therefore… thus… because… evidently… although… meanwhile… in conclusion… however
as a result… moreover… at this point… consequently… since… hence
To emphasise
indeed… in fact… certainly… especially… particularly… unquestionably… without any
doubt… definitely
[Slide 32] To make a concession
while… although… even though… however
To put things in sequence
first… firstly… second… secondly (etc)… then… after that… following… again… and…
and so forth… and so on… subsequently… later… thereafter
To sum up or conclude
finally… to conclude… all in all… in other words… in short… in brief… to sum up… as I
have said… as has been stated… on the whole… in general
[Slide 33] To edit paragraphs for logic and flow:

Read the paragraph.

Ask: What is the point of this paragraph?

If there are more than one point, put the other points into their own paragraph.

Ensure that the main point is indicated in the theme sentence.
37

Ensure every sentence refers to the point in the theme sentence and illustrates and develops
that point.

Ensure that key words are at the front of the sentence (not authors’ names).
[Slide 34] The final point in this list is an important tip. If you start your sentences
with a strong key word as the grammatical subject, you will grab your reader
immediately. Beginning with the name of a source is far less compelling and critical,
as is beginning with a pronoun such as “It” or “This”. Work your sources into the
paragraph in a supporting role or restructure your sentences to get rid of pronouns.
[Slide 35] Perhaps the best way to describe what we have talked about so far
regarding what makes an effective academic paragraph are the following three
concepts:

Unity means that only one idea is discussed in each paragraph: all the information in the
paragraph supports the theme established in the theme sentence, which is usually the first
sentence.

Coherence means that the paragraph’s sentences are arranged logically and are connected
by the use of linking devices and the judicious repetition of key words.

Development means that enough specific information is given so that the idea is
completely understandable and the reader can evaluate the unit of argument presented
because all relevant evidence is provided. Remember that a paragraph should not be too
short to be complete.
Redrafting a paragraph for focus [Slide 36]
Sometimes the point of the paragraph gets hazy and needs to be brought back into
focus. Here’s an example (see handout part D).
Original:
Many different articles were read about the molecular genetics of human growth hormone.
This paper will focus especially on hGH deficiencies. Human growth hormone (hGH) is a
38
polypeptide hormone, produced from within a gene cluster on chromosome 17, that controls
much of the physical growth of the infant and child (1, 2). Since time is limited, this paper
cannot cover all possible aspects of hGH, so a narrower approach has been taken.
This paragraph leaves unanswered questions. Edit to insert answers to those
questions. For example, in sentence 1 there is no information about the hormone,
but irrelevant information about what the writer read. Sentence 2 gives no
information on what the deficiencies are. Sentence 3 needs to show how the
hormone controls growth – does it retard or accelerate growth? The final sentence
plants ideas in the reader’s mind that the paper is inadequate. Don’t draw attention
to deficiencies, unless they are relevant to methodology. The fact that time is limited
is redundant. All papers take a specific focus, so the final sentence is unnecessary.
The writer should instead state precisely and positively what the focus is.
Rewritten:
Human growth hormone (hGH), a polypeptide hormone produced within a gene cluster on
chromosome 17, controls much of the physical growth of the infant and child (I,2).
Deficiency of hGH, a heritable disorder, can result in infantile dwarfism and retardation (3, 4,
5). New research methods, including recombinant DNA technology, have made it possible to
determine the molecular basis of such deficiencies. This paper summarises current
knowledge of the molecular genetics of hGH and suggests ways that continued research may
help physicians treat infants with a deficiency of this hormone.
[Slide 37] Hopefully you can see that effective academic paragraphs impart lots of
information that is useful to the reader, and leave out anything that is irrelevant or
distracting. The information needs to be grouped logically and properly linked.
Remember that critical paragraphs provide everything the reader needs to evaluate
the material covered, so you must ensure that there is enough information available
for this purpose. You must also ensure that you do not provide too much
information to the point that the paragraph becomes repetitive and redundant.
39
Concise writing
I would now like to look specifically at the efficiency of your writing – ensuring that
you use exactly the words you need to use to ensure understanding, but no more than
are necessary. We are considering conciseness, also known as concision. One of
the reasons rigorous and vigorous editing is so important in any form of academic
writing is that it leads to more concise prose. Excess verbiage, redundant
expressions and tediously long and convoluted sentences obscure the ideas and the
reader must struggle to understand the writer. We do not want to cause the reader to
struggle. We do want to cause them to think about the original ideas you are
presenting. You will therefore do what you can to remove the communication
barriers that inevitably exist between two human minds by attempting to build the
most streamlined and well engineered bridge between them.
[Slide 38] Our opening thought for this section:
“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.”
Edwin Schlossberg, designer, author and artist.
People can’t think in a fog, so clarity and concision are exceptionally important if
you want to carry an argument. Critical reading is important in this process, and
again this is an editing skill that is strongly connected to the reader-centred approach.
Assume that you are writing the first draft of an academic paper. When you think
you have captured all the substantive information you want to cover, read through
and ask these questions.
At the end of every sentence ask [slide 39]:

What is the point of this sentence?

Is the key word at the front of the sentence?

Is every word in this sentence adding information? If not, eliminate.

Can I express any phrases in a single word?
40
When you are happy with the sentences, go back and read every paragraph. At the
end of each paragraph, ask [slide 40]:

What is the main point of this paragraph?

Is this point clearly stated in the theme sentence?

Does every sentence support and provide evidence for this theme sentence? If not, then
remove the sentence.
[Slide 41] Editing paragraphs for conciseness and critical argument
You may wish to employ the underlining technique. If your sentence or paragraph
seems wordy, underline the actual information present and then reassess what you
really want to say. When you are sure that you have underlined the real information
only, see if any of the non-underlined parts are really needed at all, or whether they
can be made more streamlined.
Editing sentences for conciseness [slide 42]
Consider where the real information is (underline it if you find it useful), then
rearrange the information into a clear, direct SVO flow.
Wordy: Scepticism is an attitude that is very healthy for a student to possess [13 words]
Better: Scepticism is a healthy attitude for students [7 words].
Wordy: Of all the assessment measures used to assess students’ academic abilities, aptitude
tests and grade point averages are the most common. [21 words]
Better: Aptitude tests and grade point averages are the most common means to assess
students’ academic abilities. [16 words]
Eliminate dead wood:
[Slide 43] Seek to eliminate these words where possible: regarding, concerning, in
relation to, with regards to, to be and being.
X: The issue in regards to the globalisation debate is whether globalisation benefits the
poor.
41
√: The issue is whether globalisation benefits the poor.
X: Regarding the electron microscope, it must be run at X biomoles per second.
√: The electron microscope must be run at X biomoles per second
[Slide 44] Minimise weak words such as impact/impacted and dead phrases such as:

It has been concluded that…..

It is also worth pointing out that...

Before concluding, another point is that...

It is interesting to note that...

In order to...
Omit It is/There is/There was/It was [slide 45]
X It was William Harvey who first wrote about the circulation of the blood.
√ William Harvey first wrote about the circulation of the blood
Sentences tend to be more graceful if you avoid beginning them with prepositions
such as by, from, in, through, etc. For example [slide 46]:
X: From field observations it was shown that virtually all tagged individuals remained in their original
home ranges.
√: Field observations showed that virtually all tagged individuals remained in their home ranges.
(Note the removal of the tautological word “original”)
Just generally tidy things up [slide 47]
X: The mode of action of anti-lymphocytic serum has not yet been determined by research workers in
this country or abroad.
√: How anti-lymphocytic serum works is unknown.
X: However, toward the end at around 100 minutes, antidiuretic hormone has been released from the
posterior pituitary gland due to hypothalamic control and opens channels in the distal tubule therefore
increasing its permeability to water and therefore greater reabsorption of water.
√: At around 100 minutes, antidiuretic hormone was released from the posterior pituitary gland due to
hypothalamic control.
42
Concrete not abstract writing
I would now like to turn to another crucial component of high-quality academic
writing. I believe that the best tool at your disposal is sheer clarity, unadorned with
superfluous words or too much in the way of intellectual posturing. Dazzling people
with long words, convoluted sentence structures and lofty abstractions may seem to
lend public information of various kinds an air of gravity and profundity that it
doesn’t deserve. This trend has infected politics, marketing, corporate culture and of
course academia. Some might argue that it has always been present in academia. I
am not convinced that it has been as pervasive as it is now. The time has come to
claim back strong, clear and concrete writing and make it the norm. To illustrate
how bad things have become, I have a little example. [Slide 48] Judith Butler, a
professor of rhetoric and comparative literature at the University of California at
Berkeley, has been described as “one of the 10 smartest people on the planet”. She
is also the proud winner of the Philosophy and Literature Bad Writing Contest in
1998. Here's her “prize-winning” sentence, from an article published in the
scholarly journal Diacritics:
“The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social
relationships in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations
are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality
into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes
structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent
possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the
contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”
This means, presumably, that class systems are based not just on money, but on
differences in political power and social status. We think. The editor of Philosophy
and Literature, Denis Dutton, commented: “As usual, this year’s winners were
produced by well-known, highly-paid experts who have no doubt labored for years
to write like this. That these scholars must know what they are doing is indicated by
43
the fact that the winning entries were all published by distinguished presses and
academic journals.”
All that labouring produced dross, unfortunately. A lot of that dross comes from the
over-liberal use of abstractions. While there are other problems in this sentence,
including extremely convoluted sentence structure, the main problem arises from the
fact that there is not much that relates to the real world. As a direct result, the reader
struggles to understand the meaning. [Slide 49] The solution is to put in the work
required to bring the abstractions back down to Earth through the use of concrete
explanations. To paraphrase John Friedlander, associate professor in the English
department at Southwest Tennessee Community College, concrete terms refer to
objects or events that are available to the senses. This is directly opposite to abstract
terms, which name things that are not available to the senses. Examples of abstract
terms include joy, freedom, hegemony etc, while concrete terms include spoon, table,
green, hot, walking. Because these terms refer to objects or events we can see or
hear or feel or taste or smell, their meanings are stable. While abstract terms like
love change meaning with time and circumstances, concrete terms like spoon stay
much the same. Concrete words are always useful points of reference because we
can usually point to real examples and thereby make our meaning clear.
That’s not to say that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with abstract terms and at
times we must use them. However, because they can have many different meanings
to different people (what, for instance, springs into your mind when you think of
joy?), they need to be described with concrete details. [Slide 50] A better way to
approach to task of explaining abstract concepts is to use the tools of clarity and
plain prose that we have been considering today. For example, use short and wellstructured sentences. Explain each step of the concept in one sentence each. Give
concrete examples. In the prize-winning sentence about 18 ideas appear, jumbled
together in a sentence structure that would defeat the analytical ability of most
44
competent writers. [Slide 51] Both structure and content defy the golden rule of
academic writing – that an intelligent reader should be able to understand your
meaning by reading a sentence just once. Can you be sure that everything you
have written will be understood in a single reading? If you have written using
specific concrete terminology you have a greater chance of achieving this ideal.
Here are some examples of abstract words or phrases that are becoming seriously
overused. Sometimes these words will be okay, but when you find yourself
stringing abstractions like these together on a regular basis, take that as a warning
sign that your writing may lack solidity. [slide 52]:
Competitive advantage
Prioritise
Transparency
Accountability
Empower
Key
Core
Impacted
Deliverables
Implement
Facilitate
Situation
Focal point
Focus
Strategic
Operational
Stakeholder
Structural adjustment
Leveraged
Capacity
Competencies
Framework
45
Abstract terms often leave the reader to guess what the reader means, to labour to
supplement the writer’s work with their own, possibly incorrect, interpretations.
Therefore, abstract terms make hard work for the reader, and are unconvincing as
argument because they lack evidence.
Journal editor Denis Dutton is a crusader for better standards in academic expression.
Here the very sentence the prompted him to instigate the Bad Writing competition. It
was written by a professor of English:
[Slide 53] “This book was instigated by the Harvard Core Curriculum Report in 1978 and
was intended to respond to what I took to be an ominous educational reform initiative that,
without naming it, would delegitimate the decisive, if spontaneous, disclosure of the
complicity of liberal American institutions of higher learning with the state’s brutal conduct
of the war in Vietnam and the consequent call for opening the university to meet the
demands by hitherto marginalized constituencies of American society for enfranchisement.”
[80 words]
The Gunning FOG index
So, how can you not write like that? Being conscious of the problems associated
with over-abstraction is helpful, as is being aware of the need not to write 80-word
sentences. I would like to draw your attention to an interesting way of analysing
your sentences, that might assist in getting your levels of sentence complexity just
right. I am not suggesting that you must make all your sentences readily understood
by everyone with a high school education or less. However, you will find that more
abstract sentences require higher conceptual abilities and sometimes become so
abstract as to be meaningless – and this is not helpful for your argument. [Slide 54]
If you are interested in seeing this in action, go to the following site to run your
sentences through the online software (http://www.onlineutility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp). This shows a famous
readability index called the Gunning FOG index, and several other ways of
46
assessing the readability of passages of prose. Let’s see how a pair of abstract and
concrete passages stack up [Slide 55]:
Abstract: Strategic orientation in the firm context means the guiding principles that
influence a firm’s marketing and strategy-making activities. Where a selected orientation
is incorrect or inappropriate a company may lack key goals, and this may result in conflict
within departments and/or levels of instability.
[Slide 56] Concrete: Companies work best when they develop sets of principles that guide
marketing activities. For example…. When companies don’t specify workable goals,
internal conflict and market instability may result.
The Gunning fog index indicates the number of years of formal education a person
requires to easily understand a piece of text on first reading. On this index, our
abstract sentence had a reading of just under 18, meaning that a person would need
nearly 18 years of schooling to be able to understand that sentence. The concrete
sentence version (which I know is incomplete and therefore the readability index is
not entirely accurate) had a reading age of just over 12 years of schooling.
Incidentally, I ran Professor Butler’s prizewinning entry through this software and
found that you would need over 47 years of formal schooling to understand what she
had written. A tremendous achievement. The 80-word sentence of the English
professor was marginally better, with a FOG index of 43.
One way to make sentences more concrete and less abstract is to use verbs that
actually convey information. [Slide 57] Avoid the verbs to impact, to affect, to
access, to address. None of these actually convey what is happening. Another
sentence is required to explain. For example:
The government will address the problems in the department of child protection which
resulted in the death of a child returned to his abusive parents.
What precisely will the government do about these problems? Solve the problems?
How? Form a committee to investigate? Sack the head? Replace the department?
The possibilities are endless, because this is a weasel word used to avoid
commitment.
47
The tsunami impacted the charity’s profits. [Slide 58]
How were the profits affected? Increased or decreased? Was the disaster a reason
for a drain on the reserves? Or did the influx of donations actually increase the
profits? The reader cannot know.
Abstract terminology leaves unanswered questions [Slide 59]:
Numerous organisations and settings represent themselves in various ways both to themselves and
to others. Therefore, within our comprehension of current society, we should include the
commodity and products of self-portrayal. This includes the creation and consumption of
organisational records and other related documentation. There are numerous research settings and
a plethora of research questions that cannot be adequately investigated without reference to these
records and documents. As suggested by Jerry and Lewis (1998), textually transmitted
applications are a necessary way in which organizations construct ‘reality’ and other appropriate
forms of knowledge.
What does the reader really learn from the above? There are various grammatical
and word-choice problems with the paragraph, but the first point to re-edit is the
lack of concrete information to support the main assertion in the paragraph that
companies use brochures and publicity to define themselves.
Concrete change [slide 60]:
Organisations represent themselves in various ways to both themselves and to others. This
self-portrayal can include promotional documentation and paintings or photographs. For
instance, Acme’s self-published History of Acme has as a frontispiece a photo of the original
1930 building as a skyscraper towering over small bungalows. The Acme sign, with the logo
“The biggest and the best”, fills the top three storeys. The physical and mercantile dominance
of the company is conveyed by its dominance over the smaller buildings, and by the
prominence of this photo on the cover of the book. The same photo dominates the boardroom
where takeover decisions are made.
[Slide 61] Turning abstract terms into concrete terms is an essential step in critical
thinking and clarifies what the writer really knows and wants to say. Your writing
48
may stall because you have nothing concrete to say. Abstract terminology cannot in
itself lead to a further argument, proposition or hypothesis. Abstract prose tends to
be a closed system because it refers only to itself, not to the real world. So, if you
are having a mental block, try editing for concrete expression and then see if this
gives rise to further thought.
Editing a paragraph [Slide 62] Original:
Soil quality is a concerning issue for Australia. Governments have responded by developing
policies, plans, programs and guidelines. In this paper we critique current federal, state and
local government quality policies, plans, programs and guidelines to consider the role
stakeholders may play in them.
Numerous unanswered questions are evident here: What is the problem with the soil?
Why is this a problem for Australia (all of Australia? Particular parts of Australia?)?
Governments have responded? But how? What was the result? Why does the paper
critique governments? What is the problem with these policies? The rewritten
version, to convey information, must be quite different from the original. The writer
would have to bring in new facts.
Rewritten [slide 63]:
Soil quality has deteriorated across Australia in the past 15 years, leading to both reduced harvests and
increased pollution of waterways. When soil nutrients fall below five units per hectare, harvests
typically are reduced by 25 per cent. Confronted by reduced harvests, farmers increase fertilisers and
the subsequent run-off affects water quality and fish harvest. Poor soil quality affects farmers, the
agricultural industry, fishermen and the sports fishing industry. All levels of Australian government
have introduced policies and guidelines to redress declining soil quality, but few of these documents
have incorporated the views or experiences of those directly affected. As many studies have shown,
the failure to involve stakeholders in policy decisions invariably results in poor implementation of
management decisions.
Note:
49
The opening two sentences actually tell the reader what the problem with the soil
quality is and who it affects, and show that one problem affects different people. At
the end of this paragraph, the reader should have an understanding of what the
problem is, where the gaps are and how the study is positioned within the wider
literature, but also can anticipate what will come in the next paragraph – the critique
of these unilateral policies. The paragraph does not have to use the clumsy “in this
paper we critique..”; it just gets on and critiques.
[Slide 64] I would now like to turn to some principles of editing. These apply to
editing your own work as well as editing the work of others. I would like you to
consider cultivating editing mindstates, varied forms of focus that enable you to do
effective edits. Editing mindstates involve, to begin with, a dispassionate and lofty
view of the big picture: the whole meaning, the logic and structure of the piece.
You will switch to a different state later to investigate the fine detail, looking at each
word individually. These are different brain states from the detective work,
deductive and inductive reasoning, information synthesis, intellectual inventiveness
and much more of the research writer. As a writer you will have read through your
work with a writer’s eye, adding to the substance as required and making sure you
are saying all that you need to say. When you return as editor I suggest that you
consciously read for different kinds of things.
[Slide 65] The first stage involves going through the whole document to examine
the substance, making sure that the work conveys the meaning that it is supposed to
contain. You will read through as a reader new to the topic and ask yourself at the
end what you have obtained from the piece of writing. You will ensure that the
concept is correctly and logically in place and that the piece of writing works to
honour its intentions. You may find that there are inconsistencies in the message
that need to be corrected. Small lapses in logic are to be expected in difficult pieces
of writing and you need to consciously seek them out.
50
[Slide 66] Your aims in this part of your edit are to look for cohesion, context and
depth. Does the whole document actually make sense? Do the individual sections
make sense? Does the reader know more at the end of the document than at the start?
Have the stated intentions of the piece been fulfilled? Were you left with nagging
unanswered questions at the end? This is a form of active reading – questioning the
substance of the document at every stage and noting any inconsistencies and
ambiguities.
[Slide 67] The structure edit, my next proposed editing state of mind, examines
logical flow. You will be ensuring that, for instance, the introduction actually
provides a roadmap to the whole document that is to follow. You will ensure that
the sections exhibit a logical structure that aids the argument and that the reader can
follow easily. Again, we are thinking about what the reader needs to know and
indeed what that reader expects from the document. [Slide 68] An effectively
written piece has coherency, an internal logic and argument, and can be readily
understood by others. Logic and intellectual sophistication come from good editing.
Reorganisation, insertion of information so that the reader does not have to secondguess the writer and more effective use of sentence structure can force the writer to
see new patterns of information. The reader needs to be presented with a pattern of
argument, in which connections are made between ideas and the reader is shown
these connections. Redrafting and editing help the writer and editor find new and
more subtle patterns. You will be looking for the broad statements of theme set
firmly at the beginning, after which the document will embark on an elaboration of
these themes in a sensible order, moving from the general to the particular to the
synthesis at the end.
[Slide 69] The structure edit will also involve tracking down and eliminating
needless repetition. The editor brings a fresh mind to the document, one primed to
notice if a point has been made again and again for no good reason. While there is a
place for repeating points, perhaps to refocus or amplify, just absently saying the
51
same thing again has to go and you as editor will be the one to do the eliminating. A
good structure is streamlined and lean.
[Slide 70] The next editing state of mind is the word-by-word read. You are
thinking about each word, each phrase, each clause and each sentence. These are
the units of traditional grammar so it does help to employ the technical knowledge
we discussed earlier. You will be ensuring that each word is fulfilling its function as
a subject or verb or object – whatever it needs to be to ensure meaning. Some of
this read will involve correcting grammar, punctuation, spelling and terminology.
You will also examine each word for its usefulness to the collection of words in
which it appears and eliminating, for example, redundancies.
[Slide 71] The main things you will be looking for will be:

Subject-verb agreement

Correct use of pronouns, including care with pronoun antecedents and ensuring there are
no “floating” pronouns

Correct use of prepositions

Correct use of verbs

Elimination of dangling or hanging modifiers
[Slide 72] Some sentence structures in which nouns are used instead of verbs are
unnecessarily long-winded. For example: “The factory will begin production of
more engines next year.” You can easily make this stronger and simpler by editing
it to: “The factory will produce more engines from next year.” Here are some
more examples [slide 73]:
X: Territory size was found to vary with population density.
√: Territory size varied with population density.
X: The typhoon had the effect of a destructive force on the manufacturing industry.
√: The typhoon destroyed the manufacturing industry.
52
X: The data provided supporting evidence for the results of Jones et al.
√: The data supported Jones et al.’s results.
Eliminating redundancies and tautologies should be a priority. Both redundancies
and tautologies are forms of repetition and they clog up sentences. Have a look at
these [slide 74]:
all of
estimated at about
at this moment in time
final outcome
both shared
essential condition
completely full
integrated together
completely destroyed
join together
consensus of opinion
long period of time
early pioneer
original source
first origins
past history
future plans
4pm in the afternoon
general consensus
blue in colour
in actual fact
four hectares of land
including for example
new innovation
Just plain flabby wording can go the same way as redundancies and tautologies.
Consider these examples [slide 75]:
Flabby
Slim
a large portion
much
a number of
many, several
behind schedule
late
filled to capacity
full
gained entrance to
got in
in addition to
also, too, and, besides, as well
in close proximity
near
in excess of
more than
in order to
to
in short supply
scarce
in spite of the fact
though/although
53
in the near future
soon
made an approach to
approached
owing to the fact that
since or because
previous to
before
the majority of
most
[Slide 76] And our thought before we do some exercises is:
“The more you say, the less people remember. The fewer the words, the greater
the profit.” Francois de Salignac Fenelon, French theologian, poet and writer.
Now let’s do some more exercises.
54
[Slide 1] Session 3: Organising an academic paper, logical structure, title,
abstract and intro.
We are in the final straight now and just need to spend a little time considering some
generic principles and methods for organising papers. I will also run through a few
thoughts on the best sort of title for your paper, and how you might create your
abstract and intro, and then I will ask you to form small groups to work on those
items. I would like to see the principles and practices we have been discussing
today put into action in your own work. I will be keeping the explanatory part of
this session brief because I want the emphasis to be on you doing some writing of
your own.
[Slide 2] Our thought to begin with: “He did not arrive at this conclusion by the
decent process of quiet, logical deduction, nor yet by the blinding flash of
glorious intuition, but by the shoddy, untidy process halfway between the two
by which one usually gets to know things.” English writer Margery Allingham.
[Slide 3] The best known formula for organising an academic paper is known as
IMRAD (that is, Introduction, Methods, Research And Discussion). While used
primarily in the hard sciences, like physics and biology, it is also widely used in the
social and behavioural sciences. The IMRAD format is also known as the APA
format, as the American Psychological Association employs the IMRAD headings
in its APA stylesheet. IMRAD is a more “defined” version of the “IBC”
(Introduction, Body, Conclusion) format often recommended to students beginning
to undertake academic writing.
Research in the Humanities normally uses a style which is similar to IMRAD, in the
sense that academic research in all fields follows common principles of explication.
However, the focus in Humanities research is more on readability and the
clarification of nuances within the topic, with a less-distinct separation of topic
55
explication and “exact” data collection procedures than would are required for
research in the hard sciences. Some writers (see Day 11) say that the standard
formula has been evolving and some now adopt the IRDAM formula where the
methodology section appears last rather than second. [Slide 4] According to Day,
the logic of the IMRAD structure can be defined in question form: “What question
(problem) was studied? The answer is in the Introduction. How was the problem
studied? The answer is in the Methods. What were the findings? The answer is in
the Results. What do these findings mean? The answer is in the Discussion.” This
simple logic does help set a robust structure for a paper. With that over-arching
structure, a number of structural decisions still need to be made. We will examine
the finer detail of that now.
Note that I do not intend being prescriptive here, since all of you will have
disciplinary conventions to which you must adhere. The journals you write for will
also provide highly specific information for authors and these instructions can differ
quite widely depending upon the journal and the discipline. I would instead like to
concentrate on more basic organising principles and practical ways of achieving
logical structure.
Logical structure
[Slide 5] One easy way to achieve a truly logical structure is to do what I suggested
earlier today and write an abstract early in the write-up process. An abstract is as
much a planning document as it is a summary of your work, and in many ways it
simply echoes the IMRAD format but in denser, more summarised form. An
abstract will help you stay on track and ensure that your entire paper relates back to
its foundational principles. Consult it often while drafting the whole paper. Recall
from earlier today what abstract should contain, and think about these in relation to
your own work:
56
[Slide 6] The strategies and protocols for structuring academic papers are intimately
related to communicating your ideas to another person in such a way that the
information is useful and (in many cases) that the methodology is reproducible.
[Slide 7] Logical presentation of material is only possible with this reader-centred
approach. The problem with some academic papers is that they have a writercentred approach. The writer pours out a mass of results, or distracting information
about why he or she has undertaken the project. The writer-centred approach tends
to present information as a disordered “grab-bag”, because the writer knows in his or
her own mind what has happened, and forgets that the reader cannot see inside his or
her head. A reader-centred approach steps back from the data to see strong patterns
that lead to forceful conclusions, then ensures that these elements are made explicit
for the reader.
[Slide 8] Think about the overall argument, and the logical way to describe the
results. The best way is not necessarily the chronological way, in which you just
describe the data gathering process in sequence. A better and more sophisticated
way is to detach yourself from your data and deepen your understanding of it against
the context that you establish in your introduction and literature review:
[Slide 9]
 How do your findings fit with what is already known?
 How do they differ?
 What conclusions can justifiably be drawn from your results when they are
read in concert with existing knowledge?
[Slide 10] You should then be able to fashion your findings into an intellectually
coherent account that provides the most important results at the start, followed by a
logical approach that leads the reader through your processes and reasoning towards
a powerful and inescapable conclusion or set of conclusions.
57
[Slide 11] The key is stepping back to examine what exactly you have found and
how it fits with the existing scholarship and understandings. This is the essence of
academic writing – demonstrating your capacity to think deeply about conceptually
difficult ideas and find a logical and straightforward way to explain your reasoning.
Organising the structure of a paper
[Slide 12] Let’s consider how you might go about setting up a logically structured
academic paper. There are potentially many ways you can divide your piece of
work. The challenge is to find the structure that best enables you to tell the story of
your data. Preparing a detailed outline before attempting to write the whole paper
really helps. As discussed earlier today, this kind of outline doesn’t just provide dotpoint key words. Instead, you should show exactly what evidence you are using and
where, and show inter-relationships between data. I strongly suggest that you begin
adapting this general idea to your own practice, to ensure that you can create a paper
that is logical and comprehensive. [Slide 13] The most useful kind of outline
involves working out exactly how many paragraphs will be contained in the paper
and what each one will be about. In this kind of outline, you will write the theme
sentence for each paragraph and then note the exact backing evidence you will
present in the paragraph.
Brainstorming a paper (adapted from Dr Sato Juniper, www.uwa.edu.au)
[Slide 14] Exactly how you adapt this idea of outlining is up to you, and everyone
develops their own technique. One effective way to work out the detail of the
outline is the brainstorming method. In the middle of a large piece of paper spread
across the floor or an accommodating table, write the main purpose of your paper,
the new idea you are trying to convey. Then, wherever you like on the paper,
brainstorm the entire document. What are the ideas/concepts/information that
must/could be included? Start anywhere and do not attempt to put the ideas in order.
58
Use abbreviations and notes, ignore spelling and grammar and do not filter ideas at
this stage. Avoid cop-outs such as “introduce x”
[Slide 15] Now, review your brainstorm. Circle the points that represent main
headings or subsections. Mark subsidiary points. Cross out any points that do not
relate to the main point you first wrote (save them for later). Transfer your main
headings or subsections to Post-it notes, one per Post-it.
[Slide 16] On a second large piece of paper, experiment with the order of the Post-it
notes until you arrive at a logical sequence of ideas. Add more Post-it notes as you
think of new points. Delete some if necessary (save them for later). When you are
happy with the logic, record the main points and use them as topic headings or
theme sentences. You will now have a useful outline for your paper. Then go ahead
and write your paragraphs, which theoretically should come together quite smoothly
now because you will know exactly what you want to convey in each. Some people
even find that it is possible to write paragraphs out of sequence using this method,
because they are to a certain extent self-contained units.
[Slide 17] Once you have completed this process, check for fluency (Sato Juniper)
Read each paragraph carefully.
1. In the margin alongside each one, write a brief note encapsulating the main
point. This should be a matter of writing a brief version of the theme sentence.
2. When you have done this for the whole paper, these margin notes should be a
coherent summary of the ideas in the paper. Read them one after another and
see if they do actually flow logically. This is a good test for fluency.
3. If you are not able to identify the main point of a paragraph, you may have
two or more paragraphs mixed together. Separate them so that each
paragraph contains only one main point. This means that all the sentences in
that paragraph relate to that point.
59
[Slide 18] Fulfil your reader’s expectations
 Use informative titles/headings: for example, not Section A, but
Marsupials: Biology and Evolution.
 Signpost with link words or phrases: The three key factors are X, Y and
Z. First…..
 Link words: use a variety of terms: however, nevertheless, in contrast
etc
 Repeat keywords so that the reader knows you are still on the one
continuing subject
 Describe at the start what you are about to do in each section.
Take special care with the Introduction and with the Discussion/Conclusion. Apart
from the abstract, these are sections that are most widely read. [Slide 19] The key
point about the introduction is the need to create an effective context for the paper.
You must place your work into the continuum of research in your discipline and
make its connections to this continuum explicit. Introductions tend to begin with
general statements before moving to specific statements. [Slide 20] In general terms,
you will include:
 A statement of the problem you are addressing;
 Background of the problem, possibly in the form of a brief literature review;
 The research objective and how you achieve it in this work; and
 A brief description of the conclusions you have reached.
Note that you do not conceal the conclusions – they need to be stated at the start of
the paper, since this is not a detective novel.
[Slide 21] According to Moriaty*, the Discussion/Conclusion continues the theme
of the introduction by way of identifying and discussing patterns. This section
interprets results but does not rehash them. The overall flow of the discussion is
60
from the particular to the general, which is the opposite of the introduction. [Slide
22] Therefore, the paper has a kind of hourglass shape: general to specific in the
intro, very specific information in the body of the paper, then specific back out to
general at the end, releasing your reader back into the wild with an improved
understanding of the topic. Ensuring that the order with which you deal with
material in the conclusion matches the order of the introduction is good practice.
This logical approach helps ensure a satisfying consistency for the reader.
Crafting a title
[Slide 23] Your title needs careful consideration. You may like to think of it as “the
abstract of the abstract”, since this gives an idea of how it must sum up your paper in
the most crystalline form possible. Your purpose is to attract attention to the ideas in
your paper. So: the more revealing your title is, the more easily potential readers
will judge its relevance and importance.
[Slide 24] Use key words: Key words are your markers – they are the words that
will capture attention. These words are picked up both by potential readers and also
by search engines and literature scanning software. English language tends to
favour placing the most important words first, so use a key word in that position.
[Slide 25] Keep it succinct: The definition of a good journal article title is one that
contains the fewest words to adequately describe the paper’s contents. Too many
journal paper titles are long, convoluted and opaque. Make yours short, direct and
transparent. (But don’t make it too short and uninformative. For example: “Action
of antibiotic on bacteria”).
[Slide 26] For example:
X Effects of added calcium on salinity tolerance of tomato plants
61
√ Calcium addition improves salinity tolerance of tomato plants
I would like now to turn to some writing exercises before we wrap up today’s
session with a discussion. To take us to the final part of the workshop, here is a
thought [slide 27]: “[S]cience is simply common sense at its best; that is, rigidly
accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.” Thomas Henry Huxley,
English scientist.
*Marilyn Moriaty, Writing Science through Critical Thinking, Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Sudbury, 1997.
62