Every writing project needs style. Whether you are writing poetry, advertising copy, a tale, or an academic paper, your decisions will affect whether and how readers respond. Your work must capture the reader’s interest and leave a lasting impression.
Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Style in Academic Writing
The tips to improve style in academic writing are below:
1. Pick Your Words Wisely
Look for evocative words that express the particular emotion you want to convey. Consider synonyms or other options for comments if you don’t like how they sound or aren’t sure if you should use them. Avoid using overused terms like “good,” “awful,” “ugly,” and “said.” Consider what you’re attempting to express instead.
Is “good” synonymous with endearing, cheery, fortunate, or something else? Compare any two persons, things, or settings in a paragraph. Try comparing a forest to a woman or a sunset to jewels. Consider reading a thesaurus or a dictionary to expand your vocabulary. You might also enrol in a linguistics class or read books of other genres.
2. Be Clear and Concise
Eliminate all superfluous words from your text. Although you would prefer in-depth explanations or poetic language at this point, be strict. Most inexperienced authors overuse their words.
Consider reading a thesaurus or a dictionary to expand your vocabulary. You might also enrol in a linguistics class or read books of other genres. Various essay types can be chosen to craft a compelling piece.
3. Use Impactful Expression
When writing an essay, start and end with a strong sentence. Spend extra time revising the opening and closing lines of each essay paragraph. Choose a strong statement that will pique the reader’s interest.
Although you have more room for stylistic alterations, this exercise can also help you write better opening and closing lines for chapters of short stories or novels. You can check out any essay guide to get an idea of impactful phrases.
4. Make Use of Simple Language
Using more straightforward language is the most fundamental approach to making writing more accessible. Simple words tend to have more significant meanings than difficult words, whether they are verbs, nouns, or adjectives.
Thus, adopting more straightforward phrases gives you a smaller room for error. Replace a less common word with one that is simpler to comprehend.
5. Remove Lengthy Sentences
Limiting the usage of complex sentences is one strategy to improve the clarity of your writing. The simplest approach to accomplish this is by separating an extensive statement into two or smaller ones.
Using concise language does not imply that all phrases must be brief. This would result in a jagged style, precisely where writing craft is essential. You must assess how to use diversity in your sentences and how to weave short sentences into longer ones.
6. Implement Parallel Forms
Writing parallelism entails consistently expressing related sentence components. Construction should use components that are similar in function. Parallelism enhances clarity and impact, making it a crucial stylistic element. The statement “In the summer before college, I waited tables, peddled magazines, and even delivered pizzas” is written in a similar style.
After that, contrast it with a nonparallel form: “I worked as a waiter at a restaurant, explored magazine sales, and pizza delivery was my third job in the summer before college.” Do you notice how much more smoothly the parallel version reads?
7. Use Your Spellchecker as a Weapon
Spellcheckers in contemporary word processors are incredibly flexible. You can program them to highlight unfair terms that you frequently use or to autocorrect the errors you make the most often. There’s no requirement that you use the dictionary’s default setup. You can ensure that the differences between en- and em-dashes are also underlined if you are concerned about them.
Spelling mistakes you frequently make can be added to the spellchecker as you write, rather than trying to think of all your common errors at once. You might also catch things that aren’t actually errors but might still be handled, like using the word “major” six times in two paragraphs.
8. Toss Out Your Formatting
The picture depicts a stack of handwritten letters. In your academic writing, try not to sound like the protagonist of Gothic epistolary fiction. The annoying superfluity of formatting to highlight things that didn’t need highlighting is a glaring indicator of a student who is not secure in their ability to communicate using words alone. Any text with many italics, underlining, and boldness quickly turns into something painful to read.
It is only briefly enjoyable since it gives the sensation of reading something a hysterical Victorian wrote. The writer who overuses exclamation points is an extreme example of this! This gives their writing a thrilling appearance! or very active!
9. Do Not Be Afraid of Concise Paragraphs
A tabloid newspaper is seen in a bin in the image. The ease of reading is a benefit of tabloids. You don’t want to use paragraphs the same length as those used by tabloid journalists. Employing a long string of brief paragraphs can negate the use of sections to organize material into manageable portions.
However, trying to write in a complicated way can result in long, awkward paragraphs. Following the secondary school requirement that each paragraph have a thesis statement, an example of the thesis statement, and an explanation of the thesis statement and example might result in long paragraphs.
10. Edit Carefully
Cut any passages that don’t flow with the rest of the writing or are too intimate for the audience to understand. Clarity and style should both be edited. Correct errors and test out different options until you’re happy. Never be reluctant to throw things away and begin again. Numerous novels have been written and abandoned by authors, typically with good reason.
If you don’t feel good about what you’ve already registered, write something new. The second (or fifth) version is frequently preferable because you can enter knowing the complete plot. Get opinions from your friends. Even those who have never written before can see tricky portions, albeit you might have to figure out the solution on your own.
Conclusion
You can craft a good writing piece by following the tips mentioned above. Create a strong impact on the reader by your choice of words and style.
