What are the most important academic writing conventions to follow?

1 Purpose and audience

The first convention to consider is the purpose and audience of your writing. Academic writing aims to inform, persuade, or analyze a specific topic or question, using evidence and logic. Therefore, you need to define your main argument or thesis statement, and support it with relevant and reliable sources. You also need to consider who will read your writing and what they expect from you. Academic writing is usually intended for a scholarly audience, such as your instructors, peers, or researchers, who are familiar with the subject and the terminology. Therefore, you need to use formal and precise language, avoid personal opinions or anecdotes, and acknowledge the sources and perspectives of others.

3 Style and tone

The third convention to follow is the style and tone of your writing. Academic writing requires a formal and objective style that avoids slang, contractions, colloquialisms, and emotional language. You also need to use consistent and appropriate verb tenses, voice, and person. For example, you should use the present tense to describe general facts or current theories, the past tense to describe specific events or studies, and the future tense to describe predictions or plans. You should also use the active voice to emphasize the agent or the action, and the passive voice to emphasize the result or the process. Moreover, you should use the third person to maintain a neutral and impersonal tone, and the first person to express your own perspective or position.

4 Grammar and punctuation

The fourth convention to follow is the grammar and punctuation of your writing. Academic writing requires correct and consistent grammar and punctuation rules that ensure clarity and accuracy. You need to avoid common errors such as sentence fragments, run-on sentences, comma splices, subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, and modifier placement. You also need to use punctuation marks such as periods, commas, colons, semicolons, quotation marks, and parentheses correctly and appropriately. For example, you should use periods to end sentences, commas to separate items in a list or clauses in a sentence, colons to introduce lists or explanations, semicolons to join independent clauses, quotation marks to indicate direct speech or citations, and parentheses to enclose additional information or references.

5 Vocabulary and spelling

The fifth convention to follow is the vocabulary and spelling of your writing. Academic writing requires a rich and varied vocabulary that demonstrates your knowledge and understanding of the topic. You need to use specific and precise words that convey your meaning clearly and concisely. You also need to avoid repetition, redundancy, ambiguity, and vagueness. You should use synonyms, antonyms, and word families to expand your vocabulary and avoid overusing the same words. You should also use technical terms, acronyms, and abbreviations correctly and consistently, and explain them when they are first introduced. Moreover, you need to use correct and consistent spelling rules that follow the standard of your discipline or institution. You should use a spell checker and a dictionary to check and correct your spelling.

6 Citation and referencing

The sixth and final convention to follow is the citation and referencing of your writing. Academic writing requires you to acknowledge the sources of information, ideas, and arguments that you use in your writing, using a specific citation and referencing style. Citation and referencing are essential to avoid plagiarism, which is the act of using someone else's work without giving proper credit. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense that can result in penalties or sanctions. You need to cite and reference your sources accurately and consistently, using the style that your discipline or institution requires, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, or Harvard. You should use in-text citations to indicate the author, date, and page number of the source within your writing, and a reference list to provide the full details of the source at the end of your writing.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?