How can you write academic papers that are more concise?

Célébrés jadis, les longs textes étaient les documents en vigueur dans le monde académique. Ce n'était certes pas du verbiage mais le style d'écriture et analytique des faits traités de l'époque. Aujourd'hui, la concision est de mise. Etre concis, c'est aller droit au but, en posant l'essentiel et en encadrant les questions et résultats pertinents. L'accumulation de centaines d'informations via les différentes plateformes par les individus dans le monde actuel, pose le fait que le cerveau a besoin d'être moins fatigué et d'incorporer l'essentiel. Dans un monde qui va vite, accompagné de la paresse actuelle de la lecture, les avantages d'une rédaction efficace et professionnelle sont plus que jamais mis au devant de la scène.

I took me 2 years into my MPH program with the University of Manchester to realize that I probably would have gotten better grades off my term papers If had been more concise with my term papers by focusing on the right and most relevant academic papers. Recently, I just mastered how to use the Ovid medline and Pubmed search engines for my academic work; hopefully it helps with my final dissertation

The planning is a web of connected ideas. Pick your key literature and sources or data. Organise and code them into themes which feed your question at hand. This process of organising the themes relating to my topic helps me order my thinking. Iwrite the top ideas I would like to discuss and order them in a manner that makes sense as a story. I still like to use the basic who, when, what, how questions to flesh ideas out. The conviction of the why comes to me while I’m in the writing phase and dominates my introduction and conclusion.

With my most recent knowledge and understanding of how to navigate different search tools when working on health related academic papers; I think the most appropriate way to construct your paper will follow: - Construct relevant title - Highlight your research question - Follow up with a search strategy or relevant papers using a web database - Formulate the aims/objectives - Start with an introduction - Progress with the main body of the text - Conclusion

Revising and editing are essential steps in crafting a concise paper. Through careful review and refinement, writers can enhance clarity, coherence, and adherence to standards. Techniques like reading aloud and seeking feedback aid in identifying and rectifying errors or weaknesses. Additionally, leveraging editing tools can streamline the process, ensuring grammatical accuracy and adherence to stylistic guidelines. By honing their revision process, writers can refine their paper to meet the expectations of their discipline and audience.

In my writing classroom, I allow students a majority of the semester to revise. I recommend workshops as well. Even for myself, I do a reverse outline revision where I write down the purpose and audience and then reiterate the thesis: what is my argument or stance? I recommend you reading through your paper starting from the bottom, break down the middle, read the first and last sentence: are they mirroring one another? Is the central part of that paragraph connecting with the topic sentence?

Most students depend on web tools like Grammarly to review and academic paper before submission and most times towards the deadline to their submission Personally, I think revising your paper is a continuous and progressive task once you start writing with each paragraph of your academic paper towards the end when you do a final review

I work with brilliant coauthors who evolve ideas in ways I don't always expect and, particularly early in my career, didn't always understand. As a result, I often found myself creating an outline after much of a paper was written as a tool to track the logical flow of an argument. It worked wonderfully and helped me spot when logic was missing, inconsistent, orunlikely to speak to our audience. I do this now to help spot when a section, sentence, or source isn't contributing to the argument a paper is building. That tells me where to cut, where to add, where to move sections around, etc. If I'm up against a hard page/word limit, it also helps me understand which sections are least important and can be shortened.

The devil is truly in the details. One of my academic supervisors taught me that adjectives are unnecessary, and the active voice is key. We want our reader to think about the topic in our writing, to connect, but not to get lost amongst the ‘fluff and stuff’. Less adjectives. Less conjunctions. More active voice. In my editing process, I trim the adjectives (as long as they do not take anything away from the meaning being conveyed). I then start on conjunctions - death to the and! Read your work aloud. Put it into google translate and have it read it back to you.

Focus on a concise academic work; reducing word count is more of a deliberate effort- More stressful is not being able to get 10-50% of the word count; most times, I get 100% above my word count and have therefore learned how to reduce by eliminating word synonyms in my draft, reviewing and making proper wording of complex sentences, reviewing my search database and eliminating one of similar research work; focusing on getting lesser hit back with my search results during data search and rewriting if necessary

My research supervisor just sent a mail few days back correcting my dissertation, he highlighted the need to remind the reader about what a chapter was about and highlight the topic sentence of the next chapter- This is actually transition in academic writing. Then other forms is the use of linking words and, before, after, pre, post, nevertheless, However, and many others

Find a top-notch example or publication and study their format. Look at the standard of papers being published in reputable journals - this is your benchmark. Ask your publishers and editors openly if there are specific requirements - never assume a standard format. View the piece from a readers perspective. Read your work aloud to see if there are enough pauses and breaks. Think about how a reader feels when they are confronted by a 20 line long paragraph. Pay attention to details like spacing. Ask about printing requirements as this will be different to digital (meaning you may need two different types of formatted papers).

Who is my reader. Who am I writing for. This may not be a simple answer - it may be a wide audience and, more dauntingly, it may be an expert or niche audience. You need to convince your audience that you have both authority on the matter, and something of value to think about that does some sort of work. We cannot just write because we think we have something interesting to say. Write with conviction. Get someone who is your audience or mirrors your audience to critique your ideas. Get insight. This only makes for better writing.