10 Passage Provisions for Academic Writers in Training

“I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.” -Isaac Asimov

When I write, it’s always been more of an art than a science. I usually dictate into a fabulous app called Dragon Dictation for my rough draft. Then I drastically edit. I cut  anything:

• repetitive
• negative
• confusing
• that sucks (and that’s usually quite a chunk)

When I write for a psychology publication or the Chopra Center where my work needs to include citations,  I actually gather the evidence to support my belief after writing my first draft. I have a strange brain. It remembers little pieces of everything but not specifics on anything. With enough detective work I can usually come up with the correct article to back up my thesis.

When I researched how students are supposed to write, I was not surprised to discover that the recommended way is quite different from my method. Combining my methods with the recommended ones for academic writing I have come up with 10 tips for perfect  academic paragraph writing.

1. Begin with a topic sentence. This sentence will be the foundation for your paragraph and it should be general.
2. Use clear supporting sentences. To support you may compare and contrast, you might describe the chronological process, or you may use a combination of these methods as well as relevant history or connections to fill in the details left out of the topic sentence.
3. Examples & Details  are used to support and clarify your point.
4. Repeat Your Subject & Thesis Multiple Times throughout the writing. We need to hear something multiple times presented in different ways before we clearly understand it. The key is to repeat without becoming repetetive.
5. Use Effective Transition Words as you move through your evidence. Words like however, nevertheless, and furthermore are examples of words that get a reader curious.
6. Avoid the Passive Voice and if you must, use with caution. The passive voice is popular in academic writing however I am personally not a fan. To be clear, when active voice says “I ate ice cream” the passive voice says “Ice cream was eaten”. I know that many would direct to avoid using “I”, “me” or personalizing in academic writing. I have seen examples where that is changing (and I like it!). I am a strong believer that if you cannot explain it in simple terms then you don’t understand it clearly.
7. Present with Precision or as I think of it, this is Twitter not WordPress. Shorten. Edit. Be succinct. (The term HIGH LEXICAL DENSITY was one of my favourite finds this week)
8. Remember your reader. Tell them everything they need to know to understand your article without assuming. Know your audience and then don’t try to impress them with words they will have to look up.
9. Show don’t tell. A story connects your point more easily than a statistic. Leave the stats to easy to read charts rather than the body of a paragraph. You are free to analyze and interpret the data in the paragraph itself.
10. Leave them wondering. If you write well, each paragraph will crack open a door to the next. You want your readers to want to walk through the door.

A Comparison

These two paragraphs are from journals I enjoy. The first one is an example of many of the items of my top 10 list. The second represents old school academia at it’s worst. The content is fabulous but it’s like getting meat out of a crayfish- not entirely worth it!

1.

“An increasingly important issue for clinicians involves finding suitable ways to identify
parents who require assistance, whether in the form of services or information. These challenges are complicated by the diversity of parenting needs. Some parents need only simple advice, for example, on dealing with their toddler’s temper tantrums. Other parents’ needs may stem from a lack of sufficient knowledge about child-rearing and appropriate parenting strategies—gaps that can lead to major disruptions in family functioning. An all-too-common example is the consistently oppositional child with parents who are ill-equipped to deal with his or her problems.Then there are parents with major concerns of their own (e.g., those with chronic depression, or
young adolescent mothers), which can divert attention from parenting responsibilities. A
multidisciplinary team of clinicians is often necessary to deal with the varied and complex problems facing these parents and their children. Perhaps an even more formidable and urgent challenge is responding to family situations where child abuse is suspected.”(Kopp, 2000)

2.

“The fundamental goal of Positive Education is to promote flourishing or positive mental health within the school community. To achieve this outcome first requires a clear definition of what flourishing is. Exploration of what it means to live a good life is frequently characterised as being consistent with one of two philosophical traditions: the hedonic approach and the eudaimonic approach (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Hedonism is a philosophical school of thought that focuses on feelings and experiences (Keyes & Annas, 2009), and is often associated with the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain (Ryan & Deci, 2001). From this perspective, a good life is one where a person frequently experiences positive emotions, and feelings of happiness and satisfaction. Eudaimonia as a philosophical tradition posits that happiness results from the actualisation of individual potential and from fulfilling one’s daimon or true nature (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Where hedonic approaches focus on how people feel, eudaimonic approaches focus on what people do, how they act, and the choices they make (Keyes & Annas, 2009). From a eudaimonic perspective, being psychologically well involves more than feelings of happiness and entails personal growth, giving to others, and living in accordance with values.” (Ryff & Singer, 2008).(Nourish, 2013. Pg.2)

The Conclusion

Since this is all about the middle, at the end I will leave you with a question  posed by a writing teacher I know ” Why do people in this field write or read a text like this?” And my own reminder- when writing to inform don’t forget to engage.

 

References:

https://www.scribendi.com/advice/five_habits_to_avoid_in_academic_writing.en.html

http://www.scf.edu/content/PDF/ARC/Formulas_and_Definitions_for_the_5_Paragraph_Essay.pdf

http://ung.edu/tutoring-services/_uploads/files/Traditional%20Essay%20Diagram.pdf

http://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/writing-paragraphs

http://www.analyzemywriting.com/lexical_density.html

Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O’Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education. International Journal of Wellbeing, 3(2).

Kopp, C. B., Regalado, M., Halfon, N., Neufeld, S. J., Nicely, P., Coulson, S., … & Wishner, J. (2000). APPRAISALS OF PARENTING, PARENT–CHILD INTERACTIONS, PARENTING STYLES, AND CHILDREN: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Norrish, J. M., Williams, P., O’Connor, M., & Robinson, J. (2013). An applied framework for positive education. International Journal of Wellbeing, 3(2).