Using Academic Language In Your Writing
Using Third Person for Academic Writing: Changing First Person and Second Person to Third Person
Academic writing will be an essential part of this class and future classes at GCU! 😊🖌For all essays in our class, you will need to use a third-person narrative. Although each type of writing has its own set of guidelines, academic writing is no different. It is, for example, typically only appropriate to write an academic essay in the third person.
🔎 This means using pronouns like the following: “he, she, it, they, him, her, them, his, her, hers, its, their, and theirs,” and focusing on discussing the subject matter. This means ❌avoiding first-person ("I, we, my, me, us") and/or second-person (you, your). Some potenital pronoun replacement words in third person for our essays: the webpage, the organization, children, parents, the FBI, the CDC, teachers, cell phones, experts, professsionals, researchers, social media, ADHD, students... In light of that information, I encourage you to review the following materials and videos in this section to help. |
Avoid Using First and Second Person Point of View by Professor Petty
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Avoid Contractions, Idioms, and Colloquial Expressions |
Overcome the Use of Slang and Colloquialism |
Tip#3
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Instead, as Pam Peters (2007) says of colloquialisms, they 'undermine the serious effect you want to have on the reader. [Your writing] should not appear casual, imprecise or gloss over details.
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Avoid Using Elevated Words & Statements, Along with Using AI Statements
According to the "Academic language: a Practical Guide" (2023), "Academic writing is not about impressing people with ‘big words’ or being overly formal. The main aim is to be clear, concise, and objective so that you can communicate your ideas effectively. Instead of being too overblown, academic writing uses neutral words and avoids informal, conversational, or colloquial language."
When writer "adopts an overly formal tone in your writing, the result is most often sounds like" they "do not know what they are talking about." The writer must make sure to "use words whose meaning they understand," reaches others across different literacy levels, and uses "sentence structures that makes sense—even if it appears simple." (Cite This For Me Chegg Service, 2018, "The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing in an Academic Tone," para. 5).
❌ Avoid all of the following:
🟡Using elevated language that comes from a dictionary, thesaurus, internet, and/or AI-generated words. Most of them produce a variety of colloquial and informal language, along with generalization statements that are not academic and most often cannot easily be understood.
🟡Using cliches, idioms, colloquial language, slang, jargon, or texting abbreviations in academic writing.
Some example phrases or words that would represent both areas above are included in the following: tapping into, crucial, pivotal role, delve, play a crucial role, stigma, in today's world, cornerstone, diving deeper, tugging on one's heartstrings, painting a vivid picture, drawing the eye, snowball effects, a treasure chest of information, amongst a sea of information, stirring emotions, playing a role, speaks volumes, around the world, thrive or thrive off, highlights, in an era, navigating the vast landscape, individuals, tells a story, etc.
🟡Narrating the actions you completed and also announcing your topic.
When writer "adopts an overly formal tone in your writing, the result is most often sounds like" they "do not know what they are talking about." The writer must make sure to "use words whose meaning they understand," reaches others across different literacy levels, and uses "sentence structures that makes sense—even if it appears simple." (Cite This For Me Chegg Service, 2018, "The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing in an Academic Tone," para. 5).
❌ Avoid all of the following:
🟡Using elevated language that comes from a dictionary, thesaurus, internet, and/or AI-generated words. Most of them produce a variety of colloquial and informal language, along with generalization statements that are not academic and most often cannot easily be understood.
🟡Using cliches, idioms, colloquial language, slang, jargon, or texting abbreviations in academic writing.
Some example phrases or words that would represent both areas above are included in the following: tapping into, crucial, pivotal role, delve, play a crucial role, stigma, in today's world, cornerstone, diving deeper, tugging on one's heartstrings, painting a vivid picture, drawing the eye, snowball effects, a treasure chest of information, amongst a sea of information, stirring emotions, playing a role, speaks volumes, around the world, thrive or thrive off, highlights, in an era, navigating the vast landscape, individuals, tells a story, etc.
🟡Narrating the actions you completed and also announcing your topic.
- For example, after reviewing this, I am going to evaluate, In this essay, This essay will be about, etc.
Using Sentence Variety and Varying Sentence Structure
Tip #4
Avoid Repetition In Your WritingTip #6
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References
Main source https://emojicut.com/q-and-a/how-do-you-avoid-slang-in-academic-writing
Cliches and Idioms https://www.capstoneediting.com.au/blog/avoiding-colloquial-language-in-academic-writing
https://youtu.be/E6ONQKxLk_o
Jargon : https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/using_appropriate_language/group_jargon.html
Elevated Words: https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-language/formal, www.citethisforme.com/blog/2018/01/26/dos-donts-writing-academic-tone
Main source https://emojicut.com/q-and-a/how-do-you-avoid-slang-in-academic-writing
Cliches and Idioms https://www.capstoneediting.com.au/blog/avoiding-colloquial-language-in-academic-writing
https://youtu.be/E6ONQKxLk_o
Jargon : https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/using_appropriate_language/group_jargon.html
Elevated Words: https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/academic-language/formal, www.citethisforme.com/blog/2018/01/26/dos-donts-writing-academic-tone