Written by Bess Chan

You’re probably aware of the differences in language use between academic writing and daily conversations. For example, while we usually don’t use first-person pronouns, contractions (e.g. it’s and they’ve), and rhetorical questions in academic writing, these features are common in informal settings. If you’d like to learn more about academic style, please refer to this interactive resource.

There are definitely more features than the three mentioned above, and it’s quite common to see students unknowingly drift away from an appropriate academic tone and style. In the following, you’ll find some advanced academic language features to help elevate your writing to the next level.

Nominalisation

Nominalisation refers to the process of changing verbs, adjectives, or adverbs into nouns. This step is important in academic writing because it allows ideas to be compressed into compact structures and helps create a sense of abstraction. For example, instead of writing:

The coral reefs are starting to turn white and die off because of the steadily growing temperature of the ocean.

This process can be recast as: thermal-induced coral bleaching. 

Why should we turn a full sentence into a noun phrase? The answer lies in how we build sentences, as the beginning of a sentence typically introduces what the sentence is about. When a sentence is turned into a noun phrase, it can occupy this position, allowing the process to be treated as a conceptual object that can then be analysed.

However, nominalisation is not always preferred. We still need to strike a balance with clarity. Find out more about nominalisation in academic writing.

Precision

One obstacle to precise writing is the use of imprecise verbs. These are usually phrasal verbs, which are combinations of verbs and prepositions, such as look at, go through, and bring up. Because phrasal verbs often possess multiple meanings depending on context, they are generally considered imprecise. For instance, look at can mean examine, observe, or consider, while go through can mean examine, experience, or be approved.

Therefore, to ensure your writing is precise enough, better use single-word verbs instead. For example, instead of writing bring up an issue, change it to mention an issue.

There are other obstacles that stop you from writing precisely. Find out more about precision in academic writing.

Concision

Some students may find it difficult to reduce the number of words in their writing, especially when working within word limits. One useful grammatical feature to look out for is empty openings, such as it is and there are.

Instead of saying: There are several factors that influence the quality of a dissertation, you can write: Several factors influence a dissertation’s quality. This version is more concise because it removes unnecessary introductory words.

Of course, concision should also work together with precision. So instead of saying several factors, you can be more specific: The significance of a research question, the depth of literature engagement, and the level of analytical depth all influence a dissertation’s quality.

Find out other ways to show concision in academic writing.

Thematic Progression

In one of the previous blog posts, you can find the strategies to present a coherent text. In fact, there’s another way to achieve cohesion in academic writing, and that’s thematic progression. This concept, developed within systemic functional linguistics, refers to how information is organised and developed across sentences so that ideas flow logically and coherently in a text.

When looking at a sentence or independent clause from this perspective, there are two functional parts — theme and rheme. While the theme refers to what the sentence is about and usually appears at the beginning of a sentence, the rheme is the new information or comment about the theme. To create a clear flow, writers often take the rheme of one sentence and turn it into the theme of the next, forming a logical chain of ideas. Take a look at the following sentences:

A dissertation’s quality is influenced by the depth of its literature review. This aspect allows the writer to identify theoretical and empirical gaps.

In this example, the theme of the first sentence is a dissertation’s quality, and the rheme is the depth of its literature review. It is referred to as this aspect in the second sentence and placed at the beginning as the new theme.

Find out more about theme and rheme.

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Lastly, if you’d like to learn more about the features but happened to have missed the in-person Advanced Academic Writing Course, you’re welcome to register your interest for the online course in June. Also, if you have any questions about the features, I encourage you to book 1-2-1 meetings with me, Bess Chan, your London-based EAP Tutor, via email or the booking form.