Academic Style

Is there such thing as an 'academic writing style'? 

Certainly, there are characteristics that appear common within most academic disciplines. It would be safe to say that most academic writing aspires to be both formal and objective, with the argumentation or data being well supported/substantiated throughout. From a language standpoint, we often observe longer, more complex, sentence constructions than in less formal writing genres, as well as the increased use of technical language (i.e. jargon) and hedging constructions.

That said, we could find numerous examples of academic writing that do not even conform to the general description above. For instance, some Natural Science writers tend to keep their sentence length quite short, and broadly avoid hedging language. As you evolve as an expert within your field - and, therefore, competent communicator within your disciplinary community - it is necessary to become familiar with the conventions and stylistics of your subject area. 

For this, please refer to: Learning How to Write in My Subject Area

 

What to Consider

Below, are several broad areas to focus on when considering the idiosyncrasies of writing in your field that impact 'style':

 

1. Different Styles for Different 'Functions'

Within an academic text, different sections have different purposes. For instance, a writer may be looking to provide background information, critique previous scholarly works, methods or result, present and discuss their own research findings/interpretations etc. In the study of Academic English, these different purposes are called 'functions'.

When considering the style of writing within your field, it is important to review their language use in relation to the function they are carrying out within the text.

In order to better understand how writers put forward their own interpretations, for instance in a Discussion chapter, you would look at disciplinary examples in your field and consider:

  • Contextualisation: do writers overtly introduce their interpretation, or do they embed it within a broader discussion or debate (where other scholarship is cited)?
  • Writer Visibility: are personal pronouns (I or we) used, or do writers opt for passive or impersonal noun constructions?
  • Hedging language: how cautious or confident are writers in putting forward novel interpretation? What hedging constructions, or signals of confidence, are they using?
  • Supporting the Interpretations: what strategies do writers use to substantiate their own interpretation? Do they regularly appeal to data, other scholarly works/interpretation, or does it suffice to refer to logical argumentations 

 

2. Syntactic Style: Clear, Precise, Simple (CPS)

This lens for considering writing style in your field is often the first that comes to mind. This is because it relates to the stylistic feedback that students most often receive from supervisors and tutors within a university environment. Academics routinely ask students to make their writing more 'readable', 'simple' or 'easy to follow'. This feedback is usually not intended as a critique of the complexity of the student's ideas but, rather, the complexity (or over-complexity) of how these ideas are being presented in the text. Academics are looking for student writers to not represent the topic in a way that is harder to understand than in the published scholarship. While all the complexities of the topic can be explored, it should be done in a way that allows the reader to follow the discussion without having to re-read sentences or paragraphs multiple times.

In order to ensure an easily comprehensible writing style, consider how the following elements are routinely presented within your discipline:

 

3. Concision

“A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” (Stunk & White, 1959)

Academic writing is, by its nature, concise. This is all the more so on degree courses, where a word count is imposed. While Strunk and White's assertion that it is important to cut out all unnecessary (or superfluous) language from academic writing still holds true today, it is important to investigate the level of concision that is expected within your field, and the strategies that are routinely used by writers.

Students should furthermore be wary of making their writing so concise that it affects its clarity. Two strategies that students routinely use to be concise are the use of subject specific (or technical) language, and nominalisation. Unfortunately, over-use of either of these will seriously impact the intelligibility of the writing.  

 

4. Objectivity vs. Subjectivity

The dichotomy between objectivity and subjectivity is, to a certain extent, a false one. All academic writing (whether it be in the Natural Sciences or Humanities) has elements of rigorous research, contextualisation and observation, on one hand, and interpretations and recommendations, on the other. One could argue that there are two main stylistic differences between the disciplines. The first is down to ordering of evidence: what comes first observation/evidence or interpretation? The second is tied to the prominence or visibility of the author within the text. For more details on the stylistic differences between empirical and conceptual stylistic approaches, see: Objective vs. Subjective Register

 

5. Meta-language

A final area to consider is the use of meta-language within the text. Meta-language are the sentences within your writing where you are discussing the writing itself. This could be in terms of: your aims/objectives, justification or organisation of your text. Put another way, the meta-language is where you speak directly to reader to help orientate them throughout your work. The prominence, and form, that meta-language takes can vary quite substantially from discipline to discipline and does impact the overall style. For more information, please see: Meta-language