Writing Tips and Resources

Finding the help you need to become a better writer – today

The Acadia Writing Centre helps all members of the Acadia community become the best writers they canbe. Many students are intimidated by the writing process and although they want to write effectiveassignments, they are not sure about how to make this happen. The good news is that there is lots of freehelp available at the Writing Centre, including tutorial sessions, presentations and workshops, and consultations with the Coordinator for senior students.

Becoming a great writer is not accidental or a mystery — it involves learning particular skills. Learningthese skills will enable you to communicate your knowledge clearly. Don't let poor writing skills hold youback from sharing your ideas!

Getting started: the big picture

Understanding your assignment

Read your professor's description of the assignment over several times carefully. If you don't understandany part, ask the professor for clarification – he or she will be happy to meet to make sure you are on theright track. Never underestimate the importance of spending time getting organized: Time spent now willsave you both time and effort in the long run!

Determining your focus: Coming up with a thesis statement

Read up on the topic of your assignment to find your particular focus. Then decide what claim you want tomake about that topic; this is sometimes called your hypothesis, sometimes called your argument (or thesis).No matter what term your professor uses, most academic writing requires that early on in your paper youstate one main claim, which you then go on to prove. This main claim is usually formulated in a thesisstatement. For tips on putting together your thesis statement, check out these helpful pages:

Using thesis statements (Gustavus Education Centre)Finding your thesis statement (Concordia University)

Creating an outline

Develop a plan of action by breaking your writing task down into smaller parts. An outline is a great toolthat you can use to organize the content of your assignment and help you stay focused. For help ondeveloping an effective outline, follow these links:

Organizing an essay (University of Toronto)Essay Structure (Harvard University)

Writing a draft

Now that you have an outline for your assignment, it's time to fill in content by developing a first draft. Atthis point don't worry too much about the finer details of your writing. This stage is all about getting yourideas down on paper in an organized manner. For help on your first draft, take the time to look over thefollowing:

Writing tips: Essay builder (WritingDEN)

Paragraphs

Each paragraph generally contains one main idea and most paragraphs consist of six to eight sentences.Read through your paragraphs, checking for unity and coherence. For more information on how to writegood paragraphs, view the following resources:

Developing unified and coherent paragraphs (Univ. of Ottawa)Developing and ordering paragraphs (University of Ottawa)Paragraphs and Transitioning (Harvard University)

Each effective main paragraph has a topic sentence. See the following links for more on what this means:

Using topic sentences (Harvard University)Using topic sentences (University of Toronto)

Fine-tuning your work: success is in the details

Grammar and punctuation

Too many grammatical mistakes in your assignment can be distracting and prevent you fromcommunicating your ideas clearly. English grammar is tricky at times but the good news is that mostmistakes are common and can easily be avoided. To understand some of the basic terminology, click onthe following resource:

Glossary of Grammar concepts

Punctuation is area of writing that tends to give students problems. To learn how to use punctuation markscorrectly in your written assignments, take a look at the following sections of the University of Ottawa's"Hypergrammar":

Comma Semi-colon Colon End punctuation Quotation marks

Apostrophe Dash

Spelling

Do not rely on your spell-checker for complete accuracy. Take note of the following:

100 commonly misspelled words(YourDictionary.com)

Test your grammar and spelling!

Go to the Purdue University OnlineWritingLab and take their "OWL Exercises" Best of luck!

Style

Academic writing is formal, meaning it follows quite strict conventions or rules, including those fororganization, grammar, and spelling. This is important as your reader wants to focus on what you say –your evidence or results – and not get tangled up in how you say it. To be as clear and concise as possible,consider how to:

Eliminate wordiness (Purdue OWL)

While we use slang to fit in socially and clichés to convey ideas quickly in a conversation, forms ofinformal language are not appropriate for academic writing. Clichés in your writing will not only bore yourreader but make it look as if you put no time into revising your paper. One university keeps the followinglist, which shows just how quickly what seem like original ways of speaking become yesterday's news:

"List of banished words" (Lake Superior StateUniversity)

Be gender-neutral and avoid conveying other unintentional personal bias in your writing. To help you do sosee the following:

Unbiased language (University of Toronto)

Using appropriate diction (word choice) is a key to good academic writing. You may be expected to usetechnical vocabulary appropriately, but at the same time you don't want to sound too formal, pretentious,or bureaucratic. Avoid using a "big word" when a smaller one will do.

Using synonyms correctly will spice up your writing . . . but be sure to look up a word if you're not sure ofits meaning (don't just right click and choose randomly from a list of synonyms – they rarely all reallymean exactly the same thing!). Get ideas for synonyms using the following:

Thesaurus

Varying sentence structure and length will improve the quality of your writing as well. For more on varyingsentences, see the following:

Why sentence structure matters (University ofOttawa)

Strategies for variations (Purdue OWL)

The need for sentence variation (Lumen LearningCentre)

Learning to avoid common writing errors

Take a look at the Acadia English Department's explanation of the most common errors students make intheir writing. When you think you've learned enough here, you can test yourself to make sure:

"The Ten Most Common Errors (and how to fixthem)"

Referencing sources in your writing

The importance of referencing your work

As academic writers, we must reference (or cite) ideas and facts that we get from sources. We must cite inquotation marks any of that author’s own wording, and we must cite her ideas even if we put them into ourown words as a paraphrase. For tips on how to do all of this right, click here (Purdue OWL).

Failing to give credit for particular ideas or wording is to commit plagiarism – a form of cheating. For helpon doing it right, see our "Avoiding Plagiarism" handout available in the right-hand column of thiswebpage. Also, the Vaughan Memorial Library’s interactive tutorial "You quote it, you note it!" teaches ushow to reference work properly and avoid plagiarism.

How to reference your sources: Style guides (APA, MLA, etc.)

As you research your topic, you will want to refer to a variety of sources for facts or ideas – books,articles, and perhaps websites. Keep a list of these references as you will need to indicate any that you usein your writing. For each source you will need to give an in-text citation as well as a more detaileddescription of the source, often in a list at the end of your paper (this is your bibliography – often calledthe "References" or "Works Cited" section). How we format these citations depends on the specific styleguide that we use.

Your professor likely wants you to use a particular documentation style. Some of the most common onesare APA, MLA, and Chicago. For an overview of each of these (with useful examples), refer to StyleGuides in the right-hand column. For more detailed information for each guide, visit the VaughanMemorial Library's Writing a paper & citing sources.

Building your vocabulary

Online dictionaries

Merriam-Webster

Oxford English Dictionary online (When you're off campus, you'll first need to set up remote access here.)

Online thesaurus

Thesaurus.com

Writing grant proposals, thesis papers and resumes

Grant proposals and thesis writing

If you need help with writing your honours or graduate thesis, the coordinator of the Writing Centre, Dr.Stephen Ahern, is available to work with you one-to-one. During 50-minute sessions he offers personalizedattention in a comfortable setting. This service is free to all Acadia students. To book an appointment,please e-mail (writingcentre@acadiau.ca). Dr. Ahern also offers thesis writing workshops during theacademic year. Check out the Writing Centre website at writingcentre.acadiau.cafor upcoming events.

Writing resumes and cover letters

Did you know that Acadia's Career Services provides help with writing resumes and cover letters? Send anemail to career.services@acadiau.ca to book an individual consultation.

Is English your Second Language? Getting More Help

Academic writing in general

Here are links to a few websites that give information on academic writing specifically for students whoare ESL:

Using English for Academic Purposes – An overviewof the various aspects of academic writing in English(UEfAP.com)

Advanced composition for non-native speakers ofEnglish – Practise organizing your ideas according toEnglish formal writing conventions. (ESLbee.com)

Purdue OWL Writing Lab Select "OWL Exercises"from the left-hand column to practice differentaspects of writing

Vocabulary

A well-developed academic vocabulary is an important factor in academic success at university. Thefollowing websites will support you in achieving this:

Academic phrasebank – Select commonly usedacademic phrases according to the categories listed inthe left-hand column (University of Manchester)

Academic vocabulary (ESLGold) -Word lists andphrases are provided for intermediate and advancedstudents.

Academic vocabulary practice – Ten academic wordlists are provided along with fill-in-the-blanksexercises for each list (Gerry's Vocabulary Teacher)

Online dictionary with basic definitions (MacmillanPublishing)

Online dictionary with pronunciation function (Merriam-Webster)

Web text dictionary – A useful tool that allows youto click on any word on most webpages and get itsdefinition. (lingro.com)

Grammar

Use of correct grammar in your writing is a must as well. Here are a few websites that can help:

Online English grammar resources – An extensivelist of grammar items, with examples, explanationsand practice quizzes (edufind.com)

Hyper-grammar – A self-learnable on-line grammarcourse (University of Ottawa)

Guide to grammar and writing – A comprehensivegrammar and writing guide (Capital CommunityCollege)

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