Academic Writing and Grammar for Students.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Osmond, Alex.

Series:

Student Success Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Study skills.

Specific Study Skills.

Essays/Dissertations.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (265 pages)

Edition:

3rd ed.

Place of Publication:

London : Sage Text UK, 2024.

Summary:

From grammar and punctuation, to proofreading and fixing mistakes, this is your one-stop guide to improving your academic writing to achieve better grades at university.

Contents:

Cover

Half Title

Title Page

Copryright

Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Writing at university

What's in this book?

Basic conventions of academic writing

Basic grammatical concepts

Putting sentences together

Putting paragraphs together

Critical thinking

Referencing

Conciseness and clarity

Common mistakes and how to deal with them

Proofreading effectively

Notes on the text and the conventions I follow

Different subjects

Further reading sections

Further reading

1. Basic Conventions of Academic Writing

Using abbreviations

Establishing objectivity

Referencing correctly

Avoiding slang/colloquial language

Avoiding emotive language

Avoiding the first person

Avoiding the second person

Avoiding contractions

Simplicity, clarity and conciseness

2. Basic Grammatical Concepts

Types of words

Nouns, concrete nouns, abstract nouns, proper nouns and plurals

Concrete nouns

Abstract nouns

Proper nouns

Plurals

Effective noun use

Verbs

Effective verb use

Pronouns

Non-binary pronoun use

Effective pronoun use

Articles

Modifiers (Describing words and phrases)

Adjectives

Effective adjective use

Adverbs

Effective adverb use

Conjunctions

Effective conjunction use

Prepositions

Effective preposition use

Summing up

3. Putting Sentences Together

Subject-verb-object

Active and passive

Removing the subject of the sentence

Emphasising the object of the sentence

Varying your sentence structure

Tense

The most common tenses in academic writing

Avoiding continuous tenses where possible

Hedging

Punctuation

. The full stop

? The question mark

! The exclamation mark

, The comma

: The colon.

The semi-colon

( ) Parentheses/round brackets

[ ] Square brackets

- The hyphen/dash

' The apostrophe

4. Putting Paragraphs Together

Signposting language

Topic sentences and staying on topic

What, why, when

5. Critical Thinking

The 'P' word: plagiarism

What is critical thinking?

Critical as opposed to descriptive

Bringing up alternate perspectives and conclusions (and then debunking them)

The rule of three

Repetition

Ad hominem arguments

Hyperbole

Rhetorical questions

Straw man

6. Referencing

The different referencing systems/styles

Harvard referencing/the author-date system

Vancouver or numeric referencing

Footnotes

Modern Language Association (MLA) and American Psychological Association (APA) referencing

OSCOLA

More complex referencing techniques

Ellipsis

Square brackets

Errors in the original

Emphasis added and emphasis in original

Adding words to a sentence

7. Conciseness and Clarity

Watch those word counts

Redundant phrases

Other redundant phrases

Avoiding expletive constructions

Using simple words instead of complex ones

Simple sentences

Does this belong here?

Meaningless modifiers: 'very'/'really'/'extremely'/'severely' (and so on)

The future tense/unnecessary signposting

Avoiding repetition

The active and passive voices

Changing negatives to affirmatives

Removing excessive 'nominalisation'

Using the word 'this'

More examples

Example one

Example two

Example three

Example four

Example five

8. Common Mistakes and How to Deal With Them

Mixed constructions

Dangling modifiers

Using 'it has been said that …'

Using 'I think/I feel …'.

Avoiding the word 'interesting'

Poor presentation of tables and graphs

Comma splicing

Using 'of' instead of 'have'

There/they're/their

To/too

The word 'of' and possessive replacements

'Putting things off'

9. Proofreading Effectively

Distance yourself from your work

Proofread more than once

Leave more time than you think you need

Read your work aloud

Read from your last sentence back

Use technology but don't rely on it

Be ruthless

Proofread for you …

… and keep things in context

Do your own proofreading

Index.

Notes:

Student reference new edition.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-03-623336-7

1-5296-7081-0

1-5296-7082-9

9781036233365

OCLC:

1435754279

Publisher Number:

T285943