Lesson: Academic Style and Conciseness

Choosing words and phrasing carefully is central to expressing your scientific work clearly and accurately to your readers. There are several strategies you can follow to help guide your decisions.

Part 1: Academic Style
The guidelines below (adapted from Swales & Feak, 2012) will help you select more formal and precise vocabulary appropriate for scientific writing.

Guidelines	Less Formal/Precise	More Formal/Precise (Use of these possibilities depends on context.)
Avoid vague expressions.	etc. so forth nice good thing	including . . . such as . . . positive robust idea / item
Avoid phrasal verbs (verb plus preposition forms).	look into went down	investigate / explore decreased
Avoid informal expressions.	a lot of big little some bunch of stuff	many / much large small several many / much ideas / items
Avoid contractions.	it's they'll aren't didn't	it is they will are not did not
Avoid lengthy negative forms.	not much not much not any	few (Few participants . . .) little (Little research . . .) no (No studies . . .)

 

Part 2: Writing Concisely
Scientific writing requires the use of as few words as possible to make your point. Avoid being “wordy” (using too many words). Express exactly what is needed without adding extra words. The guidelines below (adapted from Wallwork, 2011) will help you avoid unnecessary wordiness.

Guidelines	Wordy	Better
Delete redundant words.	The research focused attention on the increase of serious and dangerous cases in the month of July.	The research focused on the increase of serious cases in July.
Consider replacing nouns with verbs.	Health care workers provided information to the patients of the risks.  The decision of the team was to abandon data collection at this site.	Health care workers informed the patients of the risks. The team decided to abandon data collection at this site.
Consider using one verb instead of a verb and noun combination.	We did an analysis of two samples. A decrease in temperature occurred.	We analyzed two samples. The temperature decreased.
Consider using an adverb to replace multiple words.	On an interesting note, two participants opted for additional treatments. The interventions were added in a gradual way.	Interestingly, two participants opted for additional treatments.   The interventions were added gradually.
Avoid unnecessary introductions and sentence connectors.	In conclusion, it is clear to us that the treatment is effective but has risks.	[Clearly,] the treatment is effective but has risks. (The word in brackets might also be deleted for even more conciseness.)

 

Part 3: Additional Advice on Academic Style
Use articles in journals from your field as models for academic style and conciseness. Analyze these for the vocabulary choices of the authors and take notes when you find examples that are particularly relevant to the topics you write about. Develop a “voice” (style) suitable to the writing conventions in your field.

Edit for style and conciseness in later drafts of your paper rather than in the initial drafting stages. If you worry too much about vocabulary choices and conciseness when you first start writing your paper, you may slow your progress or even suffer from “writer’s block.” Wait until your ideas and organization are in good shape. Then you can turn your attention to editing for style, conciseness, grammar, and punctuation.

 

Swales, J., & Feak, C. (2012). Academic writing for graduate students: Essential skills and tasks (3rd ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.

Wallwork, A. (2016). English for writing research papers. New York: Springer.