Academic Writing Styles

How's your voice? In scientific writing, the grammatical voice a writer chooses shapes the tone, clarity, emphasis and perceived objectivity of the work. Active voice occurs when the subject performs the action of the verb eg “The researcher conducted the experiment.” This voice is preferred for its clarity and directness. Passive voice shifts the focus from the subject to the object receiving the action eg “The experiment was conducted by the researcher.” This construction depersonalises the action and places emphasis on what was done, rather than who did it. It remains common in scientific writing, especially when the goal is to sound neutral and objective. A less familiar option is the middle voice, which is used when the subject appears to act upon itself eg “The solution mixed easily.” While rare in English, this type of construction is useful in science when describing processes that occur without deliberate intervention eg chemical reactions or biological behaviours. Beyond grammar, there are more stylistic or rhetorical 'voices' that can influence scientific communication. One of these is the passive-aggressive voice, which is a tone that emerges when blame or criticism is implied rather than stated directly eg “It’s surprising that no one thought to control for that variable.” This voice is unprofessional and best avoided in formal contexts. Another is the clickbait voice, which is more common in science communication aimed at the public. It uses sensational or emotionally charged language to grab attention eg, “This tiny microbe could change everything we know about life on Earth!” This is a useful tool in headlines or to engage the public or non-experts with scientific content. The impersonal or objective voice is also a hallmark of traditional academic writing. This voice avoids personal pronouns and foregrounds data or procedures eg “A statistically significant difference was observed.” It promotes neutrality and discourages emotional or subjective interpretation. However, the first-person active voice, using “I” or “we,” is now more accepted in many disciplines. Sentences like “We analysed the samples” can add clarity and accountability by specifying the author’s role without sounding egotistical. Some scientific writing also benefits from a narrative voice to take the reader through the process eg “After discovering the anomaly, we revised our hypothesis.” This can be especially effective in case studies, historical overviews, or discussions where process matters as much as outcome. Finally, the promotional voice is used in grant applications, public engagement and abstracts aiming to showcase importance eg, “This study presents a groundbreaking solution to antibiotic resistance.” It is important to balance enthusiasm with evidence and avoid overclaiming. Different voices serve different rhetorical purposes and tone and credibility can hinge on the right voice choice, so knowing them is part of scientific literacy.

On Essays. When an essay could have been written by anyone (or anything) it was probably written by no one in particular. A contemporary academic essay bears little resemblance to its historical ancestors. When Michel de Montaigne used the term "essai" in 1580, he envisioned a deliberately exploratory practice. It was an 'attempt' to weigh ideas rather than demonstrate mastery over them. His essays were characterized by their meandering quality, their comfort with contradiction, and their resistance to definitive conclusions. Essays today have predetermined structures. They are stylistically predictable. Frankly, many are quite boring. No wonder AI can reproduce them in a flash. I don't want this genre to die. If we care about nuance, complexity, and intellectual honesty, we should fight to keep it alive. The essay is a way of showing your work; to document your thinking. It is an existential act. Perhaps it's time to reconsider what we expect essays to do. Here are some reimagined criteria: 1. Grounding in Specific Experience - Engages with concrete instances and personal encounters rather than abstractions. 2. Unexpected Connections - Brings together ideas or domains that don't obviously belong together to generate new insight. 3. Distinctive Voice - Demonstrates human intelligence at work and a distinctive emerging voice, not formulaic prose. 4. Critical Subjectivity - Uses first person thoughtfully to position the writer's perspective, biases, and situatedness within the inquiry; acknowledges how the knower shapes what is known. 5. Intellectual Risk-Taking - Ventures into uncertainty rather than staying safe. 6. Recursive Development - Thinking builds on itself; later ideas emerge from earlier ones; includes moments of reconsidering and deepening. 7. Engagement with Complexity - Resists premature closure; holds multiple perspectives in tension without collapsing into relativism or forced synthesis. 8. Dialogic Quality - Genuinely engages with fewer sources rather than listing citations. 9. Meaningful Form - Structure serves the essay's thinking rather than thinking serving a generic structure; formal choices respond to this particular exploration. 10. Stakes and Significance - Makes clear why this matters humanly, not just academically; conveys what's at stake for writer, subject and reader. 11. Evidential Thinking - Shows how insights emerge; makes reasoning visible. 12. Multimodal Thinking - Thoughtfully integrates multiple modes (text, image, data, audio, video) where they genuinely enhance understanding. These are all markedly contradictory to how we think of essays. But maybe that's not a bad thing. The crisis AI has created might be exactly the disruption we needed.

On Academic Writing (or: it’s a second language for everyone) The worst writer I ever trained? An English major and native speaker of the United States. The second worst? A literature major who also studied engineering. That collaborator suffered double jeopardy — the imprecise writing of a wannabe creative combined with the hubris of an engineer. Both struggled mightily when their papers went to peer review. A common misperception is that academic writing is easier for those who speak English as a first language. Not true. Not for my student. Not for many native English speakers. And this recent article in Science (https://lnkd.in/eNGtWEAB ) confirms that intuition. So what to do? How do you learn to write academic English? 1. Academic writing is about precision, not flair. Forget clever word choices. Focus on consistency and clarity. Repeat key terms so readers never doubt what you mean. 2. Most top scholars use editors. Some lean on a partner, others hire professional help. There’s no shame in it. Your job is to design and analyze studies; a copy editor’s job is to amplify your clarity. 3. Writing takes practice. Start early, write often. Every strong paper is rewritten a dozen to thirty times. Treat each draft as a learning opportunity, not a failure. 4. You learn from great writers. Read them. Work with them. Borrow their turns of phrase. My non-native English colleagues often teach me new vocabulary because their technical language is sharper than mine. 5. Some of the best academic writers are non-native English speakers. English was my second language. My first — now forgotten — was Chinese. Being forced to learn English made me more articulate; learning the idioms of South Carolina later in life made me a better storyteller. Struggling with language can make you stronger. 6. Great writing requires humility. You must accept feedback. The worst writers I’ve worked with rejected every change or declared themselves “smarter than grammar checkers.” They even turned off track changes! The team had to compare versions just to repair what was lost. 7. Good writers thank their coauthors. Gratitude makes giving and receiving feedback easier — and it keeps collaborations healthy. If you commit to the craft, academic writing is a skill you can learn. Not quickly, not without feedback, but steadily, through humility and persistence. Good luck. #academiclife #writing

Why Academic Writing Feels So Different (and What to Do About It)? Academic writing isn’t just about putting words on paper. It’s about building an argument, defending it with evidence, and situating your voice in an ongoing conversation with scholars around the world. Let me break it down: 1. It’s Not Just What You Say. It’s How You Justify It ✅ Opinion ≠ Evidence. You need references, citations, data, and logic to back every claim, even the obvious ones. 📌 Tip: Don’t say “X causes Y” unless you’ve shown who said it, when, and how they proved it. 2. It’s Not Personal — It’s Precise ✅ No “I feel like…” ✅ No “in my opinion…” Instead: Define, measure, argue. 📌 Tip: Replace feelings with findings. Anchor your statements in existing research or your data. 3. It’s Slower (But Deeper) ✅ Academic writing is iterative. The first draft is rarely publishable. You write → revise → restructure → reframe. 📌 Tip: Expect multiple rounds. Don’t rush. Each version sharpens your thinking. 4. It’s Structured for Logic, Not Drama In other types of writing, you might build suspense. Here? You front-load clarity. ✅ Abstract → tells them what’s coming ✅ Introduction → states the problem ✅ Method → proves your approach ✅ Results → presents the data ✅ Discussion → interprets it 📌 Tip: Stick to the IMRaD model (Intro, Methods, Results, Discussion). It’s predictable for a reason. 5. It’s a Dialogue with Other Scholars You’re not writing at the reader ,you’re writing with the field. ✅ Every paragraph connects back to past research. ✅ You position your study within gaps, debates, or extensions of others’ work. 📌 Tip: Think of your paper as a response in a group conversation. Academic writing isn’t harder because you’re not a good writer. It’s harder because it asks you to be a clear thinker, credible voice, and critical analyst, all at once. But once you understand the rules of the game, you stop feeling stuck… and start writing with confidence. PS:What was your biggest mindset shift when you started academic writing? Share in the comments. REPOST to help others.