How can I improve my academic essay writing?
March 2, 2020 12:59 PM Subscribe
I am a fourth-year undergrad studying Sociology and Political Science and I keep receiving B's on my academic essays because my grammar, style, and writing sentences are choppy and not concise. My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried because of this.
How can I improve my academic essay writing then? Professors like my arguments and they say I have original ideas, but executing and orchestrating those ideas poorly is why I keep receiving B's. Yet I do not know how to improve this. How do I take my ideas in my brain and write them out so that they can flow and mesh well on paper? I also have a lot of run-on sentences, forget to break down the paragraphs, and sometimes I have odd or confusing word choices as well. I use too many semicolons when a comma will do. How can I improve so I can 80 percent on the final paper coming up in April. I do not want to have to rely on Scribbr or other online editorial companies, but learn how to edit and polish my work grammatically and cohesively so that my paper can flow well.
How can I improve my academic essay writing then? Professors like my arguments and they say I have original ideas, but executing and orchestrating those ideas poorly is why I keep receiving B's. Yet I do not know how to improve this. How do I take my ideas in my brain and write them out so that they can flow and mesh well on paper? I also have a lot of run-on sentences, forget to break down the paragraphs, and sometimes I have odd or confusing word choices as well. I use too many semicolons when a comma will do. How can I improve so I can 80 percent on the final paper coming up in April. I do not want to have to rely on Scribbr or other online editorial companies, but learn how to edit and polish my work grammatically and cohesively so that my paper can flow well.
To expand on what acidnova said: your college or university probably has a writing center, and this question is their bread and butter. They will be so happy to see you! They are free! You might need to make an appointment, or they might have walk-in slots.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 1:11 PM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 1:11 PM on March 2, 2020 [6 favorites]
A professor recommended Revising Prose to me in grad school and it changed my writing style drastically for the better. It's pricey for the size, but worth every penny. Perhaps your library or writing center has a copy you could borrow. The Paramedic method may be exactly what you need.
posted by Fuego at 1:12 PM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by Fuego at 1:12 PM on March 2, 2020 [5 favorites]
The piece of advice I give the most often to my students is "read your work out loud." If you've been reading a lot of academic essays for class, reading your own work out loud can help you hear the problems of your own prose.
Second, yes, the writing center on your campus can help you.
Finally, I really like teaching the book *They Say, I Say,* which is about building academic prose (recognizing the conversation, joining it, staging and making h=your own argument).
posted by correcaminos at 1:15 PM on March 2, 2020 [10 favorites]
Second, yes, the writing center on your campus can help you.
Finally, I really like teaching the book *They Say, I Say,* which is about building academic prose (recognizing the conversation, joining it, staging and making h=your own argument).
posted by correcaminos at 1:15 PM on March 2, 2020 [10 favorites]
Also, in the long term, you need to read a lot of good argumentative nonfiction.
posted by praemunire at 1:17 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 1:17 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]
Are you taking advantage of your professors' office hours? Spending time reviewing your graded work with professors and getting a sense of what they want you to accomplish will help you submit better work. And, it really does help the professor to know you a little bit, if grades are important to you.
Students often don't know to go to office hours in a non-emergency - but it should be part of what you do every semester.
posted by RajahKing at 1:46 PM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
Students often don't know to go to office hours in a non-emergency - but it should be part of what you do every semester.
posted by RajahKing at 1:46 PM on March 2, 2020 [3 favorites]
When I worked in my college's peer writing center, I eventually settled on a strategy of levels. Once you've got your ideas on the page, read your paper out loud and listen to yourself as you go. You're looking to untangle the small details first so that you reveal the larger structure behind them.
1. Level one is making sure your words and punctuation are the exact ones you want. Your vocabulary needs to be specific and precise. If a word is confusing, odd or sticks out, choose a more appropriate word or rework the portion of the sentence where it lies. If there are any words you use because you think they sound good but you're not quiiiite clear on the meaning, look them up! For every comma, ask yourself if it is strictly, absolutely necessary. For every semicolon, ask yourself if the sentence would be better broken up into two. Sometimes it is.
2. Level two is untangling your sentences. Lots of students have trouble with parallelism and this is pretty easy to spot in a read-over. If you're struggling with telling the difference between a run-on sentence and a compound/complex sentence, get a couple of colored gel pens and literally circle the subject and underline the verb in each clause. If there's more than one, you've likely go a run-on sentence. If there's no verb, you have a sentence fragment. Check your pronouns, especially a hanging "this." My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried because of this. Clarify exactly what "this" you're referring to. "My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried because of this choppiness." Or even leave it out: "My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried."
3. Level three is strengthening your paragraphs. Does each paragraph have one (1) topic? If there are more topics, each topic needs its own paragraph. Within each paragraph, do you have a variety of sentence structures and lengths? Packing together a bunch of verbose sentences in exactly the same structure each time makes your writing leaden and dull. Change them up! (see what I did there?)
4. Level four examines the whole essay level. Do the paragraphs flow from one to another? Have you got intros to each paragraph that serve as signposts to your logical structure? (On the one hand..., On the other hand..., Some argue that..., Secondly..., Finally.., etc.) Are they in logical order? Do you introduce your thesis at the beginning, provide supporting arguments, and then reiterate your thesis at the end? Highlight your thesis in bold, so it stands out to you. (I've done this in my answer here, for an example.) Can you state it in one sentence? Does the restatement add any element? Are the arguments as strong as they can possibly be?
Once you analyse your paper on each of these four levels, you can go back and read it over to make sure it still says what you want it to say. Most often, untangling issues by working up from each level will help you focus and reveal the ideas that were hiding behind those tangles. Good luck!
posted by Liesl at 1:53 PM on March 2, 2020 [24 favorites]
1. Level one is making sure your words and punctuation are the exact ones you want. Your vocabulary needs to be specific and precise. If a word is confusing, odd or sticks out, choose a more appropriate word or rework the portion of the sentence where it lies. If there are any words you use because you think they sound good but you're not quiiiite clear on the meaning, look them up! For every comma, ask yourself if it is strictly, absolutely necessary. For every semicolon, ask yourself if the sentence would be better broken up into two. Sometimes it is.
2. Level two is untangling your sentences. Lots of students have trouble with parallelism and this is pretty easy to spot in a read-over. If you're struggling with telling the difference between a run-on sentence and a compound/complex sentence, get a couple of colored gel pens and literally circle the subject and underline the verb in each clause. If there's more than one, you've likely go a run-on sentence. If there's no verb, you have a sentence fragment. Check your pronouns, especially a hanging "this." My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried because of this. Clarify exactly what "this" you're referring to. "My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried because of this choppiness." Or even leave it out: "My papers do not flow well and my ideas and arguments get buried."
3. Level three is strengthening your paragraphs. Does each paragraph have one (1) topic? If there are more topics, each topic needs its own paragraph. Within each paragraph, do you have a variety of sentence structures and lengths? Packing together a bunch of verbose sentences in exactly the same structure each time makes your writing leaden and dull. Change them up! (see what I did there?)
4. Level four examines the whole essay level. Do the paragraphs flow from one to another? Have you got intros to each paragraph that serve as signposts to your logical structure? (On the one hand..., On the other hand..., Some argue that..., Secondly..., Finally.., etc.) Are they in logical order? Do you introduce your thesis at the beginning, provide supporting arguments, and then reiterate your thesis at the end? Highlight your thesis in bold, so it stands out to you. (I've done this in my answer here, for an example.) Can you state it in one sentence? Does the restatement add any element? Are the arguments as strong as they can possibly be?
Once you analyse your paper on each of these four levels, you can go back and read it over to make sure it still says what you want it to say. Most often, untangling issues by working up from each level will help you focus and reveal the ideas that were hiding behind those tangles. Good luck!
posted by Liesl at 1:53 PM on March 2, 2020 [24 favorites]
Definitely go to your university's writing center. I've worked as a writing coach in one and can say that what you described was 95% of what I worked with students on. The writing center can help you find new strategies/revising habits that you can carry on to future papers too.
In case your university doesn't have a writing center, here are some resources you may find helpful. You may find the ones titled "Flow," "Reading Aloud Demo," "Reverse Outlining," and "Color Coding" helpful for making sure your argument doesn't get buried in the depths of your paper. The ones titled "Fragments and Run-Ons" and "Semi-Colons, Colons, and Dashes" can also help with some of the concerns you've described.
As for weird word choice, this is where you find a nice/helpful/sympathetic friend and read your paper out loud to them (or have them read it out loud to you). Ask them to point out places where they think is weirdly worded. Don't worry too much if they point out a term that's specific to your subject.
posted by astapasta24 at 2:00 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]
In case your university doesn't have a writing center, here are some resources you may find helpful. You may find the ones titled "Flow," "Reading Aloud Demo," "Reverse Outlining," and "Color Coding" helpful for making sure your argument doesn't get buried in the depths of your paper. The ones titled "Fragments and Run-Ons" and "Semi-Colons, Colons, and Dashes" can also help with some of the concerns you've described.
As for weird word choice, this is where you find a nice/helpful/sympathetic friend and read your paper out loud to them (or have them read it out loud to you). Ask them to point out places where they think is weirdly worded. Don't worry too much if they point out a term that's specific to your subject.
posted by astapasta24 at 2:00 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]
You might consider taking advantage of your student health insurance, reaching out to psych, and doing the battery of tests that evaluates for ADD/ADHD and other non-neurotypicalities.
(My undergrad papers were described similarly to yours. I was finally diagnosed in the final stages of my grad program, and I often wonder how much more effective I could have been if I'd known earlier how to work with my brain rather than against it.)
+1 to the Writing Center, too.
posted by nicodine at 2:07 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
(My undergrad papers were described similarly to yours. I was finally diagnosed in the final stages of my grad program, and I often wonder how much more effective I could have been if I'd known earlier how to work with my brain rather than against it.)
+1 to the Writing Center, too.
posted by nicodine at 2:07 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
2nding Revising Prose. It helped me a lot in university.
posted by bertran at 2:59 PM on March 2, 2020
posted by bertran at 2:59 PM on March 2, 2020
Do you outline before you write? Because you should.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:42 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by kevinbelt at 3:42 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]
I suggest this book: Just Writing: Grammar, Punctuation, and Style for the Legal Writer, because of how clearly it breaks down the component parts of the writing process.
I also recommend The Oatmeal comics about Grammar.
posted by katra at 3:56 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
Just Writing covers the basic principles of good legal writing, including style, grammar, punctuation, and other mechanics of writing. Its short length and focused content make it a perfect supplemental text for any legal writing course, providing tips, techniques, and helpful advice for every step of the process, including planning, drafting, revising, editing, and proofreading.I think it is a bit of a misnomer to refer to it as a 'legal writing' text, when it ultimately focuses on what you are talking about, which is clearly communicating your ideas. For example, you may be especially interested in Chapter 6, "Effective Words."
I also recommend The Oatmeal comics about Grammar.
posted by katra at 3:56 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]
How do you approach writing?
After you’ve attended classes and got your reading list you should have a pretty good idea of what your essay should cover. Gather your main materials and skim them. Anything you’re unclear about? Read more, talk to your peers or professors and make sure you’re clear on the topic.
So now you’ve got a topic and you’ve read around it. You should now be able to decide what your conclusion for the essay will be. Draft that. And then draft the exec summary. Yes, that’s right, I am asking you to start with the end. It worked for JK Rowling so bear with me.
If your essay were in fact an itinerary for a road trip, by understanding your topic, defining a conclusion and an exec summary this is what you would have done. You’d have opened the map and found your start point and destination. And you’d have identified the motorways that could get you there and worked out if you’re going to follow a more southern or northern route. The next step is to plot a route based on that - what are the sights along the route, are there any scenic byways you shouldn’t miss, where are you going to stop for the night etc.
As you’re writing an essay, not planning a road trip, your next step is drafting an outline - headings and a couple of bullets/keywords per heading.
Does the outline get you to your conclusion? If not why not? What are the missing arguments or the counter arguments that got you sidetracked? Reorder, remove or add missing headings and bullets. Are you getting to your conclusion now? Basically, keep doing that until you have a good flow and clear line of argument. Now you start to flesh out each section.
If you were planning a road trip this is the point where you have a route, you have found all the cool sights you’ll pass, you’ve asked MeFi for tips and the community has come through and your trip, as it stands, will take you 25 days and cost a small fortune. Except that you only have x days and y budget and so you start to pare things down. You also realise that you only want to drive z miles/day on average and that means even more fine tuning.
As you’re writing an essay you need to flesh out and then sleep on it. Re-read it. Does it actually say what you want to say and how you want to say it? Did you get tempted to add extra stuff not in your final outline? Does that stuff really help? If not remove it.
Now sleep on it again. Read it again and fix anything that detracts from the flow. And read aloud. Fix your sentences, fix your formatting. Sleep on it again. Keep editing. Keep the different versions in case you want to go back to something.
When you think you’re done go back to your conclusion and the exec summary. Chances are they’ll need fine tuning.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:03 PM on March 2, 2020
After you’ve attended classes and got your reading list you should have a pretty good idea of what your essay should cover. Gather your main materials and skim them. Anything you’re unclear about? Read more, talk to your peers or professors and make sure you’re clear on the topic.
So now you’ve got a topic and you’ve read around it. You should now be able to decide what your conclusion for the essay will be. Draft that. And then draft the exec summary. Yes, that’s right, I am asking you to start with the end. It worked for JK Rowling so bear with me.
If your essay were in fact an itinerary for a road trip, by understanding your topic, defining a conclusion and an exec summary this is what you would have done. You’d have opened the map and found your start point and destination. And you’d have identified the motorways that could get you there and worked out if you’re going to follow a more southern or northern route. The next step is to plot a route based on that - what are the sights along the route, are there any scenic byways you shouldn’t miss, where are you going to stop for the night etc.
As you’re writing an essay, not planning a road trip, your next step is drafting an outline - headings and a couple of bullets/keywords per heading.
Does the outline get you to your conclusion? If not why not? What are the missing arguments or the counter arguments that got you sidetracked? Reorder, remove or add missing headings and bullets. Are you getting to your conclusion now? Basically, keep doing that until you have a good flow and clear line of argument. Now you start to flesh out each section.
If you were planning a road trip this is the point where you have a route, you have found all the cool sights you’ll pass, you’ve asked MeFi for tips and the community has come through and your trip, as it stands, will take you 25 days and cost a small fortune. Except that you only have x days and y budget and so you start to pare things down. You also realise that you only want to drive z miles/day on average and that means even more fine tuning.
As you’re writing an essay you need to flesh out and then sleep on it. Re-read it. Does it actually say what you want to say and how you want to say it? Did you get tempted to add extra stuff not in your final outline? Does that stuff really help? If not remove it.
Now sleep on it again. Read it again and fix anything that detracts from the flow. And read aloud. Fix your sentences, fix your formatting. Sleep on it again. Keep editing. Keep the different versions in case you want to go back to something.
When you think you’re done go back to your conclusion and the exec summary. Chances are they’ll need fine tuning.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:03 PM on March 2, 2020
+1 writing center
posted by j_curiouser at 8:02 PM on March 2, 2020
posted by j_curiouser at 8:02 PM on March 2, 2020
Try reading or listening to well-executed nonfiction prose for a while before starting to write. The rhythm/style that you pick up can actually stick around for a while.
As a bonus, this gives you something that you can compare your own style to. You can go through the steps that others have mentioned above, both with your own work and the outside work, and see how they differ on a finer level.
posted by miniraptor at 5:16 AM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
As a bonus, this gives you something that you can compare your own style to. You can go through the steps that others have mentioned above, both with your own work and the outside work, and see how they differ on a finer level.
posted by miniraptor at 5:16 AM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Agree with others:
Reading/speaking your ideas out loud will help because you don't feel pressure to use "fancy" or "scholarly" words (which might be contributing to your odd word choice), and it will be more natural and easy to follow.
Also agree about writing center. I would suggest asking for specific advice like "how do I know when to start a new paragraph?" I have always hated revising, but really, re-reading and revising is the only way to solve some of these problems. At the university I work for, the writing center gets very backed up around the time final papers are due, so you might check if you need to make an appointment early.
Before you start writing, or at least before you submit your paper, you should know what your thesis is. The thesis is the main point or 'argument' you are trying to make. Since you say you have good ideas and professors like your arguments, this is probably already in good shape, so you should use this to guide your paper. (e.g., you start a new paragraph when you're making a new point to support your overall thesis). Often for me, when I write I either have to brainstorm a long time to figure out what my thesis really is, and then I can write quickly and fluidly. Or I have to write for a long time and kind of wander around, just get words on the page, and then I realize I've stumbled on a thesis and can go back and structure the paper around it. Either way, your writing should be organized around your argument.
My high school English teacher taught us the "chunk" method of writing. High school was a long time ago, and I don't know if this is a real thing or if it was just my teacher's method, but I found a few things online that seem like what I remember. It is actually a very formulaic method of writing, but once you get the basic structure down, you can riff off the format. This way of thinking about the elements of a paragraph/how to build an argument has served me well in academic writing. I am not a writing teacher, but I do help students with writing sometimes, and I have published academic writing, for whatever that's worth.
posted by kochenta at 3:41 PM on March 3, 2020
Reading/speaking your ideas out loud will help because you don't feel pressure to use "fancy" or "scholarly" words (which might be contributing to your odd word choice), and it will be more natural and easy to follow.
Also agree about writing center. I would suggest asking for specific advice like "how do I know when to start a new paragraph?" I have always hated revising, but really, re-reading and revising is the only way to solve some of these problems. At the university I work for, the writing center gets very backed up around the time final papers are due, so you might check if you need to make an appointment early.
Before you start writing, or at least before you submit your paper, you should know what your thesis is. The thesis is the main point or 'argument' you are trying to make. Since you say you have good ideas and professors like your arguments, this is probably already in good shape, so you should use this to guide your paper. (e.g., you start a new paragraph when you're making a new point to support your overall thesis). Often for me, when I write I either have to brainstorm a long time to figure out what my thesis really is, and then I can write quickly and fluidly. Or I have to write for a long time and kind of wander around, just get words on the page, and then I realize I've stumbled on a thesis and can go back and structure the paper around it. Either way, your writing should be organized around your argument.
My high school English teacher taught us the "chunk" method of writing. High school was a long time ago, and I don't know if this is a real thing or if it was just my teacher's method, but I found a few things online that seem like what I remember. It is actually a very formulaic method of writing, but once you get the basic structure down, you can riff off the format. This way of thinking about the elements of a paragraph/how to build an argument has served me well in academic writing. I am not a writing teacher, but I do help students with writing sometimes, and I have published academic writing, for whatever that's worth.
posted by kochenta at 3:41 PM on March 3, 2020
Just want to suggest a related exercise that helps me sometimes: pick an author whose prose you like, and pretend you're them. Props to get into character are optional... Like, for Hemingway, you may want to try writing bare-chested on an ancient typewriter, wearing whatever Nazi memorabilia you happen to have around the house. Absinthe may or may not improve results.
Seriously though, when I can't make something make sense on the page, I like to pretend I'm Chomsky, or sometimes Dan Dennett... pick your own, and if it doesn't work, you get to blame it on Truman Capote, or Susan Sontag, or whomever. More fun either way!
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 10:48 AM on March 5, 2020
Seriously though, when I can't make something make sense on the page, I like to pretend I'm Chomsky, or sometimes Dan Dennett... pick your own, and if it doesn't work, you get to blame it on Truman Capote, or Susan Sontag, or whomever. More fun either way!
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 10:48 AM on March 5, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
So in short: go to campus writing center, have others read your work and provide feedback, read your own work out loud after each draft.
posted by acidnova at 1:05 PM on March 2, 2020 [18 favorites]