Much of this book has looked at basic principles of researching and structuring your writing in English language and linguistics. This chapter looks at one other key ingredient that is necessary if your work is to ‘feel right’ and conform to the expectations of your discipline and therefore those of your lecturers and examiners as well: good style. Your writing must consistently demonstrate an academic style that is not only engaging but appropriate. While we've considered some of the factors that can help make your writing engaging (e.g. sound and incisive critical analysis, well-articulated reasoning, original thinking, the effective use of thesis statements and examples), it's important to remember that the choices you make as you strive for a style that's also appropriate are equally if not more important, for, ultimately, they can make the difference between an exceptional piece of work and one that's mediocre, even poor.

Concision and clarity

Although we looked at concision in section 2.5, it is worth revisiting it briefly here in the light of its importance to good academic writing. Concision, you'll recall, means keeping your writing brief and to the point, and avoiding waffle and the inclusion of information that's peripheral to your main discussion and which doesn't have a direct and immediate bearing on it. Such information is likely to be seen by the reader as irrelevant and an unnecessary distraction.