An easy way to improve your writing.

Beginning writers often struggle with developing a more properly academic style in their writing. A thoroughly traditional academic voice is not a reasonable goal for most students. It is not ideal or desirable, even among most academics, to write in such a way. Many beginning writers either write too informally, too much like their journal or blog, but another common error is aping a ‘high academic’ style that is nothing like the writer’s own style. The latter is often a painfully unreadable mishmash that is more pretentious than academic. The other reason a traditional academic voice is rarely a good goal is that few students will become academics. Most of us, even those who will gain a PhD and enter academia, will be communicating with a variety of people. The goal should be that your writing is clear and comprehensible to the actual people who will be reading it, not an imaginary genius. That does not mean accepting mistakes or being lazy about your writing style, however.

One simple tool is to use the spelling and grammar check in your writing program. That may seem silly or obvious, but any grader will tell you that students often fail to use this simple feature. Be sure to turn on the majority of the spelling and grammar features, and when the program flags something, do not just fix it or accept the suggested changes, look closely at what the program is telling you about your writing. These programs are not perfect and their suggestions are not always correct, but they can help show you where your writing is unclear. The spelling and grammar check features are not like the dishwasher, you cannot just turn them on and ignore the details, you need to be an active and engaged user for it to function properly.