General Uses of Parentheses in Academic Writing Generally speaking, parentheses or round brackets tend to appear in scholarly writing more frequently than other brackets do. They have a number of specialised uses (in mathematical equations, for instance, or textual studies),…
Using Adjectives Effectively in Academic and Scientific Writing
Using Adjectives Effectively in Academic and Scientific Writing Some authors claim that adjectives are virtually unnecessary. Choosing the correct noun in any given situation is the key, they would argue, and with the right noun, who needs an accompanying adjective?…
En Rules or Short Dashes and Their Many Proper Uses
Using En Rules without Spaces Correctly and Effectively An en rule or en dash is longer than a hyphen and shorter than an em rule. It can be used closed up without any spaces around it or with spaces on…
The Correct and Effective Use of En Rules without Spaces in Your Thesis or Dissertation
The Correct and Effective Use of En Rules without Spaces in Your Thesis or Dissertation As you draft your thesis or dissertation, you will likely discover that you need to use en rules, so you will also need to understand…
The Correct Use of Infinitive Verbs in Academic & Scientific English
The Correct Use of Infinitive Verbs in Academic & Scientific English It was once considered completely inappropriate to split infinitives in formal, particularly scholarly writing in the English language, but the rules tend to be less strictly observed these days….
How to Use the Semicolon Correctly in English
How to Use the Semicolon Correctly in English Although the semicolon (;) is used more rarely these days than it once was and is even considered redundant by some writers, it remains an effective piece of punctuation with very specific…
Full Stops in Titles, Headings and Captions
Full Stops in Titles, Headings and Captions As a general rule, a full stop is not used at the end of a displayed title, heading, subheading or caption in scholarly English prose. This applies whether the displayed text is the…
Using or Not Using the Serial or Oxford Comma in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Using or Not Using the Serial or Oxford Comma in Your Thesis or Dissertation A serial or Oxford comma is the comma that appears immediately after the penultimate item in a series or list when a conjunction separates that item…
Perfecting Sentence Structure in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Perfecting Sentence Structure in Your Thesis or Dissertation The process of writing a thesis or dissertation in the English language tends to place new demands on the textual skills of most students, particularly those students whose first language is not…
Does Good Grammar Really Matter in a Thesis or Dissertation?
Does Good Grammar Really Matter in a Thesis or Dissertation? The short answer to that question is a resounding yes, good grammar matters a great deal, despite the fact that the validity of fussing over correct grammar seems to have…
Beginning Sentences Correctly and Effectively in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Beginning Sentences Correctly and Effectively in Your Thesis or Dissertation Each sentence of the scholarly English prose you write for your thesis or dissertation should start in ways that are precise and complete, and certain elements of writing should never…
Using Three Grammatical Structures Agreeably in a Thesis or Dissertation
Using Three Grammatical Structures Agreeably in a Thesis or Dissertation If you are not a native speaker of English, but are writing a thesis or dissertation in the language, you may find yourself struggling at times to establish agreement between…
Punctuating Sentences as Lists in Theses and Dissertations
Punctuating Sentences as Lists in Theses and Dissertations Lists are extremely effective tools for students who are writing a thesis or dissertation. A list can present a great deal of complicated material in a concise format that is especially clear…
Forming the Future Tenses of English Verbs for Theses and Dissertations
Forming the Future Tenses of English Verbs for Theses and Dissertations Many thesis and dissertation candidates, especially those whose native language is not English, find the conjugation of English verbs somewhat tricky. For this reason, I have written a few…
English Verbs and Their Present Tenses in Theses and Dissertations
English Verbs and Their Present Tenses in Theses and Dissertations Increasing numbers of students who are writing a thesis or dissertation in the English language are not native speakers of that language. Although they may possess excellent writing skills in…
Using the Past Tenses of English Verbs in Theses and Dissertations
Using the Past Tenses of English Verbs in Theses and Dissertations Thesis and dissertation students who struggle with writing English prose that effectively presents their research often have difficulties when it comes to conjugating verb tenses. In this post, I…
Rules for Using Relative Pronouns Correctly in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Rules for Using Relative Pronouns Correctly in Your Thesis or Dissertation The use of relative pronouns is often necessary when producing the kind of formal prose required in a scholarly thesis or dissertation, but using relative pronouns correctly can be…
Turning a Critical Eye on Language and Logic in Your Thesis or Dissertation
Turning a Critical Eye on Language and Logic in Your Thesis or Dissertation The language and more so the logic of your thesis or dissertation have probably received critical attention and undergone revisions as you drafted chapters and worked with…
Varying the Structure of Sentences for an Interesting Thesis or Dissertation
Varying the Structure of Sentences for an Interesting Thesis or Dissertation As long as the meaning is clear, the problems, concepts and details described and discussed by academics and scientists may be intellectually stimulating regardless of exactly how individual sentences…
Dashes or Rules in Academic and Scientific Writing
Dashes or Rules The most common use of en or em dashes (also called ‘rules’) in the running prose of a scholarly paper is to mark parenthetical clauses, in which case the dashes indicate a more pronounced break in the…
What Is the Difference between a Semicolon and a Colon?
What Is the Difference between a Semicolon and a Colon? Well, some might argue that there is very little difference indeed, and the careless way in which semicolons and colons are used by many authors could be used as evidence…
Using the Auxiliary Verbs Might and May Correctly in Academic Writing
Using the Auxiliary Verbs Might and May Correctly in Academic Writing English is fraught with words that seem straightforward to most native speakers, but tend to present significant difficulties for authors whose native tongue is not English. Some of these…
Therefore or However? Choosing and Using the Right Transitional Word
Therefore or However? Choosing and Using the Right Transitional Word Logical transitions are essential in writing of all kinds, but never more so than in the academic and scientific prose written to report and discuss the methods, results and implications…
What Is Parallelism and Why Is It So Important in Academic Writing?
What Is Parallelism and Why Is It So Important in Academic Writing? The term ‘parallelism’ refers to the repeated and balanced use of similar words, phrases or clauses that share a specific grammatical structure or syntactical pattern. As a writing…
A Good Beginning for Every Sentence in Academic & Scientific Writing
A Good Beginning for Every Sentence in Academic & Scientific Writing The wording at the beginning of English sentences in scholarly prose should be both precise and complete, and certain elements should not be used in that position. Numerals, for…
Challenging Nouns: Plurals That Seem Singular and Collective or Group Nouns
Challenging Nouns: Plurals That Seem Singular and Collective or Group Nouns In formal scholarly writing, agreement should always be maintained between nouns and the verbs used with them. This is usually straightforward: singular nouns should be used with the singular…
Using Relative Pronouns Correctly and Effectively
Using Relative Pronouns Correctly and Effectively A recent newsletter for authors published by a prominent press emphasised the importance of an author knowing as much as possible about his or her readers. The advice is sound, but the language in…
How Do I Use a Semicolon Correctly in Academic & Scientific Writing?
How Do I Use a Semicolon Correctly in Academic & Scientific Writing? It may now be the case that many writers use the semicolon (;) to send a winking happy face to family, friends and colleagues more often than they…
The Serial or Oxford Comma: When, Where and Why or When, Where, and Why?
The Serial or Oxford Comma: When, Where and Why or When, Where, and Why? A serial comma is the comma that appears immediately after the penultimate item in a series or list when a conjunction separates that item from the…
English Infinitive Verbs and Why They Should Not Be Split
English Infinitive Verbs and Why They Should Not Be Split The days when it was considered anathema to split infinitives in formal, particularly scholarly writing in the English language are long gone. In English text of virtually all kinds, from…
The Importance of Good Grammar for Clear Communication
The Importance of Good Grammar for Clear Communication Strange as it may seem to those who aim to produce excellent writing that communicates with precision and eloquence, the validity of fussing over correct grammar seems to have become a hotly…
Forming English Possessive Nouns with an Apostrophe Only
Forming English Possessive Nouns with an Apostrophe Only In my previous discussion of apostrophes, I listed a number of instances in which both an apostrophe and an ‘s’ should be added to form the possessive case of words. In this…
Using Hyphens in Formal English Writing: Rules and Perils
Using Hyphens in Formal English Writing: Rules and Perils Hyphens may seem too small an element of writing to warrant the term ‘perils,’ but a consistent system of hyphenation can be incredibly tricky to establish because the use of hyphens…
Plurals and Punctuation of Numbers in Academic and Scientific Writing
Plurals and Punctuation of Numbers The plural forms of numbers expressed as words do not use an apostrophe; instead, they are formed just as other plurals are by adding an ‘s’ or ‘es’ (‘sixes and sevens’) or by changing a…
Why English Verbs Should Not Be Split and Other Writing Tips
Why English Verbs Should Not Be Split and Other Writing Tips English is a notoriously difficult language to use correctly, more so to use elegantly, and verbs are among the most troublesome aspects of English to negotiate. Care must be…
Formatting Numbers (Dates & Time) in Academic & Scientific Writing
Dates In all academic and scientific writing, precise dates are far more effective than general references such as ‘lately’ and ‘in recent years,’ but if clarity is to be maintained, the format of dates and eras must be precise and…