Language focus
1.
Impersonal language
there seems to be more use of impersonal language in academic writing. This may involve
avoiding the use of “I”, “my”, “you”, “your”, “we” and “our”. It has also been mentioned that
conventions about the acceptability of the use of these personal forms vary from discipline to
discipline.
In many types of essay, you are expected to make your own viewpoint on a topic clear – this is
often done through a thesis statement.
But how can you express your opinion without using “I” or “my”? Here are some suggestions:
1. Use a passive structure
Passive structures are often used in scientific writing, where the process is more important than
the people carrying them out, for example;
Don’ts
Do’s
“In the UK, apples are usually harvested in
“In the UK, farmers usually harvest apples in
August or September. About 60% are sold in the
August or September. People sell about 60% in
UK, and the rest are exported, mainly to
the UK and export the rest, mainly to Europe”
Europe.”
but in all disciplines you can avoid using personal forms with a passive structure.
Don’ts
Do’s
“We should invest more money in education” “More money should be invested in education”
Note that you can also use passive structures to introduce other people’s perspectives, which may
be different to your own.
Don’ts
“Many people claim that children are spending
less time reading these days, but recent
research suggests…”
Do’s
”It is widely claimed that children are spending
less time reading these days, but recent research
suggests…”
2. Use a noun phrase
You looked at the use of noun phrases. Long complex noun phrases are very characteristic of
academic writing, and by using them you can also avoid using personal forms.
Don’ts
Do’s
“If we banned the use of petrol as a fuel for cars,
“A ban on the sale of petrol cars, together
and we encouraged people to buy electric cars, this with incentives to buy electric cars, would
would help protect the environment.”
help protect the environment.”
3. Use “It is” + ADJECTIVE and “There is/are” + NOUN
“It” and “There” are often used as ‘empty subjects’. That is to say, in general you must have a
subject and a verb in every sentence, but when you cannot think of an obvious subject, or you
want to avoid a personal form you can use “It” or “There”.
Don’ts
Do’s
“I cannot understand why this decision was
“It is difficult to understand why this decision
taken.”
was taken.”
“Many people were confused about the change “There was a lot of confusion about the change
in legislation about tobacco advertising.”
in legislation about tobacco advertising.”
4. Use adjectives and adverbs
Often adjectives and adverbs can be used to express your own viewpoint indirectly. The adjectives
and adverbs are highlighted.
2.
Cautious lanuage
In the academic world knowledge is socially constructed, that is to say that for new ideas or
knowledge to be widely accepted, substantial evidence has to be provided and where possible,
findings for research need to be validated with further research conducted in different contexts.
For this reason, try avoid claiming “this is true and everyone agrees” and instead suggest “this
seems to be true, but more research is needed to confirm this.” This is called cautious (or
tentative) language. Here are some more examples.
Don’ts
Do’s
“All international students have problems
“International students may have problems
adjusting to a different culture”
adjusting to a different culture”
“Everyone knows that the first Europeans to visit “There is general agreement that the first
America were Vikings”
Europeans to visit America were Vikings”
“The results suggest that class size is a
“The results prove that class size is the most
significant factor affecting student
significant factor affecting student performance.”
performance.”
From the examples, you can see the ways this is done by:
 using a suitable modal verbs (eg can, could, may, might, should…)
 using a suitable reporting verb (eg claim, suggest, assert, maintain, argue)
 avoiding words like “all, everyone” (unless this is actually true).
These examples all have slightly different meanings and express different degree of cautiousness,
so make sure you really understand their differences in meaning before you use them.
Please note that you can still make bold claims, if they are justified. For example, “Smoking
tobacco is clearly bad for your health” is better than “There is some evidence to suggest that
smoking may be bad for your health”.
Here is some more cautious language that you can use, presented in context so that you can see
how they fit into a sentence:
 As people get older, they tend to have more difficulty remembering things.
 There is a growing tendency for women to have children later in life.
 Young drivers are more likely to have accidents than older ones.
 The situation is unlikely to improve.
If you are going to use a search engine like Google think about the keywords and phrases you are
going to need to search with. Then think about alternatives or synonyms for those words.
Choosing credible sources
As mentioned before, the quality of content on the internet is very variable, and much of it is
unsuitable for use on an academic assignment. There are a number of criteria that you need to
apply when deciding when to use content from the internet.
Authority
Who is responsible for the content of the website?
Is it an individual or an organisation?
If it is an organisation, is it one you trust? How independent is it?
The domain name will give you some information about the authority of the website: .ac and .edu
are domain names for educational institutions, .gov is used for government agencies and .org for
official organisations. Websites with these domain names are generally considered authoritative.
Audience
Who is the website aimed at? The general public? Schoolchildren? University staff and students?
Currency
How up-to-date is the content?
Well maintained websites should include information on the date the content was posted, but
sometimes this information is just not available.
Accuracy
How accurate is the information given on webpages?
Is evidence used to support arguments? If so, are the sources of that evidence given clearly?
If possible it always a good idea to cross-check statistics by referring to other websites which
provide similar information.
Viewpoint
How objectively is the information presented?
Do the authors of the content have a particular viewpoint that makes it difficult for them to be
objective on particular issues. Online searches
Read the paragraph below about doing online searches and complete
the sentences using some of the words below.
Nowadays most people use
to find information online. There are
software systems that search all over the World Wide Web, including Google, Bing and Ask. They
are quick and
: you enter your search
, and find a list of results to choose from. However they have
when used for academic research, and students are often advised to
use
or library
, which can be
especially valuable when finding academic
particular academic
and resources for
.
Part of speech: Suffixes
There are many endings of words (known as “suffixes”) which are associated with
different parts of speech. Here are some examples:
Part of Speech Suffixes
Examples
Nouns
-ance
appearance, performance, significance
-ence
dependence, existence, reference
-tion
definition, distribution, organisation
-sion
conclusion, dimension, tension
assessment, employment,
-ment
environment
-ure
literature, procedure, structure
-ity
clarity, identity, majority
-age
advantage, package, percentage
Adjectives
-ant
important, relevant, significant
-ent
consistent, dependent, evident
-ive
effective, informative, productive
-cial
beneficial, commercial, financial
-tial
essential, influential, residential
-ous
ambiguous, obvious, serious
-ic
dramatic, economic, specific
Verbs
-en
strengthen, tighten, widen
-olve
involve, revolve, solve
-ide
coincide, decide, divide
-ise
generalise, organise, revise
It’s important to note that these are general patterns and there are many words
which do not follow them. For example:
initiative (noun), mention (verb), sudden (adjective), statistic (noun), ensure (verb),
wooden (adjective).
Playing word games is a good way to develop your vocabulary in English. Here are
some puzzles involving suffixes. Try to do them without using electronic resources,
but use the resources to check.
1. Find four subjects that you can study at university that all end “-ics”.
2. Which of these words is not an adjective?
3. Find four words, all ending “-dom”, which are synonyms for these words.
4. Which word is the “odd one out”? Why?
5. Add the same word to these words to make 4 new words.
 WORD GAMES Answer key
1. Find 4 subjects that you can study at university that all end “-ics”
economics, statistics, mathematics, politics, physics, electronics...
2. Which of these words is not an adjective?
effective incentive perceptive sensitive
3. Find 4 words, all ending “-dom”, which are synonyms for these words.
liberty rarely unsystematic sagacity
freedom seldom random wisdom
4. Which word is the “odd one out”? Why?
assessment employment implement requirement
Unlike the others, “implement” can be a noun and a verb (but with different
pronunciations and different meanings). You can change the others into verbs
if you
remove “-ment” from them.
5. Add the same word to these words to make 4 new words.
other.... clock.... like.... street....
otherwise clockwise likewise streetwise