Psychology student and editor Larissa explains 10 mistakes to avoid in academic science writing in this two-part series
By Larissa Wright
Over the Christmas break, I worked as a freelance editor, focusing mostly on academic work. Since November last year, I have edited around 350 academic papers, as well as responses to peer reviewers who rejected these papers for various reasons. As you might imagine, I have learned a lot about the mistakes people make in science writing, and the kinds of things that can tank your essay and leave you with crappy marks. My goal in writing this article is to help you recognise these problems before you make them yourself and get marked down for them.
Anyway, you didn’t come here for my life story, so let’s get straight into it.
Mistake #1: Mixing up verb tenses
Correct verb tenses are crucial for clarity. Most academic styles actually have a list of pretty clear rules that you can just follow to avoid confusion. One of the biggest mistakes I see is using simple present tense to describe your own findings, as though you are assuming they generalise to the world as a given fact – which isn’t really what science is about. The only thing you have evidence of is your own results, which should be reported in simple past tense. This is the link I use for APA7: https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/verb-tense.
✗ The results show that higher housing prices lead to lower birth rates.
✓ The results show that higher housing prices led to lower birth rates.
Mistake #2: Using words colloquially, especially adverbs
Academic writing should be literal, and words should be used literally (literally literally, not colloquially literally). I often see adverbs like ‘totally’, ‘absolutely’, and ‘obviously’ being used for the purpose of highlighting a point. ‘Totally’ means ‘100%’ and what you might find obvious, readers who don’t specialise in your field might not.
✗ Obviously, the results for variable A are completely different from variable B.
✓ As seen in Figure 4, there is a significant difference between variable A and variable B.
Mistake #3: Meandering
I strongly suggest mapping out the structure of your essay before you start writing. If you wander around in a random order, returning to previous points, possibly even repeating them, with related facts spread across different paragraphs, you’re gonna get marked down. Cohesiveness is key, and you need to follow a direct, linear progression that makes logical sense and helps your reader feel like they’re going somewhere in a fairly predictable fashion – not walking around in circles.
Mistake #4: General phrases that don’t really say anything
Readers come to academic papers for facts and information, and every single phrase on your page should earn its place with something to say. Avoid weak statements that don’t really say anything, and be as specific and informative as you can at every stage of your essay.
✗ For years, iron ore has been Australia’s biggest export. They export a lot of it.
✓ Since the 1960s, iron ore has been Australia’s largest source of export revenue. According to the Minerals Council of Australia (2018), 828 billion tonnes were exported in 2017.
Mistake #5: Subjectivity
Unless you are specifically writing an essay that asks for your opinion, you generally want to keep your feelings and opinions out of academic writing. While it’s easy to avoid blatant statements like “I was pretty ticked off with these results,” there are other ways subjectivity can creep in in more subtle ways. Using words that are extreme or emotionally charged is pretty common.
✗ Unfortunately, our results showed there are still a huge number of people who think public breastfeeding is shameful, forcing women to feed their starving babies in filthy toilet cubicles.
✓ Our results showed that 38% of respondents viewed public breastfeeding as unacceptable, and that complaints of this nature could lead to women feeding their babies in toilet cubicles.
Stay tuned to Deakin Life tomorrow for Part 2, in which Larissa will explain more tips and a further five mistakes to avoid in science writing. See you then!