Part 2: Student Larissa explains five more common mistakes to avoid in academic science writing
Following on from Psychology student and academic editor Larissa’s first five tips to improve your science writing, here’s another five mistakes you should avoid in your report and essay writing as you’re busy working on your assignments.
By Larissa Wright
Mistake #6: Using the word ‘prove’
The word ‘prove’ suggests something is absolutely true, set in stone, undeniable and beyond challenge. This is not what science is about – everything should be up for challenge, repeated in different scenarios, with different study designs and different participants. Use ‘provide evidence’ or ‘demonstrate’ instead.
✗ These findings prove that psychology students are smarter than other students.
✓ These findings demonstrated that psychology students had higher IQs that students in other faculties.
Mistake #7: Getting lost in data and forgetting to say something interesting
This is really common in huge PhD dissertations where the writer has obviously been swimming in statistics and equations for so long they’ve forgotten what real-world information they actually came here for. It’s a good thing to be aware of and knock on the head early on. When reporting results, make sure you’re telling your readers something of import, and you’re providing them the information they want to know, in a way they can understand, even if they don’t look at your tables and figures.
✗ There was a significant difference between values in A and B and no significance between the values of B and C.
✓ The CBT group showed significantly higher mood improvements than the psychoanalysis group. While the psychoanalysis group showed slightly more improvement than the control group, the results were not significant at the .05 level.
Mistake #8: Unsynthesised literature reviews
Most academic papers involve some kind of literature review, and that literature review must show a synthesised picture of the research – not just a list of related papers you find. The best approach is to spend a few hours just reading the literature, and then when you have a pretty good idea of what’s there, summarise what you found then cite the literature to back it up.
✗ Smith et al. (2006) found that 68% of children didn’t enjoy school. Gonzalez and Da Silva (2008) stated that 80% of children liked less than half of their classes. A more recent study found that most students loved school (Park, 2018). Likewise, Tanaka (2020) found that many children preferred school to playing sports.
✓ Most research from the first decade of the century indicates that children were largely unhappy about going to school (Gonzalez & Silva, 2008; Smith et al., 2006), while more recent studies seem to show a trend towards higher levels of satisfaction (Park, 2018; Tanaka, 2020).
Mistake #9: Wandering away from your research question/hypothesis
Everything in your essay should be in service to your research question or hypothesis. If you include some interesting information because you think it’s interesting, you need to find a way to link it clearly back to the topic. I edited a paper yesterday whose research question was about the effectiveness of a workplace intervention, and whether that effectiveness was related to employee demographics. The writer spent two pages discussing correlations between the demographics, such as how length of tenure related to position and income level, and what that could imply about their management style. Don’t lose sight of what you came to do, and make sure everything is explicitly connected to it.
Mistake #10: Unnecessary, wordy, and complex language
Don’t waste words, and don’t use complicated words when there’s a perfectly good simple one available. People come to academic writing for facts and information, and they want them to be straightforward. They’re also going to get resentful if they have to stop to look every third word up in a dictionary. It doesn’t make you look smart; it makes you look like a jerk. Additionally, avoid using 3 or 4 verbs compounded together when 1 or 2 will do, and starting sentences with unnecessary introductory phrases.
✗ With regard to the velocity, motor vehicle drivers from the north-eastern state of Queensland had the most accentuated propensity to accelerate beyond statutory limitations. However, this study went on to find that they reported that they tended to be able to demonstrate cognizance of this predilection.
✓ Queensland drivers were most likely to drive above the speed limit, although participants reported being aware of this behaviour.
Of course, there are endless other mistakes you can make and learning from them as you go is key, but if you can avoid these ten, you’re off to a great start.
Happy writing!
You can read more handy study tips from Larissa on Deakin Life, including how to overcome the disappointment of receiving poor grades. And don’t stress if you need help with your assignments – you can access a range of academic and study support online, including personalised help from Language and Learning Advisers, Writing and Maths Mentors, and Smarthinking.