Research Writing and Grammar

Writing a strong doctoral dissertation or thesisis a daunting task for any student due to the difficulty of academic writing. Students face the challenge of organizing and maintaining large amounts of text across hundreds of pages. For master’s and PhD doctoral students, writing a thesis or dissertation represents the capstone to their academic career. For […]

According to Merriam Webster, a preposition is “a word or group of words that combines with a noun or pronoun to form a phrase that usually acts as an adverb, adjective, or noun”. You have probably heard explanations like this one many times. But you might still be a bit unsure what a preposition is […]

Are punctuation mistakes common? Although our client document data shows that punctuation mistakes are somewhat less common than other types of mistakes (e.g., grammar mistakes or spelling errors) in academic texts written by non-native speakers of English, these mistakes nevertheless get in the way of conveying important information about your research to your readers. These […]

Since many of you have asked us questions about seemingly conflicting rules about which tense to use in a research paper, we wrote this article to clarify the issue. When writing and editing an abstract for a research article, several different verb tenses can be used. Which tense you should use largely depends on the […]

Why Using the Correct Verb Tense is Important When writing an academic paper,writers should follow the accepted grammar and style conventions: not only to abide by the institutional and domain standards, but to communicate clearly to readers what was studied, when it took place, and from what perspective you arediscussing your research (and that of […]

Research writers frequently wonder whether the first person can be used in academic and scientific writing. In truth, for generations, we’ve been discouraged from using “I” and “we” in academic writing simply due to old habits. That’s right—there’s no reason why you can’t use these words! In fact, the academic community used first-person pronouns until […]

Word usage errors in research papers written by non-native speakers of English are more common than other mistakes and are only topped by errors in style. Since the main purpose of academic writing is to clearly convey information, knowing how to use words correctly and effectively is absolutely crucial. Some problems with word choice stem […]

A research paper is usually more concise and succinct than an essay, because, if it is written well, it focuses on one specific question, describes the method that was used to answer that one question, describes and explains the results, and guides the reader in a logical way from the introduction to the discussion without going on tangents or digging into not absolutely relevant topics. The conclusion section at the end of a research manuscript should therefore not start with a long-winded repetition of what was done and why and how, but rather get to the point in as few words as possible. Instead of beginning with “In conclusion, in this study, we investigated the effect of stress on the brain using fMRI…”, you should try to find a way to incorporate the repetition of the essential (and only the essential) details into the summary of the key points. “The findings of this fMRI study on the effect of stress on the brain suggest that…” or “While it has been known for a long time that stress has an effect on the brain, the findings of this fMRI study show that, surprisingly…” would be better ways to start a conclusion. 

What is Academic Writing? Academic writing communicates information and ideas to a narrow or wider academic readership.Academic writing can be descriptive (e.g., a results section), analytical (e.g., a comparison of different theories), persuasive (your own point of view), or critical (when you discuss other peoples’ points of view). This type of writing always has a […]

Acommon writing issue for many authors of essays and research papers is making sure to use parallel structure. In many ways, the English language operates like math. When we string words or phrases together, we must make sure that all parts are of “equal value.” That is, they must all be in the same form. […]

With the ever-increasing volume of information available digitally, finding relevant sources has become quite the challenge! To hunt down the articles we want, we use search engines and type in keywords that narrow down results. Keywords, therefore, are essential for filtering the overwhelming amount of resources available. When we use these parameters in a database […]

When to Use the Active or Passive Voice in Research Writing One decision thatgives pause to thousands of beginning researchers is whether to use the active or passive voice in their research papers. You may have been taught in school that you should always use the active voice, especially when giving speeches and when writing […]