Academic writing

The Library and Academic Skills Team do not teach English language skills, but this guide offers hints and tips as well as useful resources to help you develop your skills and feel more confident about spelling, punctuation and grammar.

It is important to spell words correctly in academic writing so your reader can be certain of what you are trying to say. 

1. Proofreading your work when you have finished it will help you to identify if this is something you need to work on. Use the Proofreading guide for tips on the best ways to do this. 

2. Developing strategies to help you remember hard to spell words makes it easier to remember them. Make up a mnemonic, a tool to help you remember something:

For example: a mnemonic for remembering how to spell ‘necessary’:

“It’s necessary that a shirt has one collar and two sleeves.”

This helps us to remember that ‘necessary’ has one ‘c’ (collar) and two ‘s’s (sleeves) (BBC Bitesize, no date).

Break the word into smaller sections, or by its syllables.

For example:

definitely = de + finite + ly

examination has 5 syllables = ex/am/in/a/tion

Find strategies that work to help you spell the words you find difficult. 

3. Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelt differently depending on their meaning. It's easy to use the wrong one! There, their, and they're are an example that are often muddled up. If this is something you do, make a note of the common errors to refer to when you are proofreading. 

(Image from: TPT, no date). 

Other examples include:
to, too, two; 
where, wear, were;
aloud, allowed; 
through, threw
This BBC Bitesize page lists many more homophones and explores some strategies to remember how to get them right. 

4. Keep a dictionary to hand, so you can check words easily as you are writing. Well respected dictionaries can be found online, such as Collins, Oxford and Cambridge. Find one that suits you. 

5. Find resources that will help you develop your spelling skills. How to Spell UK's webpage and YouTube channel are worth exploring as there are resources aimed at adults who want to improve. 

6. Beware of American spellings! Set the spell-checker on Word (or whichever software you use) to UK English to make sure it identifies misspelt words correctly. 

Accurate punctuation makes your meaning clear to the reader, and is essential to good writing.

1. Don't be afraid of the rules. If you're not confident in this area you can certainly improve. The main purpose of punctuation is to ensure that your sentences are clear and that your writing says what you want it to say. It is therefore worth taking the time to get it right.  

Full stops: Sentences should start with a capital letter and end with a full stop. Doing this consistently makes it much easier for your reader. If you tend to write long sentences that run on, read this BBC Bitesize advice on full stops. 

Commas separate clauses within a sentence, and items in a list. Commas are often used when a full-stop is required. Read more about commas and how to use them here. 

Apostrophes can do two jobs: they demonstrate possession and they show when letters have been omitted / left out.
The cat's fur is soft' is an example of a possessive apostrophe.
'I can't go out tonight' is an example of an apostrophe indicating omission - the full version would be can not: the apostrophe replaces the 'no' that is left out. 
Read more about apostrophes here.

Apostrophe tip: you are likely to only need apostrophes to indicate possession in an academic essay. Use of contractions is not accepted in academic writing!

2. Not sure if you need to improve? Working with new punctuation marks in order to enhance your academic work? Try a punctuation quiz from a credible source to check your understanding.  

3. When checking the punctuation in your work, read your draft aloud at a steady speed (don't race). This should help you to identify any errors in your punctuation or sentence construction. For example, incomplete or overly long sentences are often more obvious when read aloud. You may also wish to use an online text read or other digital tools so that you can listen to your work.

4. There are many resources available to help you if you feel this is an area of your writing that needs improvement. For example, this English Punctuation Guide from Oxford Online English (below) covers the most common punctuation that you will need to use, and how to use them.

Grammar refers to the rules that we follow to ensure that the language we use, whether spoken or written, makes sense. Punctuation helps to make these rules work. 

1. Parts of speech: Nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, articles (and more!). 

• Nouns are names of things. book, pen, cup are nouns. People's names are proper nouns, and they start with a capital letter: Ben, Saffiya, Yiu. This is true for organisations too: British Broadcasting Corporation; National Health Service. 
• Verbs are action words: write, run, eat. Your Learning Outcomes include verbs that will tell you what your assignment needs to achieve: describe, discuss, analyse, evaluate. 
• Adverbs describe how the verb is being carried out: sitting quietly, eating noisily, writing angrily.
• Adjectives describe nouns: a ginger cat, a large leaf, an upbeat rhythm.
• Articles are words that go before nouns: a car, an opinion, the government. 

Watch the video at the bottom of this box which explores all eight parts of speech. Recognising and understanding the parts of speech will help you to better understand how to use grammar in your writing. 

2. Sentence structure. Most sentences will have a subject, an action and an object.
The subject is the noun that does the action.
The action is a verb carried out by the subject.
The object is the noun that the verb happens to.

• My colleague (subject) lent (action) me their pen (object). 

Read more about this on this Grammarly page.

The subject might be singular (one person or thing) or plural (more than one person or thing). The subject and the action need to 'agree'. 

• The cat goes out through the cat flap.
• The cats go out through the cat flap.

The subject of the sentence is the cat or cats, and the verb (go) changes depending on whether the subject is singular or plural. Read more about this on this page by Grammarly. 

3. Connectives and conjunctions. These are words that join phrases to make more complex sentences. There are several of them: For, And, Not, But, Or, Yet, So. These can be remembered by the acronym FANBOYS. Read more about how to use them correctly on this Grammarly page. 

4. Tense. Sometimes you might be writing about something that has happened in the past, but you also refer to the present time or even suggest what might happen in the future. You need to be aware of the whether the verbs you are using are in past, present or future tense. Read more here and watch the video below on different tenses. 

5. Resources to help with grammar. 

SAGE SKILLS: Student Success has information on using correct grammar for your academic subject at University. 

There are also many videos on YouTube that help you to understand specific grammar errors and how to avoid them. For example, explore English with James' grammar playlist, and English with Lucy's channel to look for tutorials on the grammar issues you would like to work on. Two of Lucy's videos are shared below - on the parts of speech, and tenses. 

Additional resources: 

Plain English Campaign (no date) Basic grammar. Available at: www.plainenglish.co.uk/basic-grammar-parts-of-speech.html (Accessed: 6 February, 2025).  

Trask, L. (1997) Guide to punctuation. Available at: www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics/punctuation (Accessed: 6 February, 2025).