Academic Writing

Academic integrity

This guidance supports planning and revision of your own work. It does not offer ghostwriting, invented sources, or a guarantee that a journal will publish a manuscript.

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Academic writing fundamentals

What makes a piece of writing academic: a question, a reader, evidence, and a sentence that advances an idea.

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  1. Placeholder photograph of planning notes.
    2ProposalResearch proposal writingA proposal is an argument that a study is worth doing and can be done, not a promise of a particular result.
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    3Long projectsThesis and dissertationA long project stays readable when every chapter answers a question the introduction promised.
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    4SourcesLiterature reviewA review groups sources by the argument they help you make, not by the order in which you happened to read them.
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    5MethodResearch methodologyMethodology explains why a way of studying is fit for the question, and what it cannot see.
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    6DesignResearch designDesign is the fit between question, cases, timing, and the comparisons you are entitled to make.
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    7AnalysisData analysis guidanceAnalysis is a record of how you moved from material to claim, including the claims you decided not to make.
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    8LanguageAcademic languageFormal prose is precise and courteous. It is not a dialect made of longer words.
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    9CitationAPA 7 referencingA practical checklist for the seventh edition. The manual itself remains the authority.
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    10ArticlesJournal article preparationPrepare a manuscript for a specific journal by reading that journal, not by copying a generic structure.
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    11PublicationResearch publication guidancePublication is an editor's decision. Guidance can improve a manuscript. It cannot guarantee an acceptance.

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