How to Write and/or Edit an Academic Paper

Sometimes a person writes a great paper, but misses some important details that can really be detrimental in the end. Here are some tips to easily improve the overall quality of a paper.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Eliminate contractions. Look over the paper and change "don't" to "do not", "can't" to "cannot", "it's" to "it is", and any other contraction to the actual word or words they represent.

2. Use a consistent verb tense. Normally, academic papers are written in the present tense, but if the paper in question is a research paper written in a history class, past tense might be more appropriate. A good rule of thumb is to use present tense unless the paper is about a historical event.

3. Use Active Voice! This is the most important step, because it can really improve your overall writing. Change passive voice to active voice by reducing the use of the "be" verbs, such as "is", "was", "were", "are", "be", and "being". As an example, "one reason x happened was because y" should be changed to "y caused x to happen". Some passive voice is acceptable, but the ratio should be about 75% active voice and 25% passive voice.

Tips & Warnings

• Make sure to document correctly. Check which style of documentation is to be used for each particular paper.