importance of research skills in academic writing

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Improving research skills for better academic writing.

by Matthew | Mar 8, 2024 | Uncategorized | 0 comments

Academic writing is a skill that, although critical to higher education and professional success, many find daunting. At the heart of compelling academic writing lies the prowess of research skills. Enhancing these skills not only enriches your writing but transforms the process into an engaging discovery. Let’s dive into the art and science of refining research skills for outstanding academic writing, shedding light on not-so-obvious strategies, and embracing a playful exploration of knowledge.

The Quest for Quality Sources

Finding credible and relevant information is the first step to research excellence. Beyond the walls of your library, the digital age offers a plethora of resources. However, the key lies in discerning the quality of your sources. Peer-reviewed journals , official publications, and academic databases are goldmines waiting to be explored. Understanding the hierarchy of source quality is like being an academic detective; it’s all about the thrill of the hunt for evidence that supports your narrative.

Expanding Your Research Toolkit

In the digital age, your research toolkit can extend far beyond traditional methods. Embracing new technologies and platforms can provide unexpected insights and resources. Exploring specialized search engines, academic forums, and even social media platforms can uncover valuable nuggets of information. When embarking on this journey, it’s also useful to explore various online communities for insights and discussions related to academic writing. One such resource can be found at “ Best Essay Writing Service Reddit “, where members share experiences and advice on a broad spectrum of academic writing topics. Keeping abreast of emerging research technologies and methodologies can give your writing an edge, making your research more efficient and comprehensive.

Mastering the Art of Note-Taking

Note-taking is more than jotting down what you find; it’s about capturing the essence in a manner that resonates with your unique writing voice. Whether you prefer digital tools or the romance of pen and paper, developing a system that works for you is essential. This could mean organizing your notes by theme, creating a digital map of interconnected ideas, or even doodling in the margins. The goal is to transform raw data into a storyboard for your academic tale.

The Critical Eye: Analyzing Information

With information at your fingertips, the challenge shifts to analysis. Evaluating the validity and relevance of your findings is crucial. This is where your critical thinking hat comes in handy. Asking questions such as “Who is the author?”, “What is their agenda?”, and “How does this information align with my thesis?” helps filter the wheat from the chaff, ensuring that your paper is built on a solid foundation of credible evidence.

Creative Thinking in Research

Who said research has to be dry? Unlocking your creative thinking can lead to finding connections between seemingly disparate ideas, fostering a truly original piece of writing. This might involve playing “devil’s advocate” with your sources or imagining a debate between different authors you’ve read. Embracing creativity makes the research process not just productive but fun.

Organizing Your Findings

Research is an iterative process, and staying organized can be the make or break. Electronic folders, bibliography management software , or a good old-fashioned notebook can help keep track of sources, ideas, and citations. This organization is not just about convenience but about weaving a coherent narrative that guides your reader through the journey of your thesis.

Seeking Feedback and Reflecting

Research, like any skill, benefits greatly from feedback. Discussing your findings and arguments with peers, mentors, or even friends can uncover angles you hadn’t considered and refine your thinking. Moreover, reflection upon the research process itself – what worked and what didn’t – is invaluable for continual improvement. Treat feedback and reflection as your research companions, guiding you towards clearer, more persuasive academic writing.

Interdisciplinary Research

Stepping outside your academic silo can significantly enhance your research. Interdisciplinary approaches bring fresh perspectives and methodologies, enriching your analysis and conclusions. Collaborating with colleagues from different disciplines or incorporating theories and findings from other fields into your work can reveal innovative solutions and connections, bolstering the rigor and impact of your research.

Concluding Remarks

The journey to mastering research skills is ongoing and ever-evolving. The landscape of information is vast and varied, offering boundless opportunities for those willing to venture beyond the familiar. By incorporating these added strategies and maintaining a mindset open to growth and innovation, your academic writing will not only improve but thrive. Embracing the full spectrum of research possibilities opens the door to a world of intellectual discovery and scholarly excellence.

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11.1 The Purpose of Research Writing

Learning objectives.

• Identify reasons to research writing projects.
• Outline the steps of the research writing process.

Why was the Great Wall of China built? What have scientists learned about the possibility of life on Mars? What roles did women play in the American Revolution? How does the human brain create, store, and retrieve memories? Who invented the game of football, and how has it changed over the years?

You may know the answers to these questions off the top of your head. If you are like most people, however, you find answers to tough questions like these by searching the Internet, visiting the library, or asking others for information. To put it simply, you perform research.

Whether you are a scientist, an artist, a paralegal, or a parent, you probably perform research in your everyday life. When your boss, your instructor, or a family member asks you a question that you do not know the answer to, you locate relevant information, analyze your findings, and share your results. Locating, analyzing, and sharing information are key steps in the research process, and in this chapter, you will learn more about each step. By developing your research writing skills, you will prepare yourself to answer any question no matter how challenging.

Reasons for Research

When you perform research, you are essentially trying to solve a mystery—you want to know how something works or why something happened. In other words, you want to answer a question that you (and other people) have about the world. This is one of the most basic reasons for performing research.

But the research process does not end when you have solved your mystery. Imagine what would happen if a detective collected enough evidence to solve a criminal case, but she never shared her solution with the authorities. Presenting what you have learned from research can be just as important as performing the research. Research results can be presented in a variety of ways, but one of the most popular—and effective—presentation forms is the research paper . A research paper presents an original thesis, or purpose statement, about a topic and develops that thesis with information gathered from a variety of sources.

If you are curious about the possibility of life on Mars, for example, you might choose to research the topic. What will you do, though, when your research is complete? You will need a way to put your thoughts together in a logical, coherent manner. You may want to use the facts you have learned to create a narrative or to support an argument. And you may want to show the results of your research to your friends, your teachers, or even the editors of magazines and journals. Writing a research paper is an ideal way to organize thoughts, craft narratives or make arguments based on research, and share your newfound knowledge with the world.

Write a paragraph about a time when you used research in your everyday life. Did you look for the cheapest way to travel from Houston to Denver? Did you search for a way to remove gum from the bottom of your shoe? In your paragraph, explain what you wanted to research, how you performed the research, and what you learned as a result.

Research Writing and the Academic Paper

No matter what field of study you are interested in, you will most likely be asked to write a research paper during your academic career. For example, a student in an art history course might write a research paper about an artist’s work. Similarly, a student in a psychology course might write a research paper about current findings in childhood development.

Having to write a research paper may feel intimidating at first. After all, researching and writing a long paper requires a lot of time, effort, and organization. However, writing a research paper can also be a great opportunity to explore a topic that is particularly interesting to you. The research process allows you to gain expertise on a topic of your choice, and the writing process helps you remember what you have learned and understand it on a deeper level.

Research Writing at Work

Knowing how to write a good research paper is a valuable skill that will serve you well throughout your career. Whether you are developing a new product, studying the best way to perform a procedure, or learning about challenges and opportunities in your field of employment, you will use research techniques to guide your exploration. You may even need to create a written report of your findings. And because effective communication is essential to any company, employers seek to hire people who can write clearly and professionally.

Writing at Work

Take a few minutes to think about each of the following careers. How might each of these professionals use researching and research writing skills on the job?

• Medical laboratory technician
• Small business owner
• Information technology professional
• Freelance magazine writer

A medical laboratory technician or information technology professional might do research to learn about the latest technological developments in either of these fields. A small business owner might conduct research to learn about the latest trends in his or her industry. A freelance magazine writer may need to research a given topic to write an informed, up-to-date article.

Think about the job of your dreams. How might you use research writing skills to perform that job? Create a list of ways in which strong researching, organizing, writing, and critical thinking skills could help you succeed at your dream job. How might these skills help you obtain that job?

Steps of the Research Writing Process

How does a research paper grow from a folder of brainstormed notes to a polished final draft? No two projects are identical, but most projects follow a series of six basic steps.

These are the steps in the research writing process:

• Choose a topic.
• Plan and schedule time to research and write.
• Conduct research.
• Organize research and ideas.
• Draft your paper.
• Revise and edit your paper.

Each of these steps will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter. For now, though, we will take a brief look at what each step involves.

Step 1: Choosing a Topic

As you may recall from Chapter 8 “The Writing Process: How Do I Begin?” , to narrow the focus of your topic, you may try freewriting exercises, such as brainstorming. You may also need to ask a specific research question —a broad, open-ended question that will guide your research—as well as propose a possible answer, or a working thesis . You may use your research question and your working thesis to create a research proposal . In a research proposal, you present your main research question, any related subquestions you plan to explore, and your working thesis.

Step 2: Planning and Scheduling

Before you start researching your topic, take time to plan your researching and writing schedule. Research projects can take days, weeks, or even months to complete. Creating a schedule is a good way to ensure that you do not end up being overwhelmed by all the work you have to do as the deadline approaches.

During this step of the process, it is also a good idea to plan the resources and organizational tools you will use to keep yourself on track throughout the project. Flowcharts, calendars, and checklists can all help you stick to your schedule. See Chapter 11 “Writing from Research: What Will I Learn?” , Section 11.2 “Steps in Developing a Research Proposal” for an example of a research schedule.

Step 3: Conducting Research

When going about your research, you will likely use a variety of sources—anything from books and periodicals to video presentations and in-person interviews.

Your sources will include both primary sources and secondary sources . Primary sources provide firsthand information or raw data. For example, surveys, in-person interviews, and historical documents are primary sources. Secondary sources, such as biographies, literary reviews, or magazine articles, include some analysis or interpretation of the information presented. As you conduct research, you will take detailed, careful notes about your discoveries. You will also evaluate the reliability of each source you find.

Step 4: Organizing Research and the Writer’s Ideas

When your research is complete, you will organize your findings and decide which sources to cite in your paper. You will also have an opportunity to evaluate the evidence you have collected and determine whether it supports your thesis, or the focus of your paper. You may decide to adjust your thesis or conduct additional research to ensure that your thesis is well supported.

Remember, your working thesis is not set in stone. You can and should change your working thesis throughout the research writing process if the evidence you find does not support your original thesis. Never try to force evidence to fit your argument. For example, your working thesis is “Mars cannot support life-forms.” Yet, a week into researching your topic, you find an article in the New York Times detailing new findings of bacteria under the Martian surface. Instead of trying to argue that bacteria are not life forms, you might instead alter your thesis to “Mars cannot support complex life-forms.”

Step 5: Drafting Your Paper

Now you are ready to combine your research findings with your critical analysis of the results in a rough draft. You will incorporate source materials into your paper and discuss each source thoughtfully in relation to your thesis or purpose statement.

When you cite your reference sources, it is important to pay close attention to standard conventions for citing sources in order to avoid plagiarism , or the practice of using someone else’s words without acknowledging the source. Later in this chapter, you will learn how to incorporate sources in your paper and avoid some of the most common pitfalls of attributing information.

Step 6: Revising and Editing Your Paper

In the final step of the research writing process, you will revise and polish your paper. You might reorganize your paper’s structure or revise for unity and cohesion, ensuring that each element in your paper flows into the next logically and naturally. You will also make sure that your paper uses an appropriate and consistent tone.

Once you feel confident in the strength of your writing, you will edit your paper for proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, mechanics, and formatting. When you complete this final step, you will have transformed a simple idea or question into a thoroughly researched and well-written paper you can be proud of!

Review the steps of the research writing process. Then answer the questions on your own sheet of paper.

• In which steps of the research writing process are you allowed to change your thesis?
• In step 2, which types of information should you include in your project schedule?
• What might happen if you eliminated step 4 from the research writing process?

Key Takeaways

• People undertake research projects throughout their academic and professional careers in order to answer specific questions, share their findings with others, increase their understanding of challenging topics, and strengthen their researching, writing, and analytical skills.
• The research writing process generally comprises six steps: choosing a topic, scheduling and planning time for research and writing, conducting research, organizing research and ideas, drafting a paper, and revising and editing the paper.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Why do we write? The importance of academic writing in research

The #MadeAtUni campaign, launched in December, is popping up all over Twitter, highlighting just how many incredible breakthroughs come out of teaching and research carried out at universities. Dr Stuart Archer, Researcher Developer at the University of Derby, looks at why academics need to communicate their research - and why academic writing is so important.

By Stuart Archer - 24 January 2019

Let's start by taking a step back and asking another question - are you reading this blog via the internet? In most cases, the answer is probably yes. The internet, or, more accurately, the technology that underpins it, is a prime example of why it's important to communicate research.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is the most well-known name associated with the history of the internet, and was certainly instrumental in its inception. He didn't invent everything to do with the internet, however. Much of the technology already existed in government and university research labs around the world, waiting for someone with the right vision to come along and link them all together. This wouldn't have been possible unless this work had been written down and published for all to find.

"If I have seen further, it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants" - Sir Isaac Newton

It may seem obvious, but this is one of the key principles behind any kind of research. Whether you are trying to find a cure for cancer, unpick the secrets of the universe or simply find out how to cook a different type of quiche, that vast repository of existing human knowledge can show you where to start.

In order to do something new and original, you need to know what people have done before you, so that you can build on it. Even Einstein's ground-breaking work on relativity, as famous as it made him, was re-imagined from other renowned physicists' work, such as Hendrik Lorentz and Hermann Minowski.

It's not just of benefit for other researchers. One of the main reasons for writing up academic research is to persuade someone that the conclusions from your research are correct . A sticking point for many researchers (myself included) is that the writing process is often seen as separate to research itself.

This may be more of an issue in the physical sciences or disciplines with a large amount of field work. You might be collecting results in a lab or in the field to write up later, whereas in many of the humanities, research and writing tend to go hand in hand. Writing about your research can help you criticise existing results, pick out any gaps in your evidence or argument that need to be filled, or simply just help organise your thoughts.

"Research isn't research until it's written down" - Anon

There is also the matter of accountability. A large proportion of research carried out in the UK is funded by public money, which is accounted for by the Research Excellence Framework (REF). One of the principles behind the REF is " open access " - research should be made freely available to the public and not kept behind inaccessible paywalls.

Open access and open research could form the topics of several blog posts, but fundamentally it comes down to ensuring research is communicated freely and transparently. Which, of course, leads us neatly back to writing!

Why people find writing so challenging

If you mention thesis writing to most research students, odds are this will bring them out in a cold sweat. The prospect of any kind of academic writing can bring out stress and anxiety in the best of academics. Everyone will have different reasons why, but there certainly are a few common themes.

One of the biggest concerns is that you are putting your professional opinions out for scrutiny by other academics and the wider world. You need to have the evidence and research to back it up, all presented coherently and formatted neatly, taking into account all of your discipline's idiosyncrasies in style, with the right tools to hand, and enough time to do it.

Time is a big factor for many academics, particularly those who are heavily responsible for teaching, as finding a slot in your timetable to sit and write up your research can be extremely challenging. Being able to write both with speed and quality takes a lot of practice - which is going to be even more difficult if you are short on time.

There is also a huge variation across universities in both the quality and content of how undergraduate and postgraduate students are taught how to write academically. It's not unheard of to find people who have written their doctoral thesis, who are now publishing in journals as a researcher, that have never had any formal academic writing education at university.

What we are doing to help

In November, we took part for the first time in WRITEfest2018 - a collaborative celebration of academic writing between a number of universities around the world. It is designed to promote skills and good practice in academic writing, and to get academics away from their desks and just "shut up and write".

As part of this, we ran masterclasses to help researchers with writing strategies to better structure their writing, making use of short blocks of available time. We have run workshops on specific styles of academic writing, such as bid writing, publications in journals and books. This is in addition to workshops for our research students and a 12-week academic English module mainly aimed at international students.

We have also blocked out protected writing time slots so researchers can put the skills from these masterclasses into practice. The overall goal is to help remove the barriers to writing, so researchers can more easily communicate the great research they are doing with the wider world.

For further information contact the press office at [email protected] .

About the author

Stuart archer former researcher (researcher development).

Stuart Archer is the former Lead for the Researcher Development Programme at the University of Derby. He is also a research chemist by training.

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Research Skills: What they are and Benefits

Research skills play a vital role in the success of any research project, enabling individuals to navigate the vast sea of information, analyze data critically, and draw meaningful conclusions. Whether conducting academic research, professional investigations, or personal inquiries, strong research skills are essential for obtaining accurate and reliable results.

LEARN ABOUT:   Research Process Steps

By understanding and developing these skills, individuals can embark on their research endeavors with confidence, integrity, and the capability to make meaningful contributions in their chosen fields. This article will explore the importance of research skills and discuss critical competencies necessary for conducting a research project effectively.

Content Index

What are Research Skills?

Important research skills for research project, benefits of research skills.

• Improving your Research Skills

Talk to Experts to Improve Skills

Research skills are the capability a person carries to create new concepts and understand the use of data collection. These skills include techniques, documentation, and interpretation of the collected data. Research is conducted to evaluate hypotheses and share the findings most appropriately. Research skills improve as we gain experience.

To conduct efficient research, specific research skills are essential. These skills are necessary for companies to develop new products and services or enhance existing products. To develop good research skills is important for both the individual as well as the company.

When undertaking a research project, one must possess specific important skills to ensure the project’s success and accuracy. Here are some essential research skills that are crucial for conducting a project effectively:

Time Management Skills:

Time management is an essential research skill; it helps you break down your project into parts and enables you to manage it easier. One can create a dead-line oriented plan for the research project and assign time for each task. Time management skills include setting goals for the project, planning and organizing functions as per their priority, and efficiently delegating these tasks.

Communication Skills:

These skills help you understand and receive important information and also allow you to share your findings with others in an effective manner. Active listening and speaking are critical skills for solid communication. A researcher must have good communication skills.

Problem-Solving:  

The ability to handle complex situations and business challenges and come up with solutions for them is termed problem-solving. To problem-solve, you should be able to fully understand the extent of the problem and then break it down into smaller parts. Once segregated into smaller chunks, you can start thinking about each element and analyze it to find a solution.

Information gathering and attention to detail:

Relevant information is the key to good research design . Searching for credible resources and collecting information from there will help you strengthen your research proposal and drive you to solutions faster. Once you have access to information, paying close attention to all the details and drawing conclusions based on the findings is essential.

Research Design and Methodology :

Understanding research design and methodology is essential for planning and conducting a project. Depending on the research question and objectives, researchers must select appropriate research methods, such as surveys, experiments, interviews, or case studies. Proficiency in designing research protocols, data collection instruments, and sampling strategies is crucial for obtaining reliable and valid results.

Data Collection and Analysis :

Researchers should be skilled in collecting and analyzing data accurately. It involves designing data collection instruments, collecting data through various methods, such as surveys or observations, and organizing and analyzing the collected data using appropriate statistical or qualitative analysis techniques. Proficiency in using software tools like SPSS, Excel, or qualitative analysis software can be beneficial.

By developing and strengthening these research skills, researchers can enhance the quality and impact of their research process, contributing to good research skills in their respective fields.

Research skills are invaluable assets that can benefit individuals in various aspects of their lives. Here are some key benefits of developing and honing research skills:

Boosts Curiosity :

Curiosity is a strong desire to know things and a powerful learning driver. Curious researchers will naturally ask questions that demand answers and will stop in the search for answers. Interested people are better listeners and are open to listening to other people’s ideas and perspectives, not just their own.

Cultivates Self-awareness :

As well as being aware of other people’s subjective opinions, one must develop the importance of research skills and be mindful of the benefits of awareness research; we are exposed to many things while researching. Once we start doing research, the benefit from it reflects on the beliefs and attitudes and encourages them to open their minds to other perspectives and ways of looking at things.

Effective Communication:

Research skills contribute to practical communication skills by enhancing one’s ability to articulate ideas, opinions, and findings clearly and coherently. Through research, individuals learn to organize their thoughts, present evidence-based arguments, and effectively convey complex information to different audiences. These skills are crucial in academic research settings, professional environments, and personal interactions.

Personal and Professional Growth :

Developing research skills fosters personal and professional growth by instilling a sense of curiosity, intellectual independence, and a lifelong learning mindset. Research encourages individuals to seek knowledge, challenge assumptions, and embrace intellectual growth. These skills also enhance adaptability as individuals become adept at navigating and assimilating new information, staying updated with the latest developments, and adjusting their perspectives and strategies accordingly.

Academic Success:

Research skills are essential for academic research success. They enable students to conduct thorough literature reviews, gather evidence to support their arguments, and critically evaluate existing research. By honing their research skills, students can produce well-structured, evidence-based essays, projects, and dissertations demonstrating high academic research rigor and analytical thinking.

Professional Advancement:

Research skills are highly valued in the professional world. They are crucial for conducting market research, analyzing trends, identifying opportunities, and making data-driven decisions. Employers appreciate individuals who can effectively gather and analyze information, solve complex problems, and provide evidence-based recommendations. Research skills also enable professionals to stay updated with advancements in their field, positioning themselves as knowledgeable and competent experts.

Developing and nurturing research skills can significantly benefit individuals in numerous aspects of their lives, enabling them to thrive in an increasingly information-driven world.

Improving Your Research Skills

There are many things you can do to improve your research skills and utilize them in your research or day job. Here are some examples:

• Develop Information Literacy: Strengthening your information literacy skills is crucial for conducting thorough research. It involves identifying reliable sources, evaluating the credibility of information, and navigating different research databases.
• Enhance Critical Thinking: Critical thinking is an essential skill for effective research. It involves analyzing information, questioning assumptions, and evaluating arguments. Practice critical analysis by analyzing thoughtfully, identifying biases, and considering alternative perspectives.
• Master Research Methodologies: Familiarize yourself with different research methodologies relevant to your field. Whether it’s qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods research, realizing the strengths and limitations of each approach is crucial.
• Practice Effective Time Management: Research requires dedicated time and effort. Develop good time management skills to ensure that you allocate sufficient time for each stage of the research process, including planning, data collection, analysis, and writing.
• Embrace Collaboration: Collaborating with peers and colleagues can provide a fresh perspective and enrich your research experience. Engage in discussions, share ideas, and seek feedback from others. Collaborative projects allow for exchanging knowledge and skills.
• Continuously Update Your Knowledge: Stay informed about your field’s latest developments and advancements. Regularly read scholarly articles, attend conferences, and follow reputable sources of information to stay up to date with current research trends.

There is plenty of information available on the internet about every topic; hence, learning skills to know which information is relevant and credible is very important. Today most search engines have the feature of advanced search, and you can customize the search as per your preference. Once you learn this skill, it will help you find information. 

Experts possess a wealth of knowledge, experience, and insights that can significantly enhance your understanding and abilities in conducting research. Experts have often encountered numerous challenges and hurdles throughout their research journey and have developed effective problem-solving techniques. Engaging with experts is a highly effective approach to improving research skills.

Moreover, experts can provide valuable feedback and constructive criticism on your research work. They can offer fresh perspectives, identify areas for improvement, and help you refine your research questions, methodology, and analysis.

At QuestionPro, we can help you with the necessary tools to carry out your projects, and we have created the following free resources to help you in your professional growth:

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Research skills are invaluable assets that empower individuals to navigate the ever-expanding realm of information, make informed decisions, and contribute to advancing knowledge. With advanced research tools and technologies like QuestionPro Survey Software, researchers have potent resources to conduct comprehensive surveys, gather data, and analyze results efficiently.

Where data-driven decision-making is crucial, research skills supported by advanced tools like QuestionPro are essential for researchers to stay ahead and make impactful contributions to their fields. By embracing these research skills and leveraging the capabilities of powerful survey software, researchers can unlock new possibilities, gain deeper insights, and pave the way for meaningful discoveries.

Authors : Gargi Ghamandi & Sandeep Kokane

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Unlocking PhD Success pp 60–81 Cite as

Writing Skills

• Eelko K. R. E. Huizingh 2 , 3  
• First Online: 19 November 2023

116 Accesses

You can publish research in many different outlets, with either a more academic or societal impact. Peer-reviewed academic journals are a prominent target. They vary strongly in quality, which is often measured in terms of their impact factor. Writing for journals requires a specific form of storytelling that is formal, concise, explicit, and organized. Journals evaluate manuscripts based on their contribution, provided evidence, rigor of the study, and clarity of writing. To ease writing papers, the chapter provides eight tips to improve publishing skills. As academic articles are highly and often similarly structured, you can use this insight to prepare an article skeleton that you can then fill with the content of your study. In order to get papers done, the chapter ends with five tips for the writing process.

Writing is easy . All you have to do is cross out the wrong words . Mark Twain (1835–1910).

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This chapter is based on: Huizingh ( 2021 ).

Sevim and Sarıkaya ( 2020 ).

https://www.sydney.edu.au/students/writing.html . Accessed 25 September 2023.

Petre and Rugg ( 2010 ).

Huizingh, Eelko K.R.E. (2021), Reader Successful Academic Writing , Huizingh Academic Development.

Google Scholar  

Petre, Marian, and Gordon Rugg (2010), The Unwritten Rules of Ph.D. Research , 2 nd Edition, McGraw Hill Education, 81–82.

Sevim, Özge Maviş, and Esma Emmioğlu Sarıkaya (2020), How to be productive in Ph.D. Level: A needs assessment study for doctoral students’ research productivity, International Journal of Curriculum and Instruction , 12(2), 75–94.

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Eelko K. R. E. Huizingh

Huizingh Academic Development, Assen, The Netherlands

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Huizingh, E.K.R.E. (2023). Writing Skills. In: Unlocking PhD Success. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40651-5_4

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Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• Academic Writing Style
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Choosing a Title
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• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
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• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
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Academic writing refers to a style of expression that researchers use to define the intellectual boundaries of their disciplines and specific areas of expertise. Characteristics of academic writing include a formal tone, use of the third-person rather than first-person perspective (usually), a clear focus on the research problem under investigation, and precise word choice. Like specialist languages adopted in other professions, such as, law or medicine, academic writing is designed to convey agreed meaning about complex ideas or concepts within a community of scholarly experts and practitioners.

Academic Writing. Writing Center. Colorado Technical College; Hartley, James. Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Guide . New York: Routledge, 2008; Ezza, El-Sadig Y. and Touria Drid. T eaching Academic Writing as a Discipline-Specific Skill in Higher Education . Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2020.

Importance of Good Academic Writing

The accepted form of academic writing in the social sciences can vary considerable depending on the methodological framework and the intended audience. However, most college-level research papers require careful attention to the following stylistic elements:

I.  The Big Picture Unlike creative or journalistic writing, the overall structure of academic writing is formal and logical. It must be cohesive and possess a logically organized flow of ideas; this means that the various parts are connected to form a unified whole. There should be narrative links between sentences and paragraphs so that the reader is able to follow your argument. The introduction should include a description of how the rest of the paper is organized and all sources are properly cited throughout the paper.

II.  Tone The overall tone refers to the attitude conveyed in a piece of writing. Throughout your paper, it is important that you present the arguments of others fairly and with an appropriate narrative tone. When presenting a position or argument that you disagree with, describe this argument accurately and without loaded or biased language. In academic writing, the author is expected to investigate the research problem from an authoritative point of view. You should, therefore, state the strengths of your arguments confidently, using language that is neutral, not confrontational or dismissive.

III.  Diction Diction refers to the choice of words you use. Awareness of the words you use is important because words that have almost the same denotation [dictionary definition] can have very different connotations [implied meanings]. This is particularly true in academic writing because words and terminology can evolve a nuanced meaning that describes a particular idea, concept, or phenomenon derived from the epistemological culture of that discipline [e.g., the concept of rational choice in political science]. Therefore, use concrete words [not general] that convey a specific meaning. If this cannot be done without confusing the reader, then you need to explain what you mean within the context of how that word or phrase is used within a discipline.

IV.  Language The investigation of research problems in the social sciences is often complex and multi- dimensional . Therefore, it is important that you use unambiguous language. Well-structured paragraphs and clear topic sentences enable a reader to follow your line of thinking without difficulty. Your language should be concise, formal, and express precisely what you want it to mean. Do not use vague expressions that are not specific or precise enough for the reader to derive exact meaning ["they," "we," "people," "the organization," etc.], abbreviations like 'i.e.'  ["in other words"], 'e.g.' ["for example"], or 'a.k.a.' ["also known as"], and the use of unspecific determinate words ["super," "very," "incredible," "huge," etc.].

V.  Punctuation Scholars rely on precise words and language to establish the narrative tone of their work and, therefore, punctuation marks are used very deliberately. For example, exclamation points are rarely used to express a heightened tone because it can come across as unsophisticated or over-excited. Dashes should be limited to the insertion of an explanatory comment in a sentence, while hyphens should be limited to connecting prefixes to words [e.g., multi-disciplinary] or when forming compound phrases [e.g., commander-in-chief]. Finally, understand that semi-colons represent a pause that is longer than a comma, but shorter than a period in a sentence. In general, there are four grammatical uses of semi-colons: when a second clause expands or explains the first clause; to describe a sequence of actions or different aspects of the same topic; placed before clauses which begin with "nevertheless", "therefore", "even so," and "for instance”; and, to mark off a series of phrases or clauses which contain commas. If you are not confident about when to use semi-colons [and most of the time, they are not required for proper punctuation], rewrite using shorter sentences or revise the paragraph.

VI.  Academic Conventions Among the most important rules and principles of academic engagement of a writing is citing sources in the body of your paper and providing a list of references as either footnotes or endnotes. The academic convention of citing sources facilitates processes of intellectual discovery, critical thinking, and applying a deliberate method of navigating through the scholarly landscape by tracking how cited works are propagated by scholars over time . Aside from citing sources, other academic conventions to follow include the appropriate use of headings and subheadings, properly spelling out acronyms when first used in the text, avoiding slang or colloquial language, avoiding emotive language or unsupported declarative statements, avoiding contractions [e.g., isn't], and using first person and second person pronouns only when necessary.

VII.  Evidence-Based Reasoning Assignments often ask you to express your own point of view about the research problem. However, what is valued in academic writing is that statements are based on evidence-based reasoning. This refers to possessing a clear understanding of the pertinent body of knowledge and academic debates that exist within, and often external to, your discipline concerning the topic. You need to support your arguments with evidence from scholarly [i.e., academic or peer-reviewed] sources. It should be an objective stance presented as a logical argument; the quality of the evidence you cite will determine the strength of your argument. The objective is to convince the reader of the validity of your thoughts through a well-documented, coherent, and logically structured piece of writing. This is particularly important when proposing solutions to problems or delineating recommended courses of action.

VIII.  Thesis-Driven Academic writing is “thesis-driven,” meaning that the starting point is a particular perspective, idea, or position applied to the chosen topic of investigation, such as, establishing, proving, or disproving solutions to the questions applied to investigating the research problem. Note that a problem statement without the research questions does not qualify as academic writing because simply identifying the research problem does not establish for the reader how you will contribute to solving the problem, what aspects you believe are most critical, or suggest a method for gathering information or data to better understand the problem.

IX.  Complexity and Higher-Order Thinking Academic writing addresses complex issues that require higher-order thinking skills applied to understanding the research problem [e.g., critical, reflective, logical, and creative thinking as opposed to, for example, descriptive or prescriptive thinking]. Higher-order thinking skills include cognitive processes that are used to comprehend, solve problems, and express concepts or that describe abstract ideas that cannot be easily acted out, pointed to, or shown with images. Think of your writing this way: One of the most important attributes of a good teacher is the ability to explain complexity in a way that is understandable and relatable to the topic being presented during class. This is also one of the main functions of academic writing--examining and explaining the significance of complex ideas as clearly as possible.  As a writer, you must adopt the role of a good teacher by summarizing complex information into a well-organized synthesis of ideas, concepts, and recommendations that contribute to a better understanding of the research problem.

Academic Writing. Writing Center. Colorado Technical College; Hartley, James. Academic Writing and Publishing: A Practical Guide . New York: Routledge, 2008; Murray, Rowena  and Sarah Moore. The Handbook of Academic Writing: A Fresh Approach . New York: Open University Press, 2006; Johnson, Roy. Improve Your Writing Skills . Manchester, UK: Clifton Press, 1995; Nygaard, Lynn P. Writing for Scholars: A Practical Guide to Making Sense and Being Heard . Second edition. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, 2015; Silvia, Paul J. How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing . Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2007; Style, Diction, Tone, and Voice. Writing Center, Wheaton College; Sword, Helen. Stylish Academic Writing . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.

Strategies for...

Understanding Academic Writing and Its Jargon

The very definition of research jargon is language specific to a particular community of practitioner-researchers . Therefore, in modern university life, jargon represents the specific language and meaning assigned to words and phrases specific to a discipline or area of study. For example, the idea of being rational may hold the same general meaning in both political science and psychology, but its application to understanding and explaining phenomena within the research domain of a each discipline may have subtle differences based upon how scholars in that discipline apply the concept to the theories and practice of their work.

Given this, it is important that specialist terminology [i.e., jargon] must be used accurately and applied under the appropriate conditions . Subject-specific dictionaries are the best places to confirm the meaning of terms within the context of a specific discipline. These can be found by either searching in the USC Libraries catalog by entering the disciplinary and the word dictionary [e.g., sociology and dictionary] or using a database such as Credo Reference [a curated collection of subject encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, guides from highly regarded publishers] . It is appropriate for you to use specialist language within your field of study, but you should avoid using such language when writing for non-academic or general audiences.

Problems with Opaque Writing

A common criticism of scholars is that they can utilize needlessly complex syntax or overly expansive vocabulary that is impenetrable or not well-defined. When writing, avoid problems associated with opaque writing by keeping in mind the following:

1.   Excessive use of specialized terminology . Yes, it is appropriate for you to use specialist language and a formal style of expression in academic writing, but it does not mean using "big words" just for the sake of doing so. Overuse of complex or obscure words or writing complicated sentence constructions gives readers the impression that your paper is more about style than substance; it leads the reader to question if you really know what you are talking about. Focus on creating clear, concise, and elegant prose that minimizes reliance on specialized terminology.

2.   Inappropriate use of specialized terminology . Because you are dealing with concepts, research, and data within your discipline, you need to use the technical language appropriate to that area of study. However, nothing will undermine the validity of your study quicker than the inappropriate application of a term or concept. Avoid using terms whose meaning you are unsure of--do not just guess or assume! Consult the meaning of terms in specialized, discipline-specific dictionaries by searching the USC Libraries catalog or the Credo Reference database [see above].

Additional Problems to Avoid

In addition to understanding the use of specialized language, there are other aspects of academic writing in the social sciences that you should be aware of. These problems include:

• Personal nouns . Excessive use of personal nouns [e.g., I, me, you, us] may lead the reader to believe the study was overly subjective. These words can be interpreted as being used only to avoid presenting empirical evidence about the research problem. Limit the use of personal nouns to descriptions of things you actually did [e.g., "I interviewed ten teachers about classroom management techniques..."]. Note that personal nouns are generally found in the discussion section of a paper because this is where you as the author/researcher interpret and describe your work.
• Directives . Avoid directives that demand the reader to "do this" or "do that." Directives should be framed as evidence-based recommendations or goals leading to specific outcomes. Note that an exception to this can be found in various forms of action research that involve evidence-based advocacy for social justice or transformative change. Within this area of the social sciences, authors may offer directives for action in a declarative tone of urgency.
• Informal, conversational tone using slang and idioms . Academic writing relies on excellent grammar and precise word structure. Your narrative should not include regional dialects or slang terms because they can be open to interpretation. Your writing should be direct and concise using standard English.
• Wordiness. Focus on being concise, straightforward, and developing a narrative that does not have confusing language . By doing so, you  help eliminate the possibility of the reader misinterpreting the design and purpose of your study.
• Vague expressions (e.g., "they," "we," "people," "the company," "that area," etc.). Being concise in your writing also includes avoiding vague references to persons, places, or things. While proofreading your paper, be sure to look for and edit any vague or imprecise statements that lack context or specificity.
• Numbered lists and bulleted items . The use of bulleted items or lists should be used only if the narrative dictates a need for clarity. For example, it is fine to state, "The four main problems with hedge funds are:" and then list them as 1, 2, 3, 4. However, in academic writing, this must then be followed by detailed explanation and analysis of each item. Given this, the question you should ask yourself while proofreading is: why begin with a list in the first place rather than just starting with systematic analysis of each item arranged in separate paragraphs? Also, be careful using numbers because they can imply a ranked order of priority or importance. If none exists, use bullets and avoid checkmarks or other symbols.
• Descriptive writing . Describing a research problem is an important means of contextualizing a study. In fact, some description or background information may be needed because you can not assume the reader knows the key aspects of the topic. However, the content of your paper should focus on methodology, the analysis and interpretation of findings, and their implications as they apply to the research problem rather than background information and descriptions of tangential issues.
• Personal experience. Drawing upon personal experience [e.g., traveling abroad; caring for someone with Alzheimer's disease] can be an effective way of introducing the research problem or engaging your readers in understanding its significance. Use personal experience only as an example, though, because academic writing relies on evidence-based research. To do otherwise is simply story-telling.

NOTE:   Rules concerning excellent grammar and precise word structure do not apply when quoting someone.  A quote should be inserted in the text of your paper exactly as it was stated. If the quote is especially vague or hard to understand, consider paraphrasing it or using a different quote to convey the same meaning. Consider inserting the term "sic" in brackets after the quoted text to indicate that the quotation has been transcribed exactly as found in the original source, but the source had grammar, spelling, or other errors. The adverb sic informs the reader that the errors are not yours.

Academic Writing. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Academic Writing Style. First-Year Seminar Handbook. Mercer University; Bem, Daryl J. Writing the Empirical Journal Article. Cornell University; College Writing. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Murray, Rowena  and Sarah Moore. The Handbook of Academic Writing: A Fresh Approach . New York: Open University Press, 2006; Johnson, Eileen S. “Action Research.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education . Edited by George W. Noblit and Joseph R. Neikirk. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020); Oppenheimer, Daniel M. "Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly." Applied Cognitive Psychology 20 (2006): 139-156; Ezza, El-Sadig Y. and Touria Drid. T eaching Academic Writing as a Discipline-Specific Skill in Higher Education . Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2020; Pernawan, Ari. Common Flaws in Students' Research Proposals. English Education Department. Yogyakarta State University; Style. College Writing. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Invention: Five Qualities of Good Writing. The Reading/Writing Center. Hunter College; Sword, Helen. Stylish Academic Writing . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College.

Structure and Writing Style

I. Improving Academic Writing

To improve your academic writing skills, you should focus your efforts on three key areas: 1.   Clear Writing . The act of thinking about precedes the process of writing about. Good writers spend sufficient time distilling information and reviewing major points from the literature they have reviewed before creating their work. Writing detailed outlines can help you clearly organize your thoughts. Effective academic writing begins with solid planning, so manage your time carefully. 2.  Excellent Grammar . Needless to say, English grammar can be difficult and complex; even the best scholars take many years before they have a command of the major points of good grammar. Take the time to learn the major and minor points of good grammar. Spend time practicing writing and seek detailed feedback from professors. Take advantage of the Writing Center on campus if you need help. Proper punctuation and good proofreading skills can significantly improve academic writing [see sub-tab for proofreading you paper ].

Refer to these three basic resources to help your grammar and writing skills:

• A good writing reference book, such as, Strunk and White’s book, The Elements of Style or the St. Martin's Handbook ;
• A college-level dictionary, such as, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary ;
• The latest edition of Roget's Thesaurus in Dictionary Form .

3.  Consistent Stylistic Approach . Whether your professor expresses a preference to use MLA, APA or the Chicago Manual of Style or not, choose one style manual and stick to it. Each of these style manuals provide rules on how to write out numbers, references, citations, footnotes, and lists. Consistent adherence to a style of writing helps with the narrative flow of your paper and improves its readability. Note that some disciplines require a particular style [e.g., education uses APA] so as you write more papers within your major, your familiarity with it will improve.

II. Evaluating Quality of Writing

A useful approach for evaluating the quality of your academic writing is to consider the following issues from the perspective of the reader. While proofreading your final draft, critically assess the following elements in your writing.

• It is shaped around one clear research problem, and it explains what that problem is from the outset.
• Your paper tells the reader why the problem is important and why people should know about it.
• You have accurately and thoroughly informed the reader what has already been published about this problem or others related to it and noted important gaps in the research.
• You have provided evidence to support your argument that the reader finds convincing.
• The paper includes a description of how and why particular evidence was collected and analyzed, and why specific theoretical arguments or concepts were used.
• The paper is made up of paragraphs, each containing only one controlling idea.
• You indicate how each section of the paper addresses the research problem.
• You have considered counter-arguments or counter-examples where they are relevant.
• Arguments, evidence, and their significance have been presented in the conclusion.
• Limitations of your research have been explained as evidence of the potential need for further study.
• The narrative flows in a clear, accurate, and well-organized way.

Boscoloa, Pietro, Barbara Arféb, and Mara Quarisaa. “Improving the Quality of Students' Academic Writing: An Intervention Study.” Studies in Higher Education 32 (August 2007): 419-438; Academic Writing. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Academic Writing Style. First-Year Seminar Handbook. Mercer University; Bem, Daryl J. Writing the Empirical Journal Article. Cornell University; Candlin, Christopher. Academic Writing Step-By-Step: A Research-based Approach . Bristol, CT: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2016; College Writing. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Style . College Writing. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Invention: Five Qualities of Good Writing. The Reading/Writing Center. Hunter College; Sword, Helen. Stylish Academic Writing . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012; What Is an Academic Paper? Institute for Writing Rhetoric. Dartmouth College.

Writing Tip

Considering the Passive Voice in Academic Writing

In the English language, we are able to construct sentences in the following way: 1.  "The policies of Congress caused the economic crisis." 2.  "The economic crisis was caused by the policies of Congress."

The decision about which sentence to use is governed by whether you want to focus on “Congress” and what they did, or on “the economic crisis” and what caused it. This choice in focus is achieved with the use of either the active or the passive voice. When you want your readers to focus on the "doer" of an action, you can make the "doer"' the subject of the sentence and use the active form of the verb. When you want readers to focus on the person, place, or thing affected by the action, or the action itself, you can make the effect or the action the subject of the sentence by using the passive form of the verb.

Often in academic writing, scholars don't want to focus on who is doing an action, but on who is receiving or experiencing the consequences of that action. The passive voice is useful in academic writing because it allows writers to highlight the most important participants or events within sentences by placing them at the beginning of the sentence.

Use the passive voice when:

• You want to focus on the person, place, or thing affected by the action, or the action itself;
• It is not important who or what did the action;
• You want to be impersonal or more formal.

Form the passive voice by:

• Turning the object of the active sentence into the subject of the passive sentence.
• Changing the verb to a passive form by adding the appropriate form of the verb "to be" and the past participle of the main verb.

NOTE: Consult with your professor about using the passive voice before submitting your research paper. Some strongly discourage its use!

Active and Passive Voice. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; Diefenbach, Paul. Future of Digital Media Syllabus. Drexel University; Passive Voice. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina.  

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What Is Academic Writing? | Dos and Don’ts for Students

Academic writing is a formal style of writing used in universities and scholarly publications. You’ll encounter it in journal articles and books on academic topics, and you’ll be expected to write your essays , research papers , and dissertation in academic style.

Academic writing follows the same writing process as other types of texts, but it has specific conventions in terms of content, structure and style.

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Table of contents

Types of academic writing, academic writing is…, academic writing is not…, useful tools for academic writing, academic writing checklist.

Academics mostly write texts intended for publication, such as journal articles, reports, books, and chapters in edited collections. For students, the most common types of academic writing assignments are listed below.

Different fields of study have different priorities in terms of the writing they produce. For example, in scientific writing it’s crucial to clearly and accurately report methods and results; in the humanities, the focus is on constructing convincing arguments through the use of textual evidence. However, most academic writing shares certain key principles intended to help convey information as effectively as possible.

Whether your goal is to pass your degree, apply to graduate school , or build an academic career, effective writing is an essential skill.

Receive feedback on language, structure, and formatting

Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

• Academic style
• Vague sentences
• Style consistency

See an example

Formal and unbiased

Academic writing aims to convey information in an impartial way. The goal is to base arguments on the evidence under consideration, not the author’s preconceptions. All claims should be supported with relevant evidence, not just asserted.

To avoid bias, it’s important to represent the work of other researchers and the results of your own research fairly and accurately. This means clearly outlining your methodology  and being honest about the limitations of your research.

The formal style used in academic writing ensures that research is presented consistently across different texts, so that studies can be objectively assessed and compared with other research.

Because of this, it’s important to strike the right tone with your language choices. Avoid informal language , including slang, contractions , clichés, and conversational phrases:

• Also , a lot of the findings are a little unreliable.
• Moreover , many of the findings are somewhat unreliable.

Clear and precise

It’s important to use clear and precise language to ensure that your reader knows exactly what you mean. This means being as specific as possible and avoiding vague language :

• People have been interested in this thing for a long time .
• Researchers have been interested in this phenomenon for at least 10 years .

Avoid hedging your claims with words like “perhaps,” as this can give the impression that you lack confidence in your arguments. Reflect on your word choice to ensure it accurately and directly conveys your meaning:

• This could perhaps suggest that…
• This suggests that…

Specialist language or jargon is common and often necessary in academic writing, which generally targets an audience of other academics in related fields.

However, jargon should be used to make your writing more concise and accurate, not to make it more complicated. A specialist term should be used when:

• It conveys information more precisely than a comparable non-specialist term.
• Your reader is likely to be familiar with the term.
• The term is commonly used by other researchers in your field.

The best way to familiarize yourself with the kind of jargon used in your field is to read papers by other researchers and pay attention to their language.

Focused and well structured

An academic text is not just a collection of ideas about a topic—it needs to have a clear purpose. Start with a relevant research question or thesis statement , and use it to develop a focused argument. Only include information that is relevant to your overall purpose.

A coherent structure is crucial to organize your ideas. Pay attention to structure at three levels: the structure of the whole text, paragraph structure, and sentence structure.

Well sourced

Academic writing uses sources to support its claims. Sources are other texts (or media objects like photographs or films) that the author analyzes or uses as evidence. Many of your sources will be written by other academics; academic writing is collaborative and builds on previous research.

It’s important to consider which sources are credible and appropriate to use in academic writing. For example, citing Wikipedia is typically discouraged. Don’t rely on websites for information; instead, use academic databases and your university library to find credible sources.

You must always cite your sources in academic writing. This means acknowledging whenever you quote or paraphrase someone else’s work by including a citation in the text and a reference list at the end.

There are many different citation styles with different rules. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago . Make sure to consistently follow whatever style your institution requires. If you don’t cite correctly, you may get in trouble for plagiarism . A good plagiarism checker can help you catch any issues before it’s too late.

You can easily create accurate citations in APA or MLA style using our Citation Generators.

APA Citation Generator MLA Citation Generator

Correct and consistent

As well as following the rules of grammar, punctuation, and citation, it’s important to consistently apply stylistic conventions regarding:

• How to write numbers
• Introducing abbreviations
• Using verb tenses in different sections
• Capitalization of terms and headings
• Spelling and punctuation differences between UK and US English

In some cases there are several acceptable approaches that you can choose between—the most important thing is to apply the same rules consistently and to carefully proofread your text before you submit. If you don’t feel confident in your own proofreading abilities, you can get help from Scribbr’s professional proofreading services or Grammar Checker .

Academic writing generally tries to avoid being too personal. Information about the author may come in at some points—for example in the acknowledgements or in a personal reflection—but for the most part the text should focus on the research itself.

Always avoid addressing the reader directly with the second-person pronoun “you.” Use the impersonal pronoun “one” or an alternate phrasing instead for generalizations:

• As a teacher, you must treat your students fairly.
• As a teacher, one must treat one’s students fairly.
• Teachers must treat their students fairly.

The use of the first-person pronoun “I” used to be similarly discouraged in academic writing, but it is increasingly accepted in many fields. If you’re unsure whether to use the first person, pay attention to conventions in your field or ask your instructor.

When you refer to yourself, it should be for good reason. You can position yourself and describe what you did during the research, but avoid arbitrarily inserting your personal thoughts and feelings:

• In my opinion…
• I think that…
• I like/dislike…
• I conducted interviews with…
• I argue that…
• I hope to achieve…

Long-winded

Many students think their writing isn’t academic unless it’s over-complicated and long-winded. This isn’t a good approach—instead, aim to be as concise and direct as possible.

If a term can be cut or replaced with a more straightforward one without affecting your meaning, it should be. Avoid redundant phrasings in your text, and try replacing phrasal verbs with their one-word equivalents where possible:

• Interest in this phenomenon carried on in the year 2018 .
• Interest in this phenomenon continued in 2018 .

Repetition is a part of academic writing—for example, summarizing earlier information in the conclusion—but it’s important to avoid unnecessary repetition. Make sure that none of your sentences are repeating a point you’ve already made in different words.

Emotive and grandiose

An academic text is not the same thing as a literary, journalistic, or marketing text. Though you’re still trying to be persuasive, a lot of techniques from these styles are not appropriate in an academic context. Specifically, you should avoid appeals to emotion and inflated claims.

Though you may be writing about a topic that’s sensitive or important to you, the point of academic writing is to clearly communicate ideas, information, and arguments, not to inspire an emotional response. Avoid using emotive or subjective language :

• This horrible tragedy was obviously one of the worst catastrophes in construction history.
• The injury and mortality rates of this accident were among the highest in construction history.

Students are sometimes tempted to make the case for their topic with exaggerated , unsupported claims and flowery language. Stick to specific, grounded arguments that you can support with evidence, and don’t overstate your point:

• Charles Dickens is the greatest writer of the Victorian period, and his influence on all subsequent literature is enormous.
• Charles Dickens is one of the best-known writers of the Victorian period and has had a significant influence on the development of the English novel.

There are a a lot of writing tools that will make your writing process faster and easier. We’ll highlight three of them below.

Paraphrasing tool

AI writing tools like ChatGPT and a paraphrasing tool can help you rewrite text so that your ideas are clearer, you don’t repeat yourself, and your writing has a consistent tone.

They can also help you write more clearly about sources without having to quote them directly. Be warned, though: it’s still crucial to give credit to all sources in the right way to prevent plagiarism .

Grammar checker

Writing tools that scan your text for punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. When it detects a mistake the grammar checke r will give instant feedback and suggest corrections. Helping you write clearly and avoid common mistakes .

You can use a summarizer if you want to condense text into its most important and useful ideas. With a summarizer tool, you can make it easier to understand complicated sources. You can also use the tool to make your research question clearer and summarize your main argument.

Use the checklist below to assess whether you have followed the rules of effective academic writing.

• Checklist: Academic writing

I avoid informal terms and contractions .

I avoid second-person pronouns (“you”).

I avoid emotive or exaggerated language.

I avoid redundant words and phrases.

I avoid unnecessary jargon and define terms where needed.

I present information as precisely and accurately as possible.

I use appropriate transitions to show the connections between my ideas.

My text is logically organized using paragraphs .

Each paragraph is focused on a single idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .

Every part of the text relates to my central thesis or research question .

I support my claims with evidence.

I use the appropriate verb tenses in each section.

I consistently use either UK or US English .

I format numbers consistently.

I cite my sources using a consistent citation style .

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Envisioning the Future of Academic Writing

February 10, 2030. I sit at my kitchen table, with one hand resting on a mug of coffee. I have blocked out 30 minutes to download the medical education scholarship I plan to read and respond to this week .

How will we access education scholarship in 2030? What strategies will medical educators use to document and disseminate their work? In celebration of the Journal of Graduate Medical Education 's ( JGME ) 10th anniversary, the JGME editors are writing a series of special articles that look forward. In this editorial, we imagine the future of academic writing and how this writing will be consumed by readers.

Keeping Up to Date With Education Scholarship in 2030

Using my voice, I open the MedEdCurator app on my tablet, which displays the icons for my favorite web-based medical education journals, blogs, podcasts, videocasts, and virtual communities of practice. I select the “best of” feature, and a window with the highest-rated publications from the past week appears, factoring in my preferences based on my scholarly dossier, prior ratings of all digital media, highest-used search terms, and most viewed media from my closest collaborators. Scrolling through the list, I zero in on a recent publication in JGME on the impact of artificial intelligence on competency-based assessment. With a tap on the screen, I open the interactive visual abstract, which presents the primary aim of the study and the most meaningful results in an infographic. A banner below the abstract provides options to download to my MedEdCurator Cloud the author screencast, the current crowd-sourced bibliography of most relevant publications on time-variable, competency-based assessment, the most highly rated podcasts, and the MedEdCurator Community, an online platform where medical educator scholars discuss literature. I also download the original JGME article, which is available either in the original form or as an annotated version that contains animations to help demonstrate the revisions that have been made based on community discussion and feedback since the first publication date .

Hard Trends in Education

In order to explore how current trends in communication and technology might affect what academic writing, publishing, and dissemination look like in 2030, we searched the literature and posed questions to a variety of medical education groups. From these questions and our literature search, we identified a variety of hard trends that have been and will continue to affect the future of academic writing. Burrus et al define hard trends as up-and-coming, predictable developments about transformations in education. 1

Hard Trends Impacting Academic Writing

Modes of creative expression are evolving in medical education scholarship . While tradition is rooted in text-heavy, peer-reviewed manuscripts, which evolved from dissertations and research formats in the fields of medicine and the social sciences, there is a trend toward shorter articles that include more tables, figures, graphs, and infographics. Written language is increasingly supplemented with audio, visual, and other dynamic content. 2 , 3

Costs and author concerns associated with achieving publication in journals continue to escalate . As authors seek to share their work with their community of peers, prepublication and open access manuscripts are becoming more available. At the same time, the costs of journal access continue to rise, and institutions and authors question the traditional model of academic publication. 4

Reader preferences and habits of acquiring knowledge are evolving as well . Readers who used to stockpile paper journals and read through an entire issue, highlighter in hand, can now view individual article content online. Readers can supplement an article with podcasts, blogs, and subscription services. They also follow scholars virtually or use applications that help them review, curate, and assess the literature. 5 , 6

With the evolution of clinician educators' roles and exponential growth of medical education scholarship, primary literature cannot be screened and reviewed, by an individual, in its entirety . Readers must pick and choose what to read, and curation is essential to staying up-to-date on the medical education research and practice that is most relevant for each individual. 7 – 9

The digital age will continue to transform . Technology will evolve continuously with new ways to access, share, and interact with literature. 10

Crowd-Sourced Vision for the Future

We asked the following 3 questions of the medical education community via Twitter, the JGME Editorial Board, the Society of Directors of Research in Medical Education listserv, an additional closed academic medicine leadership virtual community of practice, and the November 14, 2019 #MedEdChat 11 :

• What will academic writing look like in 2030? How will trends in communication and the digital age impact the way scholarly work is created and disseminated in written format?
• What writing resources do you recommend for those who aim to be successful academic writers over the next decade?
• What writing tips or advice do you have for those who wish to be cutting-edge academic writers?

Our community's predictions for what academic writing may look like in 2030 fell into the following categories:

Decreased emphasis on words, increased emphasis on visual and auditory media . A generation of scholars has learned to summarize their work in one-sentence Facebook updates and 280-character tweets. They have also learned to communicate with their virtual community using images on Instagram. As these scholars produce and consume an increasing share of medical education scholarship, media will become richer. Authors will acquire and apply abilities to express complex ideas in visually creative and succinct ways. The written manuscript will move from center stage to supplementary data. Infographics, virtual abstracts, podcasts, and videocasts will be the main way that readers interact with the primary literature. Writing styles will become more concise, and text will serve as a framework to scaffold the presentation of ideas, results, and conclusions in alternate formats.

Emphasis shifts from the primary literature to curated content . The number of medical education journals and opportunities to publish and disseminate work in digital venues continue to expand. It will become increasingly difficult for educators to sift through the literature to identify the work that is relevant to them and can positively influence their practice. Question responders commented on the current emphasis on scholarship curation, which manifests as “top articles of the year” podcasts and sessions at national meetings, critical appraisals, review articles, and blogs and subscription services that review and rate top articles in a given niche. The science of curation is a niche in itself and the future will see increasing rigor in critical appraisal methods, as well as scholars who build their careers on the scholarship of synthesis.

Publication and dissemination will be 2 distinctly different endeavors. A journal will publish peer-reviewed studies, but as the amount of new knowledge exponentially grows, individuals can no longer afford to be their own filterers across various journals. You'll need smart, trusted, aggregative educators who aren't as biased toward increasing one particular publisher's subscriber count . – Michelle Lin, MD Editor-in-Chief, Academic Life in Emergency Medicine 12

Interactivity: the concept of peer review prior to publication, followed by the dissemination of a static final product will evolve and build on current innovations in post-publication peer review and crowd-sourced rating systems. These processes will highlight how findings or ideas are useful in practice, such that scholarly works will be dynamic digital documents prompting discussion in a virtual space. Interactive visual abstracts will allow readers to access details and supplementary content with a touch of the screen or voice command. Transparency will increase, with a trend toward publication of full datasets and protocols, and community ratings and critiques will prompt ongoing revision of work. As multiphase studies present ongoing results, each subsequent step will be added into the original publication, to minimize salami-slicing and data-splitting. 13 Digital publication will allow the reader to interact with expanded digital media that moves beyond tables and figures to include animations, infographics, and videos that illustrate complex methods and conceptual frameworks. Readers may even use technology to reanalyze available data to check conclusions or calculate additional statistics. Commentary and dialogue will occur within the digital publication in threaded community virtual discussions.

I wonder if investigators will get a personal Yelp-like rating of trustworthiness over time with positive real-world impact factored in. Also I think transparency will increase. Publishing raw deidentified datasets for fact-checking and alternative analyses by others, or even artificial intelligence, or unseen or contradictory trends . – Michelle Lin, MD

Change in structure of medical education journals . Journals will continue to exist to meet educators' needs for curated content. However, they will likely be emblems of virtual communities of practice as opposed to paper magazines. Medical education journals will be online-only and open access. Because nearly all journal content will be freely available to readers, the need for curating will be even more pronounced. Advancement in artificial intelligence programs will allow first-pass manuscript screening, formatting, and copy editing to be automated. Journals will decrease reliance on volunteer reviewers and editors for many publication decisions and prepublication revisions, in favor of computer algorithms. Peer review will become more valued as well as integrated into the writing process, and the trend toward group peer reviews will strengthen. 14 – 16 Editorial boards will be more diverse, and contribute creativity and conceptual guidance to the vision of the journal. Time from submission to publication will decrease. The medical education community will engage in post-publication review, with reviews assessing quality and applicability as part of the virtual community. Documentation of review activity and quality will be automatically downloaded to each scholar's publically available digital dossier. Metrics of quality will include not only citations, metrics that measure the degree to which research is shared and discussed online, including by the public, but also measures of impact on educational practice, through new application metrics.

The democratization of platforms for disseminating work may also result in refreshed approaches to quality assurance that reach beyond the typical peer review strategies, meaning that writing that is clear, persuasive, and understandable will be more salient than ever . – Chris Watling, MD, PhD, Schulich Centre for Education Research & Innovation 17

As our society grows more enlightened we will have fewer in person academic meetings to share research findings, in order to spare fossil fuels and the environment! So early dissemination via other modalities will become more important . – Nathan Kuppermann, MD, MPH 18

Writing competence . The quality of academic writing will be even more important as the forms, word counts, and styles for writing change. Authors will need to be skilled in writing cogently in various styles, with intended audiences in mind, whether those audiences be educators, clinicians, administrators, or researchers. Collaborative writing practices will increase and become more efficient. Like all types of competency development, better writing will require courage, deliberate practice, and resources ( Table and Box ).

Top Resources for Future-Oriented Writers

Box Crowd-Sourced Advice for Those Who Aim to be Cutting-Edge Writers in 2030

• Write a lot. Writing begets writing. Write in different styles.
• Read a lot. Avid readers make better writers.
• Block out time to write and make writing a habit.
• Become a consistent journal reviewer. Consider reviewing as a group.
• Think about the message you want to convey before you start writing.
• When you sit down to write, don't self-edit or try to make the first draft perfect. Just get it down on paper.
• Find or create a writing group. Groups can keep you accountable, inspire you, and allow for consistent feedback.
• Enlist the help of a mentor or writing coach.
• Consider formal training to enhance your general skills as a writer. Take a course or workshop in creative writing, narrative medicine, grammar for writers, poetry, or journalism.
• Learn to navigate the digital space and become familiar with alternative metrics that assess article dissemination and impact.
• Enlist the help of a research librarian.
• Train in graphic design and learn effective strategies for visual representation of data and results.

Academic writing must evolve. The products of our writing will be more widely available in the future than ever before accelerating our understanding of challenging research problems if we write in accessible ways. For too long, academic writers have been content to write for insider audiences only, cramming their work with off putting jargon that keeps others out. I hope that writers in the future will embrace simplicity and accessibility in their work . . . academic writers have an obligation to communicate in ways that illuminate their ideas to audiences beyond their usual cadre of insiders . –Chris Watling, MD, PhD

Final Thoughts

From conceptualization to synthesis of this editorial, we engaged in some of the above future trends, such as interacting with our audience during the writing process and considering visual representation. As we imagine what medical education writing could be in 2030, we realize there are opportunities for our own growth as authors and as a journal. We are inspired to question how we can:

• Share data and results in a way that is transparent, useful, and promotes interactivity;
• Improve our own writing and visual representation skills, and support development of these skills in our authors;
• Incorporate more diverse media and improve platforms for communication among readers and authors;
• Begin to develop more accurate measures of scholarly impact on educational practice; and
• Ensure credibility and accuracy—quality—as dissemination venues and revision practices expand.

JGME aims to be the best source for cutting-edge practical literature that will improve graduate medical education (GME). Join us on this journey by submitting relevant GME work, from high-quality research with innovative graphics and media to personal essays and graphic medicine reflections. Offer your suggestions and resources to improve scholarly writing and dissemination by tweeting to @JournalofGME.

Back to the Future

After reading in the MedEdCuratorCommunity about how some of my favorite competency-based assessment scholar gurus have applied the results of this study to their ongoing research and educational practice, I download the podcast, my annotated document, and videocast. My tablet buzzes to alert me that my prescheduled time period for literature curation has ended. I power off with a double blink of my eye (a preprogrammed command), and head out for a run, excited about listening to the podcast as I hit the trails .

The authors would like to thank the following individuals who contributed to our vision of the future of academic writing: Mohammed Alkhalifah, Kathy Andolsek, Sateesh Arja, Louise Arnold, Maik Arnold, Dorene Balmer, Teresa Chan, Margaret Chisholm, Esther Choo, Katherine Chretien, Jorie Colbert-Getz, Ceci Connolly, Tom Cooney, Jim Dahle, Gary Beck Dallaghan, Kristina Dzara, Aimee Gardner, Paul Haidet, Ilene Harris, Daniela Hermelin, Doug Jones, Terry Kind, Nathan Kupperman, Edward Lew, Michelle Lin, Lauren Maggio, Erin N. Marcus, Chris Merritt, Emily Methangkool, S. Muehlschlegel, Joanne Mundua, Erica Nelson, Candace Norton, Daniel Pham, Daniel Ricotta, Janet Riddle, ShwneeLgcy (@ShwneeLgcy), Jung Hoon Son, Lonika Sood, Sparkles the OA Dog (@oa_dog), Javeed Sukhera, Aubrie Swan Sein, Iris Thiele Isip Tan, Christopher R Thomas, Robert Trevino, Tom Varghese, Christopher Watling, and Gregg Wells.

Introduction to research skills: Home

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Research skills allow you to find information and use it effectively. It includes creating a strategy to gather facts and reach conclusions so that you can answer a question.

Starting your research

think about your topic – don’t be too vague or too specific (try mind mapping or keyword searching).

read broadly around your subject (don’t just use Google and Wikipedia). Think about a research question that is clearly structured and builds on literature already produced.

find information using the subject databases. View the Database Orientation Program to learn about databases and using search strategies to refine your search and limit results. View our library tutorial on planning your literature search and look at our library subject guides for resources on your specific topic.

Another good starting point for finding information is our library catalogue Library Search  which allows you to search across the library's electronic resources as well as major subject databases and indexes.

carry out a literature review . You may want to include journals, books, websites, grey literature or data and statistics for example. See the list of sources below for more information. Keep a record and organise your references and sources. If you are intending to carry out a systematic review then take a look at the systematic review page on our Research Support library guide.

evaluate your resources – use the CRAAP test (Currency, Relevancy, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose - watch the video, top right). 

reach considered conclusions and make recommendations where necessary.

Your research journey.

Why do I need research skills?

they enable you to locate appropriate information and evaluate it for quality and relevance

they allow you to make good use of information to resolve a problem

they give you the ability to synthesize and communicate your ideas in written and spoken formats

they foster critical thinking

they are highly transferable and can be adapted to many settings including the workplace

You can access more in depth information on areas such as primary research, literature reviews, research methods, and managing data, from the drop down headings under Research Skills on the Academic Skills home page. The related resources in the right-hand column of this page also contain useful supporting information.

• Conference proceedings
• Data & statistics
• Grey literature
• Official publications

Books are good for exploring new subject areas. They help define a topic and provide an in-depth account of a subject.

Scholarly books contain authoritative information including comprehensive accounts of research or scholarship and experts' views on themes and topics. Their bibliographies can lead readers to related books, articles and other sources. 

Details on the electronic books held by the University of Southampton can be found using the library catalogue .

Journals are quicker to publish than books and are often a good source of current information. They are useful when you require information to support an argument or original research written by subject experts.  The bibliographies at the end of journal articles should point you to other relevant research.

Academic journals go through a "peer-review" process. A peer-reviewed journal is one whose articles are checked by experts, so you can be more confident that the information they contain is reliable.

The Library's discovery service Library Search  is a good place to start when searching for journal articles and enables access to anything that is available electronically.

Newspapers enable you to follow current and historical events from multiple perspectives. They are an excellent record of political, social, cultural, and economic events and history.

Newspapers are popular rather than scholarly publications and their content needs to be treated with caution. For example, an account of a particular topic can be biased in favour of that newspaper’s political affiliation or point of view. Always double-check the data/statistics or any other piece of information that a newspaper has used to support an argument before you quote it in your own work.

The library subscribes to various resources which provide full-text access to both current and historical newspapers. Find out more about these on the Library's Newspaper Resources page.

Websites provide information about every topic imaginable, and many will be relevant to your studies.

Use websites with caution as anyone can publish on the Internet and therefore the quality of the information provided is variable. When you’re researching and come across a website you think might be useful, consider whether or not it provides information that is reliable and authoritative enough to use in your work.

Proceedings are collections of papers presented by researchers at academic conferences or symposia. They may be printed volumes or in electronic format.

You can use the information in conference proceedings with a high degree of confidence as the quality is ensured by having external experts read & review the papers before they are accepted in the proceedings.

Find the data and statistics you need, from economics to health, environment to oceanography - and everywhere between - http://library.soton.ac.uk/data .

Grey literature is the term given to non-traditional publications (material not published by mainstream publishers). For example - leaflets, reports, conference proceedings, government documents, preprints, theses, clinical trials, blogs, tweets, etc.. 

The majority of Grey literature is generally not peer-reviewed so it is very important to critically appraise any grey literature before using it.

Most aspects of life are touched by national governments, or by inter-governmental bodies such as the European Union or the United Nations.  Official publications are the documentary evidence of that interest. 

Our main printed collections and online services are for British and EU official publications, but we can give advice on accessing official publications from other places and organisations. Find out more from our web pages  http://library.soton.ac.uk/officialpublications .

Patents protect inventions - the owner can stop other people making, using or selling the item without their permission. This applies for a limited period and a separate application is needed for each country.

Patents can be useful since they contain full technical details on how an invention works. If you use an active patent outside of research - permission or a license is probably needed.

Related resources:

Checking for CRAAP - UMW New Media Archive

How to Develop a STRONG Research Question - Scribbr

Guide to dissertation and project writing - by University of Southampton (Enabling Services)

Guide to writing your dissertation - by the Royal Literary Fund  

Guidance on the Conduct of Narrative Synthesis in Systematic Reviews  - by ESRC Methods Programme

Guidelines for preparing a Research Proposal - by University of Southampton

Choosing good keywords - by the Open University

Developing a Research or Guided Question  - a self-guided tutorial produced by Arizona State University

Evaluating information - a 7 minute tutorial from the University of Southampton which covers thinking critically, and understanding how to find quality and reliable information.

Hints on conducting a literature review  - by the University of Toronto

Planning your literature search  - a short tutorial by the University of Southampton

Using Overleaf for scientific writing and publishing  -  a popular  LaTeX/Rich Text based online collaborative tool for students and researchers alike. It is designed to make the process of writing, editing, and producing scientific papers quicker and easier for authors. 

Systematic reviews  - by the University of Southampton. 

Create your own research proposal - by the University of Southampton

• Last Updated: Mar 13, 2024 3:14 PM
• URL: https://library.soton.ac.uk/sash/introduction-to-research-skills

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What are Research Skills and why are they important?

Most jobs actually require some level of problem-solving. You may come across an impediment and come up with a question that you must answer in order to proceed. To answer this question, you will almost certainly need to conduct some research. People with research skills can identify a problem, gather informational resources that can help address the problem, assess the quality and relevance of these resources, and come up with an effective solution to the problem.

By the way, to diversify your research paper process you can find unique research paper topics .

What is Research?

Internet Research is the practice of conducting research using Internet information, particularly free information on Internet-based educational resources (such as Internet discussion forums).

Simply put, research is the process of discovering new knowledge. This knowledge can be either the development of new concepts or the advancement of existing knowledge and theories, leading to a new understanding that was not previously known.

In fact, almost every profession or job necessitates some level of research and research skills. As long as you encounter a question, which is a natural occurrence in almost everything, you should encounter an opportunity to conduct research. When there is a need for research, strong research skills come in handy.

What are Research Skills?

Research skills enable you to focus on a specific goal, gather relevant information, and communicate your findings to others. We are taught from a young age to develop research skills, and for good reason.

Teachers in academia required answers to a series of topic-related questions in an essay. Similarly, your boss may eventually request that you investigate a work-related topic or figure out how to solve a problem.

Why are Research Skills Important?

Research skills are important in the workplace for a variety of reasons, including the ability for individuals and businesses to:

• Develop new processes and outcomes. You don't have to be involved in research and development to improve the way your team works. Any sensible employer will value your efforts in researching new processes that will make your job (and those of your team) more efficient.
• Personal Growth. People who have a knack and a passion for research are never satisfied with doing things the same way they've always done them. Organizations require independent thinkers who will seek their own answers and continually improve their skills. These employees will also learn new technologies more quickly.
• Customer relationship management. In almost every industry, being able to conduct research on your customer base is critical. It's difficult to move products or sell services if you don't know what people want. It is a valuable responsibility to research your customer base's interests, needs, and pain points.
• Cost Effective. Whether your organization is launching a new product or simply trying to cut costs, research is critical for identifying wasted resources and redirecting them to more worthy causes. Anyone who goes out of their way to find ways for the company to save money will be praised by their boss.
• Competitor Analysis. Knowing what your top competitors are up to is crucial for any company. If a company wants to stay functioning, it must research what works for its competitors, what they do better than you, and where it may improve its standing with the least amount of resources.

Types of Research Skills

Experienced researchers understand that conducting a worthwhile investigation necessitates a wide range of abilities. Consider which research abilities you have naturally and which you could improve.

Goal Setting

You must first know what you're looking for before you can conduct any form of productive research. Setting goals is a skill just like any other. It will be lot easier to construct a path there if you can imagine the conclusion you're aiming to attain by investing effort into research. Goal-setting skills include:

• Specificity
• Time-Management
• Planning ahead
• Organization
• Accountable

Data Collection

The collection of data is often the first thing to remember when thinking about the research process. It is a systematic process to collect and measure information on variables of interest that allows one to respond to research questions, to test hypothesis and to assess results.

Simply collecting facts and information on the internet can meet your needs for some purposes. More direct and popular research may be needed by others. You will be more impressive with your experience in different methods of data collection. Methods of data collection are:

• Questionnaires and surveys
• Observations
• Documents and records
• Focus groups
• Oral histories

Evaluate and Analyze Information and Sources

In research, it is important to find reliable information suitable for your task. Some tasks may require the use of certain types of sources, such as primary or secondary sources or certain types of journals, like scientific journals. You may need to restrict the numbers sources you use for other assignments.

In all cases, the information contained in your assignments should always be assessed. Knowing how to assess information helps you with research tasks and with your life's bigger decisions. Knowing where to go for information that is relevant, credible, and accurate can assist you in making informed decisions about graduate school, a new car purchase, financial aid opportunities, daycare options, and other topics.

• Published books
• Encyclopedias
• Scholarly journals
• Library catalogs

Using the internet to gather information

Search engines are used to find the majority of information on the Internet. A search engine is an online service that employs web robots to query millions of web pages and compile an index of the results. Internet users can then utilize these services to search the web for information. While it is beneficial to consult different sources, today's research is driven by good online research skills.

One of the greatest things about the internet is how much information it holds; unfortunately, getting to the data you need requires sifting through a lot of rubbish. Employers value the ability to efficiently utilise the large reservoir of knowledge available on the internet without getting lost in the clutter. The following are some examples of internet research skills:

• Source checking
• Searching relevant questions
• Exploring deeper than the first options
• Avoiding distraction
• Giving credit
• Organizing findings

Due to the sheer size of the World Wide Web, and with the rapid growth of indexed web pages, finding relevant and reliable information demands specialized training and Internet research skills . We provide a centralized virtual platform for knowledge professionals that use the Internet as a primary source of information. This AofIRS is more than just a virtual collaboration and networking platform for researchers and knowledge professionals. The website is filled with free, up-to-date content and reference material that is ideal for research.

Interviewing

Some research projects may demand a more hands-on approach than relying just on online resources. In the research process, being prepared with great interviewing skills can be really beneficial. Interviews can be a good way to get first-hand knowledge for your research, and knowing how to conduct an effective interview can help you improve your research skills. Interviewing abilities include:

• A plan of action
• Specific, pointed questions
• Respectfulness
• Considering the interview setting
• Actively Listening
• Taking notes

Report Writing

Report writing skills can help you in both your employment and your academic studies. In any case, the overall goal of a report is to transmit specific facts to its audience.

Communication is crucial for effective report writing. Your supervisor, professor, or general reader should comprehend your findings and conclusions clearly. Skills in report writing include:

• Formatting is important.
• Including a synopsis
• Keeping your focus on your main goal
• Developing a plan
• Proofreading\sDirectness

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking skills can help you a lot in the research process and in general as an employee. Your data analysis skills are referred to as critical thinking. When you're conducting research, you'll need to be able to interpret your findings and make rational judgments based on them. The following are examples of critical thinking skills:

• Observation
• Assessing issues
• Problem-solving
• Communication

Planning and Scheduling 

The development of baseline productivity and success standards is one of the most significant components of planning and scheduling. You won't know if you're meeting goals until you have a particular strategy in place with a specific desired outcome defined by a completion date.

It also makes time management considerably easy. Employers value planning and scheduling abilities because they suggest a well-prepared employee. Skills in planning and scheduling include:

• Setting objectives
• Identifying tasks
• Prioritizing
• Delegating if needed
• Time-management

Note-taking

Research involves sifting through and taking in lots of information. Taking thorough notes ensures that you do not overlook any findings and allows you to communicate these findings to your coworkers. Being able to take good notes aids in the summarization of research. Here are some examples of note-taking abilities:

• Using short-hand
• Keeping your goal in mind
• Emphasizing important points
• Reviewing notes afterward

Time Management

Unfortunately, we only have 24 measly hours in a day. In a professional setting, the ability to effectively manage this time is extremely valuable. Hiring managers look for candidates who can complete tasks within a specific time frame.

Strong time management skills imply that you can organize a strategy for breaking down larger tasks in a project and completing them by a deadline. Improving your time management skills can significantly boost the productivity of your research. Time management abilities include the following:

• Creating task outlines
• Thinking strategically
• Stress-management
• Utilizing resources
• Setting reasonable expectations
• Meeting deadlines

Other Helpful Research Skills

The definition of research skills is broad, and there are many traits that could help you in the research process. Consider some of the additional research skills below.

• Attention to detail
• Reading and writing skills
• Considering keywords
• Competitor comparison
• Multitasking
• Summarization
• Presentation

How to Improve Your Research Skills

The great thing about research skills is that many of us use them on a daily basis. When you use a search engine to find information on a topic, you are conducting research. However, there are more proactive ways to begin improving your research skills today:

• Make a distinction between source quality. A researcher's worst source determines how good they are. Start paying attention to the quality of the sources you're using, and be wary of anything you read until you've double-checked the attributions and works cited. Examine the author's bias, the author's research's alignment with the greater body of confirmed research in the subject, and the journal that sponsored or published the research.
• Verify information from several sources. It gets increasingly trustworthy when you can verify information from a variety of sources. If you want to strengthen your belief in one source, check if you can locate another that agrees with it. When you run into contradictions and conflicts in your study, you know you need to keep going until you reach a more definitive conclusion.
• Don't be influenced by confirmation bias. Confirmation bias occurs when a researcher expects a specific result and then searches for data to support that hypothesis, ignoring any sources that contradict or invalidate the researcher's initial idea. Be ready for unexpected responses and keep an open mind. Also, keep in mind that you might not be able to discover a definitive answer. It's preferable to provide the important points of your research to someone (such as your employer) and explain that it didn't lead to a concrete plan of action than to alter your data and give the answer you or your boss want to hear.
• Stay organized. You'll encounter a lot of material during the data gathering process, from webpages to PDFs to videos. To avoid losing something or not being able to properly mention something, it's critical that you maintain all of this information organized in some way. There are numerous methods for keeping your research project structured, but here are a few of the most common: Bookmarks in your browser, index cards, and an annotated bibliography that you update as you go are all useful tools.
• Develop your research skills. Professional certification will help you improve your research skills. CIRS™ (Certified Internet Research Specialist), is by far the only professional credential that meets this challenge. Professional researchers owe it to themselves to seek structured certification programs and stay in touch with new materials and tools that are available to transform research problems from very difficult or impossible to quick and simple tasks. We have developed a CIRS Certification (Certified Internet Research Specialist) to educate and train Online Researchers that now form a significantly large group of people involved in digital information research work.
• Get specific as you go. There's nothing wrong with commencing your investigation in a broad sense. After all, it's critical to become acquainted with the vocabulary and substance of the researcher's results before delving into the details. Orienting yourself to a new topic is an important step that will prevent you from being discouraged and working backwards.
• Learn how to spot a reliable source. Because not all sources are trustworthy, it's critical to be able to distinguish between the good and the bad. To find a trustworthy source, utilize your critical thinking and analytical skills to ask yourself the following questions: Is this source consistent with other sources I've discovered? Is the author a subject matter expert? Is there a conflict of interest in the author's point of view on this subject?

If you're ready to conduct research to enhance your search efforts, the following resources will be useful:

• Educational Search Engines for Students
• Top 100  Academic Search Engines
• 3 ways to help students do efficient online research

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Original research article, improving undergraduates’ and postgraduates’ academic writing skills with strategy training and feedback.

• Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

To improve text quality in higher education, training writing strategies (i.e., text structure application, summarization, or language use) and provision of feedback for revising (i.e., informative tutoring feedback or try-again feedback) were tested in combination. The aim was to establish whether first, strategy training affects academic writing skills that promote coherence, second, whether undergraduates and postgraduates benefit differently from feedback for revising, and third, whether training text structure application strategy in combination with informative tutoring feedback was most effective for undergraduates’ text quality. Undergraduate and postgraduate students ( N = 212) participated in the 2-h experimental intervention study in a computer-based learning environment. Participants were divided into three groups and supported by a writing strategy training intervention (i.e., text structure knowledge application, summarization, or language use), which was modeled by a peer student in a learning journal. Afterward participants wrote an abstract of an empirical article. Half of each group received in a computer-based learning environment twice either try-again feedback or informative tutoring feedback while revising their drafts. Writing skills and text quality were assessed by items and ratings. Analyses of covariance revealed that, first, text structure knowledge application strategy affected academic writing skills positively; second, feedback related to writing experience resulted in higher text quality: undergraduates benefited from informative tutoring feedback, postgraduates from try-again feedback; and third, the combination of writing strategy and feedback was not significantly related to improved text quality.

Introduction

The writing performance of freshmen and even graduate students reveals a gap between writing skills learned at school and writing skills required at the college or university level ( Kellogg and Whiteford, 2009 ): writers at school are able to transform their knowledge into a text that they can understand and use for their own benefit. Academic writing requires in addition to that presuming the readers’ understanding of the text written so far to establish a highly coherent text ( Kellogg, 2008 ).

Several studies have shown that to improve writing, it is beneficial to train writing strategies and to support the writing process through feedback ( Graham, 2006 ; Nelson and Schunn, 2009 ; Donker et al., 2014 ). This is also true for higher education ( Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006 ; MacArthur et al., 2015 ; Wischgoll, 2016 ). Writing strategies can help learners to control and modify their efforts to master the writing task ( Bereiter and Scardamalia, 1987 ). Feedback for improving writing provides information about the adequacy of the writing product ( Graham and Perin, 2007 ). On the other hand, feedback that interrupts the writing process might be inhibitive ( Corno and Snow, 1986 ). Feedback that is administered adaptively to the current level of needs, can aim to increase the learner’s efforts to reduce the discrepancy between actual and desired performance ( Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ; Shute, 2008 ).

In terms of writing strategies, research pointed out that writers who use summarization strategies can retrieve information to generate new texts and that writers who use text structure strategies can find and assign information ( Englert, 2009 ; Kellogg and Whiteford, 2009 ). In terms of feedback, research pointed out that feedback should be aligned to writing experience ( Shute, 2008 ). Despite the large body of research on writing strategies ( Graham and Perin, 2007 ; Graham et al., 2013 ) and on feedback ( Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ; Nelson and Schunn, 2009 ), little is known about the specific combination of training to apply text structure knowledge or summarization and feedback with different degree of elaboration in higher education. However, we do know that training to apply text structure knowledge as cognitive writing strategy in combination with training to self-monitor the writing process as metacognitive writing strategy can be beneficial for undergraduates’ writing skills and text quality ( Wischgoll, 2016 ). Furthermore, we know that feedback received from outside the self can induce metacognitive activities ( Butler and Winne, 1995 ). Thus, feedback to monitor the writing process is expected to be another means to foster text quality in combination with training a cognitive writing strategy.

The present study investigated the effects of cognitive writing strategies on academic writing skills and of feedback to foster monitoring the writing process on undergraduates’ and postgraduates’ text quality. The application of academic writing strategies such as summarization strategy and text structure knowledge application strategy help the writer to connect information units to generate a text that is easy to follow. Feedback related to practice aims to support the writer in monitoring the writing process while he or she is applying writing strategies. Accordingly, feedback provided in this study is deemed to be metacognitive in nature. (For an overview please see Table 1 .)

Table 1 . Treatments with expected learning outcome.

Observing and Practicing As Means to Acquire Writing Skills

To train writing skills, Kellogg (2008) recommends both learning by observing and learning by doing. He claims that these two training methods complement each other if they are administered in appropriate proportions.

Learning to write by observing is an often practiced method ( Rosenthal and Zimmerman, 1978 ; Bandura, 1986 , 1997 ; Schunk, 1987 , 1991 ), which can be administered by observing a mastery model or a coping model. Zimmerman and Kitsantas (2002) showed that college students improved strongly by observing a coping model who was struggling to deal with challenges. Furthermore, Braaksma et al. (2004) demonstrated that learners improved through cognitive and metacognitive activities such as observing, evaluating, and reflecting on activities while they were observing the model.

Learning to write by doing follows on from observational learning. To develop writing skills, Kellogg (2008) recommends a combination of observational learning and practice with gradually fading support, such as the model of cognitive apprenticeship ( Collins et al., 1989 ), the sociocognitive model ( Schunk and Zimmerman, 1997 ) and especially for writing development, the Self-Regulated Strategy Development framework ( Graham, 2006 ).

Establishing Coherence Promotes Text Quality

Coherence and cohesion are criteria to estimate text quality ( Witte and Faigley, 1981 ). Coherence refers to the mental representations about the situation presented in the text that readers can form depending on their skills and knowledge and related to surface indicators in the text. It is generated by psychological representations and processes ( Witte and Faigley, 1981 ; Graesser et al., 2004 ). Cohesion as it refers to surface indicators of relations between sentences is a text characteristic ( McNamara et al., 1996 ). Lexical and grammatical relationship supports the reader to find and interpret main ideas and to connect these ideas to higher information units ( Witte and Faigley, 1981 ; Graesser et al., 2004 ). Readers can understand a coherent text that lacks cohesion, as they construct a mental representation for the situation ( Witte and Faigley, 1981 ; Graesser et al., 1994 , 2004 ).

In terms of promoting text quality, writing a text requires the establishment of coherence by relating different information units ( Sanders et al., 1992 ; McNamara et al., 1996 ). Characteristically, the interpretation of the related segments provides more information than is provided by the sum of the information units taken in isolation ( Sanders et al., 1992 ; Sanders and Sanders, 2006 ). Once the information units are related to a coherent text, readers can understand the text’s message ( Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983 ). The more coherently a text is written, the more easily readers can understand it ( McNamara et al., 1996 ). Therefrom the focus for analyzing text quality in this study is reasoned in coherence.

To establish coherence, Spivey (1990) postulates that academic writing involves strategies of organizing, selecting, and connecting. Training a text structure knowledge application strategy or a summarization strategy seems to be a promising means to achieve this: summarization includes intensively reading, selecting main ideas, and composing sentences to generate a coherent text ( Kellogg and Whiteford, 2009 ). Text structure knowledge fosters systematically reading to find propositions, which facilitate composing a coherent text ( Englert, 2009 ). Furthermore, receiving feedback while revising can facilitate the writing process if it is aligned to writing experience ( Shute, 2008 ) and can, thus, promote text quality in terms of coherence.

Interplay of Cognitive and Metacognitive Support to Become an Academic Writer

Especially in higher education, the interplay of cognitive and metacognitive support is important for mastering complex tasks such as academic writing ( Veenman and Beishuizen, 2004 ; Veenman et al., 2004 ). Research has shown that the combination of cognitive and metacognitive support is a promising means to foster learners’ writing development ( MacArthur et al., 2015 ; Wischgoll, 2016 ). Cognitive support can be administered by modeling writing strategies, enabling the learner to observe when and how a certain activity can be accomplished. Metacognitive support can be administered by giving feedback in the writing process, deliberately accompanying learners while they are monitoring their writing process.

Facilitating the Writing Process through Cognitive Writing Strategy Training

Improving text quality in academic writing can be supported by training a text structure knowledge application strategy or a summarization strategy. The former supports the writer in relating main propositions via a genre-based structure that provides some kind of schema to fill in. The latter supports the writer in relating main propositions by selecting and organizing information units.

Text structure knowledge is closely related to reading comprehension and writing performance ( Hiebert et al., 1983 ). On the one hand, the structure of a text helps readers to easily find what they are looking for; on the other hand, the text structure helps writers to coordinate ideas and intention. Englert (2009) confirmed the importance of text structure knowledge training for writers to organize the writing process. Practice supports writers in using the text structure to find information and in assigning their ideas to the corresponding text sections ( Englert and Thomas, 1987 ). The type of text structure also influences reading and writing performance ( Englert and Hiebert, 1984 ). The empirical research article is a frequently used genre in academic writing, which enables the research community to receive research-relevant information in a concise but elaborated style ( Kintsch and Van Dijk, 1978 ; Swales, 1990 ). As the structure is expected and shared in the scientific community, it helps the main propositions of the empirical research article to be developed and arranged. Hence, the text structure supports the reader in following and understanding a text.

In empirical research articles, information from other texts is typically reproduced, and the selection of this information requires summarization skills. Expert writers select such information from different text sources and use it to invent a new text with derived, new information units ( Spivey, 1990 ). For this purpose, expert writers delete redundant information, generalize connected propositions, and construct topic sentences organize information ( Van Dijk and Kintsch, 1983 ). In a study on paraphrasing expository texts, junior college students were able to delete redundant information but displayed significant deficits in generalization and construction ( Brown and Day, 1983 ). On the other hand, Hidi and Anderson (1986) found that experienced writers when writing summaries selected information in a constructive way, by emphasizing an intended message of the text. Summarizing and developing a main thread makes it easier for readers to follow and to understand their writing ( Graesser et al., 1994 ; Li, 2014 ).

As expert writers are able to use stored writing strategies which novice writers are yet to learn, expert and novice writers revise their texts differently ( Sommers, 1980 ; Hayes, 2004 ; Chanquoy, 2008 ): expert writers detect more problems of a text that are related to content and structure and are able to pay heed to the target audience while revising their text ( Hayes et al., 1987 ). Novice writers detect mainly surface errors and focus primarily on the word and sentence level ( Sommers, 1980 ; Fitzgerald, 1992 ; Cho and MacArthur, 2010 ).

In sum, facilitating writing through training strategies to apply summarization or text structure knowledge should be conducive for less experienced academic writers whereas more experienced writers might already rely on stored writing strategies.

Facilitating the Monitoring of the Writing Process through Feedback

To help writers to improve their texts and to develop their writing skills, besides training writing strategies support can also be provided as feedback aligned to the current level of experience ( Kellogg, 2008 ). Shute (2008) reports several types of feedback that differ in the degree of elaboration, for instance try-again feedback with no elaboration, and informative tutoring feedback with intensive elaboration. Try-again feedback points out that there is a gap between current and desired level of performance and offers him or her a further opportunity to work on the task ( Clariana, 1990 ). Informative tutoring feedback is seen as the most elaborated form of feedback. It encompasses evaluation about the work done so far, points out errors, and offers strategic hints on how to proceed. In this process, the correct answer is usually not provided ( Narciss and Huth, 2004 ).

The type of feedback influences learners differently depending on their writing experience. Hanna (1976) showed that low-ability learners benefited more from elaborated feedback than from feedback that provides information about the correctness of the work produced so far. Similarly, Clariana (1990) found that elaborated feedback produced the highest scores for low-ability students, and try-again feedback the lowest. For high-ability learners, Hanna (1976) found the most benefit from feedback without elaboration, such as verification of the work produced so far. Furthermore, his findings indicate that high-ability learners benefit from working at their own pace; and consequently, feedback should not interrupt the work progress. Hence, feedback for high-ability learners should not be elaborated when it is given during the work process ( Clariana, 1990 ).

The results of the aforementioned studies indicate that high-ability and low-ability as well as novice and experienced learners should be treated in different ways. Whereas low-ability and novice learners benefit from support and explicit guidance during the learning process ( Moreno, 2004 ), high-ability and experienced learners need freedom to work at their own pace ( Hanna, 1976 ). Depending on the level of prior knowledge and experience support might be conducive and not. Hence, support should be demanding but not overdemanding for the learner, and provide guidance that meets the learner’s needs ( Koedinger and Aleven, 2007 ). Support that is effective with unexperienced learners but ineffective with experienced learners is called expertise reversal effect ( Kalyuga et al., 2003 ).

In sum, facilitating writing through feedback should be optimally aligned to writing experience: more experienced writers may need modest feedback while writing, whereas less experienced writers may benefit from feedback that offers some kind of guidance.

Combination of Training a Cognitive Writing Strategy and Receiving Feedback

Several meta-analyses reported about the effectiveness of certain writing activities, such as summarization and monitoring, to improve the acquisition of writing skills and text quality ( Graham and Perin, 2007 ; Kellogg and Whiteford, 2009 ); however, we know little about how the recommended writing activities can be combined effectively for writing development in higher education. In a recent study, Wischgoll (2016) tested the combination of training two writing strategies to improve undergraduates’ text quality. She combined the training of one cognitive writing strategy, i.e., text structure application strategy, with training of another cognitive writing strategy, i.e., summarization strategy, respectively, with training a metacognitive strategy, i.e., self-monitoring strategy. Results revealed that undergraduates benefited from training one cognitive writing strategy and one metacognitive writing strategy in terms of text quality more than those who received training with two cognitive writing strategies. This result indicates that combined training of one cognitive and one metacognitive writing strategy can be effective.

The study described here follows the idea that combining support that induces cognitive writing activities and support that induces metacognitive writing activities results in improved text quality. From the studies mentioned in the sections before, we derive that, first, training writing strategies to apply summarization or text structure knowledge can induce cognitive writing activities; second, providing feedback that supports monitoring the writing process to establish coherence can induce metacognitive writing activities.

The Present Study

The first aim of this study was, first, to analyze whether the training of writing strategies affects academic writing skills; more specifically we analyzed first, whether text structure knowledge application strategy training affects the skill to use genre specific structures to find and assign information, and second, whether summarization strategy training affects the skill to reduce text content while maintaining coherence.

Second, it was assumed that undergraduates benefit from receiving informative tutoring feedback after training to apply text structure knowledge more than from receiving informative tutoring feedback after training summarization or language use; more specifically, that feedback during text revision affects undergraduates’ and postgraduates’ text quality differently. We assumed that undergraduates benefit from informative tutoring feedback because it provides guidance while writing, and that postgraduates benefit from try-again feedback because it does not interrupt the application of already acquired writing skills.

Third, it was assumed that undergraduates benefit more from training to apply text structure knowledge and receiving informative tutoring feedback concerning text quality than undergraduates who trained summarization strategy or language use strategy and received informative tutoring feedback.

We also assessed self-efficacy and motivation to discern whether the intervention was accepted by the participants and whether all treatment groups were equally motivated.

The following hypotheses were tested:

H1a Training the text structure knowledge application strategy or the summarization strategy affects the acquisition of academic writing skills more than training the language use strategy ( cognitive writing strategy hypothesis ).

H1b Training the text structure knowledge application strategy affects the skill of using genre specific structures to find and assign information more than training the summarization strategy or the language use strategy ( text structure strategy hypothesis ).

H1c Training the summarization strategy affects the skill of reducing text content while maintaining coherence more than training the text structure knowledge application strategy or the language use strategy ( summarization strategy hypothesis ).

H2a Undergraduates benefit from receiving informative tutoring feedback more than from receiving try-again feedback in terms of text quality of the abstract. Academic writing skill, coherence skill, text quality of the draft, reducing text while revising, and adding relevant information while revising are assumed to influence the text quality of the abstract ( undergraduates’ hypothesis ).

H2b Undergraduates and postgraduates benefit differently from feedback while revising concerning text quality of the abstract ( level of graduation hypothesis ).

H3 Undergraduates benefit more from receiving informative tutoring feedback after training to apply text structure knowledge concerning text quality of the abstract than from receiving informative tutoring feedback after training the summarization strategy or training the language use strategy. Academic writing skill, coherence skill, text quality of the draft, reducing text while revising, and adding relevant information while revising are assumed to influence the text quality of the abstract ( combination hypothesis ).

Materials and Methods

Participants and design.

Data were analyzed from 212 German-speaking students ( n female = 184, n male = 28). The sample included 179 undergraduate ( n female = 157, n male = 22) and 33 doctoral students (postgraduates; n female = 27, n male = 6) who were majoring in educational sciences ( n = 32), psychology ( n = 74), or teacher education ( n = 96) from the University of Freiburg ( n = 90) and the University of Education of Freiburg ( n = 122) in Germany. The mean age was 24.5 years (SD = 4.5).

The study was advertised with flyers on which the study was offered as a training course on writing academic articles. The course consisted of one session and was not part of participants’ study program. Researchers and participants were not in a relationship of dependency. All participants were aware of taking part in a research project and volunteered to participate. They could either fulfill part of the study program’s requirement to participate in empirical studies or receive 15 Euro per person for participation. The examiner handed out the financial reward in the laboratory after the experiment. Before beginning the experiment, the participants read a standardized explanation about ethical guidelines and provided written informed consent. Participants who declined to provide the informed consent were offered to withdraw from the experiment and still receive the financial reward. None declined or withdrew from the experiment. All data were anonymously collected and analyzed. All participants provided written informed consent for their collected data to be used anonymously for publications. All participants were informed about their results that they could identify via their personalized code. In addition, from references were offered to help them train their specific academic writing deficits.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions of our experimental pre–posttest intervention study: all groups were basically instructed about the structure of an empirical article. Following, one experimental group ( N = 71) received a training on how to apply text structure knowledge, the second experimental group ( N = 70) received a training on summarization, the control group ( N = 71) received a training on language use. In addition, half of each group received either informative tutoring feedback or try-again feedback directed at the writing process.

The experiment was conducted in a 2-h session in a university laboratory. Each participant enlisted for one date. In the session, all participants managed their time individually in a computer-based learning environment without interacting with other participants. Via the computer-based learning environment, all instructions were executed in writing, and all participants’ contributions were stored. The participants were randomly assigned to the treatment conditions in nearly equal numbers. Participants were not informed about the nature of their condition. The procedures of the study are presented in Figure 1 .

Figure 1 . Procedures of the study.

The experiment consisted of two phases: modeling phase and deliberate practice phase. Before the modeling phase, demographic data and self-reported prior knowledge about text structure were assessed. The participants were also tested on academic writing skill as well as on self-efficacy. Following the modeling phase, the participants were tested on their current motivation, and retested on self-efficacy and academic writing skill. Before and after the deliberate practice phase, the participants were tested on coherence skill.

In the modeling phase , the participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions of the experimental pre–posttest intervention study. They received basic training on how an empirical article is structured, after which they received writing strategy training according to their condition (i.e., training to apply text structure knowledge application strategy, text summarization strategy, or language use strategy). The training sessions were presented by a peer model in written learning journals, which the participants read at their own pace. The peer model illustrated and exemplified her own writing experience. She demonstrated aspects where she struggled and offered strategies to master the writing process effectively. In this phase, the participants were not allowed to take their own notes for two reasons: (1) control of time consumption and (2) control of elaboration depth.

In the deliberate practice phase , the participants were asked to write an abstract of an empirical research article. To this aim, all participants were presented with a cartoon about advantages and disadvantages of wearing school uniform. To produce the single text sections (theoretical background, research question, methods, results, and implications), the participants received instructions (e.g., ask a critical question that you want to check in your study) and collected their ideas in the computer-based learning environment. Subsequently, for the writing process half of each group was assigned to the try-again feedback condition and half to the informative tutoring feedback condition. After the peer model provided feedback, the text written so far was presented in the computer-based learning environment for revising. Feedback was twice provided by the peer model: first, after the participants collected ideas, and second, after the participants wrote a draft of the abstract.

Learning Journal

All participants read a learning journal that was presented in a computer-based learning environment by a peer model. For each writing strategy (i.e., text structure knowledge application strategy, text summarization strategy, and language use strategy), the peer model described when the strategy is useful and how the strategy can be applied; she then summarized the strategy and offered prompts for each strategy to master the writing challenge as follows.

The learning journal text structure knowledge application strategy focused on the use of text structure knowledge: (1) what the text is about, (2) what is already known about the topic, (3) how the research was done (please see exemplarily Figures 2 – 4 ), (4) which research results were found and how the authors reached them, and (5) what these results mean and which conclusions can be drawn.

Figure 2 . Questions and answers concerning the orientation in the method section presented in the peer model’s learning journal.

Figure 3 . Function of the method section explained in the peer model’s learning journal.

Figure 4 . Examples for detailed information in the method section presented in the peer model’s learning journal.

The learning journal text summarization strategy focused on selecting and assigning text information: (1) how the topic is embedded in the research field, (2) which passages of a text should be selected and how they should be selected, (3) how to reduce information and redundancies, (4) how to choose keywords, and (5) how to write one’s own text.

The learning journal language use strategy focused on the communication in the science community: (1) what is the intention for communicating in a scientific community, (2) how can the writer prevent misunderstandings (i.e., consistency), (3) how can the writer show objectivity, (4) when and how are “I” formulations used, and (5) when and how are “we” formulations used?

All participants received a standardized feedback (i.e., try-again feedback or informative tutoring feedback) provided by the peer model for the first and the second revision, that is, before they transformed their ideas into a text, and before they finalized their abstract. Both types of feedback focused on monitoring the writing process: informative tutoring feedback provided concrete advices, whereas try-again feedback intended to rely on stored writing plans.

The informative tutoring feedback focused on giving concrete advice regarding writing deficits that are typical for beginning academic writers: (1) delete all redundancies from the text; (2) add information that makes the text easier to understand; and (3) revise the text to develop a whole unit by connecting sentences. For the second revision, the participants received an additional prompt to consider the readers’ perspective.

The try-again feedback focused on encouraging the participants to proceed. The participants received twice the prompt “Please revise the text you have written so far.”

Academic Writing Items

To assess academic writing skills we used a short-scale of an earlier study ( Wischgoll, 2016 ). The items were selected to assess writing skills, which support the development of a well-structured and informative text (i.e., text structure knowledge, application of text structure knowledge, and reduction of text content). One item captured the knowledge about the structure of an empirical article; the participants were asked to arrange headings. Five items captured the skill of applying text structure knowledge; for instance, the participants were asked to assign typical phrases to text sections such as methods or discussion and to give reasons for their decision. Four items captured the skill of reducing text content; the participants were asked, for instance, to name four keywords to adequately express the message of a text.

Coherence Items

Six items were developed to assess the writing skill coherence, which involves establishing meaning in a short passage. For instance, participants were asked to delete a superfluous sentence in the text or fill a gap in the text according to the provided annotation, such as an argument or an example.

Two experienced researchers who have been publishing and reviewing research articles for several years assigned all academic writing skill items to one of the contexts (text structure knowledge, application of text structure knowledge, and reduction of text content). The interrater reliability was excellent [ ICC (31) = 0.80] ( Fleiss, 2011 ). Four similarly experienced researchers judged the content validity of the coherence skill items, with an excellent interrater reliability [intraclass correlation coefficient ICC (31) > 0.90] ( Fleiss, 2011 ).

For all writing skill items, participants’ written answers were rated as correct or incorrect. To ensure reliability of the rating system, two raters conducted the rating independently, and a high level of interrater agreement was achieved [intraclass correlation coefficient ICC (31) > 0.80] ( Fleiss, 2011 ). Disagreement was resolved by discussion in all cases.

Overall Text Quality

Overall text quality was measured for the text written so far at three time points: first, the text after the participants had collected ideas as prompted according to each text section; second, the text after they had written their draft; and third, the text after they had revised their draft and finalized their abstract. Each time, the text quality was rated on a 7-point scale (1 = disastrous , 7 = excellent ) adapted from Cho et al. (2006) as an overall quality (see Wischgoll, 2016 ). The measurement was conducted after the experiment was completed. A student project assistant received about 10 h of training on the quality rating scale, which included practicing the judgment and discussing 40 cases. The abstracts were rated independently, with the research assistant and project assistant being unaware of the participants’ experimental condition and identity. A further 40 abstracts, 19% of the whole sample, were selected to calculate the interrater reliability. The intraclass correlation coefficient was ICC (21) > 0.80, which can be categorized as excellent ( Fleiss, 2011 ). Disagreement was resolved by discussion in all cases.

Text Content Improvement

Text content improvement was measured in the final abstract in comparison to the draft. We took into account the aspects reducing text while revising and adding relevant information while revising . (1) Reducing text while revising . We compared the draft and the abstract to find out whether irrelevant and secondary information was omitted while revising. Each text section was rated according to whether or not the text had been reduced and whether or not this decision contributed to the readability of the text. (2) Adding relevant information while revising . We compared the draft and the abstract to find out whether information that fosters the understanding of the text was added. Each text section was rated according to whether or not the text had been extended and whether or not this decision contributed to the readability of the text.

Additional Measures

Self-efficacy.

The self-efficacy scale focusing on academic writing was constructed using eight items according to the guide for constructing self-efficacy scales ( Bandura, 2006 ). The main aspects of academic writing skills, that is, application of text structure knowledge and reduction of text content, were taken into account. Participants were asked to rate how certain they were that, for example, they “can find certain information in an empirical research article” or “can find a precise and concise title for my Bachelor thesis.” For each written description, they rated their confidence from 0% ( cannot do it at all ) to 100% ( highly certain I can do it ) in 10% increments. The scale was administered before the modeling phase (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87) and after the modeling phase (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.88). This scale was used to check the responsiveness to the treatment.

The following three reduced subscales of the Questionnaire on Current Motivation ( Vollmeyer and Rheinberg, 2006 ) were used to measure how motivated the participants were to develop their writing skills: challenge (five items; Cronbach’s alpha = 0.74), probability of success (two items; Cronbach’s alpha = 0.79), and anxiety (three items; Cronbach’s alpha = 0.73). The participants were asked to estimate their current motivation in relation to their academic writing development, rating each written description on a 7-point scale from 1 ( not true ) to 7 ( true ). The scale was administered after the modeling phase to check for differences between the treatment groups with regard to practicing writing.

For all statistical analyses, an alpha level of.05 was used. The effect size measure partial η 2 [0.01 as a small effect, 0.06 as a medium effect, and 0.14 as a large effect ( Cohen, 1988 )] was used. Normal distribution could be assumed for all analyses. To test the hypotheses, analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were calculated. In terms of testing the acquisition of academic writing skill (hypotheses 1a, 1b, and 1c), we controlled prior knowledge (H1a: pretest outcome on academic writing skills , H1b: prior knowledge of text structure knowledge application , H1c: prior knowledge of summarization skills ); in terms of testing text quality (hypotheses 2a and 3), we additionally controlled text quality of the draft and changes in the text ( reducing text while revising and adding relevant information while revising ); in terms of testing the difference between undergraduates’ and postgraduates’ text quality, a two-way ANCOVA with level of graduation and feedback as independent variables was calculated. Planned contrast was calculated with t -tests to gain information about the specific treatment conditions.

Pre-Analysis

Prior knowledge about text structure.

No differences were found across the conditions concerning “knowing the text structure of an empirical article” (item 1), F (2, 209) = 0.64, p = 0.53 and “arranging the headings of the text sections” (item 2), F (2, 209) = 0.18, p = 0.83.

Academic Writing Skills

Academic writing skills were differentiated into text structure knowledge application skills and summarization skills. In the pretest, no significant differences were found across the conditions for academic writing skills, F (2, 209) = 0.35, p = 0.70, text structure knowledge application skills, F (2, 209) = 0.53, p = 0.59, and summarization skills, F (2, 209) = 1.38, p = 0.25. Table 2 shows the means and SDs for the pretest and posttest in each condition. The average pretest percentage for academic writing skills in the three conditions ranged from 45.2 to 47.5%, implying that the participants had some, but not a great deal of knowledge about academic writing skills. With respect to the subscales of the pretest, the average scores ranged from 32.1 to 37.2% for text structure knowledge application skills , and from 53.1 to 58.3% for summarization skills . Table 3 shows the means and SDs for undergraduates and postgraduates. These results indicate that the participants had only sparse knowledge about text structure and its application, but quite good knowledge about text summarization.

Table 2 . Means and SDs of academic writing skills, text structure knowledge application skills, and summarization skills in the strategy treatment groups.

Table 3 . Means and SDs of academic writing skills, text structure knowledge application skills, summarization skills, and overall text quality of undergraduates and postgraduates.

Significant differences in the pretest were found between undergraduates and postgraduates for academic writing skills, t (210) = −12.12, p < 0.001, r = 0.85, text structure application skills, t (210) = −10.88, p < 0.001, r = 0.55, and summarization skills, t (210) = −5.87, p < 0.001, r = 0.63. As postgraduates outperformed undergraduates, the results confirm the expectations about the difference in writing experience between novice and experienced writers.

Coherence Skill

In the pretest, no significant differences were found across the conditions, F (2, 209) = 0.41, p = 0.67. The results showed a significant difference between postgraduates and undergraduates, F (1, 210) = 26.77, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.11 , with the postgraduates (M = 0.62, SD = 0.22) outperforming the undergraduates (M = 0.41, SD = 0.22). See Table 4 for means and SDs.

Table 4 . Means and SDs of text quality measured at three time points, reducing text and adding relevant information while revising text, and coherence in the feedback groups.

Text Quality

In the collection of ideas, postgraduates significantly outperformed the undergraduates in text quality, t (210) = −2.83, p = 0.007, r = 0.40 and in the draft, t (210) = −3.13, p = 0.003, r = 0.42. Table 3 shows the means and SDs for undergraduates and postgraduates.

A MANCOVA was calculated to assess whether there was a difference in motivation between the treatment groups. Using Pillai’s trace, no significant effect of interest, probability of success, and anxiety, V = 0.033, F (6, 416) = 1.17, p = 0.32, was found.

A dependent t -test was calculated to assess the responsiveness to the treatment; a strong, significant effect was found [ t (211) = −9.03, p < 0.001, r = 0.53]. The participants experienced significantly higher self-efficacy after the treatment (M post = 64.79, SD post = 11.63) than before (M pre = 59.58, SD pre = 12.39). This was true for each treatment group: language use group (i.e., control group) [M pre = 60.46, SD pre = 12.55; M post = 63.80, SD post = 13.07; t (70) = −3.70, p < 0.001, r = 0.40], summarization group [M pre = 59.91, SD pre = 12.48; M post = 65.84, SD post = 9.68; t (69) = −6.36, p = 0.001, r = 0.61], and text structure group [M pre = 58.38, SD pre = 12.22; M post = 64.73, SD post = 11.94; t (70) = −5.68, p < 0.001, r = 0.56]. It also applied when looking at the results separately for undergraduates and postgraduates, M pre = 70.27, SD pre = 8.47; M post = 72.09, SD post = 8.86; t (32) = −2.29, p = 0.029, r = 0.37.

Main Analyses

Hypothesis 1a, strategy hypothesis , proposed that training the text structure knowledge application strategy or the summarization strategy affects the acquisition of academic writing skills more than training the language use strategy. An ANCOVA was calculated using pretest outcome on academic writing skills as control variable.

The results show a significant difference between the treatment groups concerning the acquisition of academic writing skills, F (2, 208) = 5.13, p = 0.007, η p 2 = 0.05 . The academic writing skills in the pretest were significantly related to final academic writing skills, F (1, 208) = 232.20, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.53 . Planned contrasts revealed that acquisition of academic writing skills was significantly lower in the language use group (i.e., control group) than in the group that received text structure knowledge application strategy training, t (208) = 3.16, p = 0.002, η p 2 = 0.05 , and the group that received summarization strategy training, t (208) = 2.02, p = 0.045, η p 2 = 0.02 .

Hypothesis 1b, text structure strategy hypothesis , proposed that training the text structure knowledge application strategy affects the skill of using genre specific structures to find and assign information more than training the summarization strategy or the language use strategy. An ANCOVA was calculated using pretest outcome on prior knowledge of text structure knowledge application as control variable.

The results do not show a significant difference between the three groups concerning the acquisition of text structure knowledge application skills, F (2, 208) = 2.47, p = 0.09. Planned contrasts revealed that acquisition of text structure knowledge application skills was significantly higher in the group that received training to apply text structure application knowledge than in the group that received training to apply language use, t (208) = 2.16, p = 0.03, η g r o u p 2 = 0.02 . No significant differences were found between the group that received summarization training and the group that received training in applying text structure knowledge, t (208) = 1.53, p = 0.13. The third variable, prior knowledge of text structure knowledge application [ F (1, 208) = 178.75, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.46 ], was significantly related to acquisition of text structure knowledge application skills.

Hypothesis 1c, summarization strategy hypothesis , proposed that training the summarization strategy affects the skill of reducing text content while maintaining coherence more than training the text structure knowledge application strategy or the language use strategy. An ANCOVA was calculated using pretest outcome on prior knowledge of summarization skills as control variable.

The results do not show a significant difference between the three groups concerning the acquisition of summarization skills, F (2, 208) = 0.13, p = 0.88. Planned contrasts revealed that acquisition of summarization skills was not significantly higher in the group that received summarization strategy training than in the group that received training to apply language use, t (208) = −0.13, p = 0.89. No significant differences were found between the group that received text structure knowledge application strategy training and the group that received summarization strategy training, t (208) = 0.36, p = 0.72. The prior knowledge of summarization skills [ F (1, 208) = 85.04, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.29 ] was significantly related to acquisition of summarization skills.

Hypothesis 2a, undergraduates’ hypothesis , proposed that undergraduates benefit from receiving informative tutoring feedback more than from receiving try-again feedback in terms of text quality of the abstract. Furthermore, it was assumed that academic writing skill, coherence skill, text quality of the draft, reducing text while revising, and adding relevant information while revising influence the text quality of the abstract. An ANCOVA with text quality of the abstract as dependent variable was conducted. Academic writing skill, coherence skill, text quality of the draft, reducing text while revising , and adding relevant information while revising were considered as third variables. See Tables 2 – 4 for means and SDs.

The results show a significant difference between undergraduates who received informative tutoring feedback and undergraduates who received try-again feedback concerning the text quality of the abstract, F (1, 172) = 8.980, p = 0.003, η p 2 = 0.05 . The third variables coherence skill [ F (1, 172) = 2.054, p = 0.154], reducing text while revising [ F (1, 172) = 2.289, p = 0.132], and adding relevant information while revising [ F (1, 172) = 1.215, p = 0.272] were not significantly related to the text quality of the abstract. However, academic writing skills [ F (1, 172) = 8.359, p = 0.004, η p 2 = 0.05 ] and text quality of the draft [ F (1, 172) = 26.984, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.14 ] were significantly related to the text quality of the abstract.

Hypothesis 2b, level of graduation hypothesis , proposed that undergraduates and postgraduates benefit differently from receiving feedback while revising the texts they have written so far. A two-way ANCOVA with level of graduation and feedback as independent variables was conducted. See Tables 2 – 4 for means and SDs.

The main effect of feedback for revising was not significant, F (1, 208) = 0.11, p = 0.74. The main effect of level of graduation emerged as significant, F (1, 208) = 62.58, p < 0.001, η p 2 = 0.23 . The interaction between feedback for revising and level of graduation was significant, F (1, 208) = 4.22, p = 0.041, η p 2 = 0.02 . The findings are presented in Figure 5 .

Figure 5 . Interaction between level of graduation and feedback for revising.

Hypothesis 3, combination hypothesis , proposed that undergraduates benefit more from receiving informative tutoring feedback after training to apply text structure knowledge concerning text quality of the abstract than from receiving informative tutoring feedback after training summarization or training language use. Furthermore, it was assumed that academic writing skill, coherence skill, text quality of the draft, reducing text while revising, and adding relevant information while revising influence the text quality of the abstract. An ANCOVA with text quality of the abstract as dependent variable was conducted. Academic writing skill, coherence skill, text quality of the draft, reducing text while revising , and adding relevant information while revising were considered as third variables. See Tables 2 – 4 for means and SDs.

The results show no significant difference between the three treatment groups concerning the text quality of the abstract, F (2, 82) = 2.550, p = 0.084. Planned contrasts revealed no significant differences between the group that received informative tutoring feedback after training to apply text structure knowledge compared to the group that received informative tutoring feedback after training summarization, t (82) = −0.685, p = 0.495. However, planned contrasts revealed that text quality of the abstract was significantly lower in the group that received training to apply text structure knowledge compared to the control group that received language use, t (82) = −2.221, p = 0.029, η p 2 = 0.06 . The third variables coherence skill [ F (1, 82) = 0.679, p = 0.412], reducing text while revising [ F (2, 82) = 0.326, p = 0.570], and adding relevant information while revising [ F (2, 82) = 0.259, p = 0.612] were not significantly related to the text quality of the abstract. However, academic writing skills [ F (2, 82) = 4.135, p = 0.045, η p 2 = 0.05 ] and text quality of the draft [ F (2, 82) = 12.523, p = 0.001, η p 2 = 0.13 ] were significantly related to the text quality of the abstract.

This study investigated the effects of training the cognitive writing strategies summarization and application of text structure knowledge on academic writing skills, and of feedback for text revision to foster undergraduates’ and postgraduates’ text quality. Furthermore, it was tested whether training to apply text structure knowledge and receiving feedback for revising fosters undergraduates’ text quality significantly.

Concerning the cognitive writing strategy hypothesis , it was found that the groups that received cognitive strategy writing training outperformed the control group in terms of the acquisition of academic writing skills. This effect was found for the group that received the text structure knowledge application strategy training in the zone of desired effects ( Hattie and Timperley, 2007 ). Furthermore, the finding underlines the importance of prior knowledge in the form of writing experience, as the pretest outcome on academic writing skills explained over 50% of the variance.

More specifically, first, concerning the text structure strategy hypothesis , the group that received training on how to apply text structure knowledge significantly outperformed the control group in terms of using genre specific structures to find and assign information; however, contrary to the assumption, no differences were found between the group that received summarization training and the group that received a text structure knowledge application strategy training. Furthermore, the importance of prior knowledge was confirmed, as it explained around 50% of the variance. Second, concerning the summarization strategy hypothesis , the group that received training on how to summarize a text did not outperform either the control group or the group that received the text structure knowledge application strategy. The importance was confirmed as the pretest outcome on summarization skills explained nearly 30% of the variance. All groups already had high summarization values in the pretest, which increased further in the posttest.

Concerning the undergraduates’ hypothesis , the results confirm the findings by Hanna (1976) and Clariana (1990) that novice writers benefit from feedback that offers guidance through a challenging task, as it revealed that the undergraduates benefit from receiving informative tutoring feedback more than from receiving try-again feedback concerning text quality of the abstract. Furthermore, the result pointed out that deleting text and adding relevant information were not related to text quality. This result is in line with findings by Brown and Day (1983) and Hidi and Anderson (1986) who could show that the low text quality of beginning academic writers can be explained by deleting text. However, the finding underlines the importance of text revising and prior knowledge of academic writing skills for text quality of the abstract, as both together explained nearly 20% of variance.

Concerning the level of graduation hypothesis , the result is in line with the findings of Hanna (1976) and Clariana (1990) . Indeed, we extend their findings, as we found an expertise reversal effect ( Kalyuga et al., 1998 , 2003 ; Kalyuga, 2007 ). According to this effect, there is an interaction between the level of writing experience and the effectiveness of different instructional methods. In this sense, feedback that is effective for undergraduates can lose its effectiveness and even have negative consequences for postgraduates and vice versa . The text quality of the abstracts drafted by undergraduates who received informative tutoring feedback was higher than that of the undergraduates who received try-again feedback. On the other hand, the text quality of the abstracts drafted by postgraduates who received try-again feedback was higher than that of the postgraduates who received informative tutoring feedback. This insight confirms the assumption that support needs to be tailored to the individual learner’s writing experience and skills: undergraduates need support in monitoring the writing process to control and regulate developing coherent texts, whereas postgraduates can rely on stored writing plans and writing experience while revising their texts repeatedly. As a consequence, support for postgraduates might begin with elaborated feedback after writing ( Shute, 2008 ), which is individually aligned and administered ( Zimmerman and Kitsantas, 2002 ), whereas for undergraduates, elaborated feedback with guidance is already helpful while writing. In both cases, administered feedback should be aligned to the writer’s current prerequisites and needs to ensure that the writer is able to apply the feedback.

Concerning the combination hypothesis , the results did show no differences between the three groups. However, in contrast to the group that received a training to apply text structure knowledge text quality of the control group that received a language use strategy training was significantly higher. This result is unexpected. Whereas the combination of training to apply a text structure application strategy and training a self-monitoring strategy was proved as a promising means to foster undergraduates’ text quality ( Wischgoll, 2016 ), the combination of training a text structure application strategy and providing feedback while revising was it not. Rather, the results indicate, first, that feedback for revising is not beneficial for text quality in combination with a cognitive writing strategy such as summarization strategy or text structure application strategy, and second, that feedback for revising might be promising if it is administered in combination with a less complex writing strategy such as language use strategy.

In sum, the results confirm that undergraduates and postgraduates need support in academic writing. According to the findings of this study, support in text structure knowledge application, summarization, and revision should be aligned to the writing experience.

Hence, undergraduates should be prepared to know and apply the text structure of relevant genres. Although most postgraduates in this study were aware of the text structure, they should be encouraged to check their writing in terms of correct application of the text structure. Although both undergraduates and postgraduates reached high values in text summarization skills, the reduction of information in the revision process did not significantly contribute to the text quality. The question arises of what the reasons may be for the lacking efficacy of summarization skills on text quality and how summarization should be trained to be effective for improving text quality.

Generally, first, the results confirm the notion that revision contributes to improving text quality. MacArthur (2012) could define revision as a problem-solving process in which writers detect discrepancies between current and intended level of text quality and consider alternatives. In this study, it became apparent that undergraduates and postgraduates did benefit from feedback that was tailored to their needs in the revision process. Specifically, undergraduates benefited from informative tutoring feedback in terms of higher text quality. The reason for this might be that informative tutoring feedback offered guidance to draw attention on discrepancies between actual and intended level of text quality. Furthermore, from the improved text quality one could conclude that feedback encouraged considering alternatives. Hence, one can see feedback as a suitable means to improve text quality.

Second, the results revealed that feedback that accompanies the writer deliberately while revising does not complement training a certain writing strategy such as text structure knowledge application or summarization strategy in terms of improving text quality. This finding is in contrast to Wischgoll (2016) who could show that training one cognitive and one metacognitive writing strategy results in improved text quality, and thus, confirmed that cognitive and metacognitive strategy training complement each other ( Veenman and Beishuizen, 2004 ). However, results revealed that feedback did correspond well with training the language use strategy. One can reason that applying strategies recently learnt and reply to feedback while revising might be overwhelming for beginning academic writers. Writing trainings that are sequenced in this way—training a cognitive writing strategy and receiving feedback while text revision—might lack a phase of consolidation. Thus, one can conclude that feedback should be administered in writing trainings independently to strategy trainings or only in combination with strategies, which are less complex such as the language use strategy.

Third, the study took into account writing performance of undergraduates and postgraduates. Results revealed that depending on the level of writing experience writers benefited from different kinds of elaborated feedback. This finding can be explained by Kellogg’s ( Kellogg, 2008 ) model of cognitive development of writing skill. He distinguished advanced writers into knowledge transformers and knowledge crafters. Whereas knowledge crafters already can rely on stored writing plans and writing experience, knowledge transformers have still to develop and consolidate these skills. Consequently, support has to be tailored according to writing experience. Thus, results confirmed that writing experience is a crucial indicator for aligning writing support.

The conclusion might be derived that undergraduates benefit from support during text revision as they lack the writing experience to be able to rely on stored writing plans. Feedback that provides orientation in terms of juggling processes of planning, translating, and reviewing helps novice writers to master the demands of writing. On the other hand, if postgraduates receive feedback while writing, they might be “disrupted” in applying these stored writing plans. Thus, postgraduates might benefit from individually tailored feedback after finishing the text to their satisfaction.

Fourth, the results confirm Kellogg’s ( Kellogg, 2008 ) notion that observation and practicing is a promising means to improve academic writing skills and text quality. Results pointed out that by observation undergraduates’ academic writing skills increased and by practicing writing and revising text quality improved effectively; that furthermore, the instructional design used in this study is suitable for higher education as learners improved efficiently in an even short-time intervention. The learning environment did allow each individual learner to process in his or her own pace. Observation was operationalized by reading learning journals and practicing by writing and revising the own text; thus, learners could emphasize their learning and writing process according to the individual needs. Therefrom one can derive that e-learning courses that offer support to develop single aspects of academic writing such as text structure knowledge or language use might be an attractive proposition for beginning academic writers.

Limitations

The presented research is limited by several aspects. First, writing is a complex process and training can only apply single aspects at a time. Further strategies in combination with experience-related feedback might also affect writing skills and text quality. Second, academic writing skill, coherence skill are multifaceted and in some ways related, which makes the assessment challenging. To meet these requirements, the instruments need further refinement respectively further instruments need to be developed. Third, as the participants were primarily female and the group of postgraduates was small, the generalizability of the results is limited.

Future Directions

Future research concerning postgraduates’ writing should focus on analyzing the gaps while composing a more complex text such as the theoretical background of an article. This would enable the requirements for supporting academic writing development on a more elaborated level to be determined. Future research concerning undergraduates’ needs should focus on the effectiveness of implementing basic writing courses that impart and train academic writing skills in the curriculum.

Furthermore, research on combining writing strategies and feedback aligned to writing experience is still needed. Indeed, fostering postgraduates’ text quality should be analyzed in more detail. This could be accomplished by contrasting case studies or by including a greater number of postgraduate participants. Establishing coherence of an academic text comprises the same challenges in all genres; thus, the studies could also be designed in a multidisciplinary manner.

Combination studies on academic writing could also include peer support instead of general feedback aligned to writing experience. Peer tutoring ( Slavin, 1990 ; Topping, 1996 , 2005 ) in higher education might be beneficial for postgraduates: they might feel less inhibited to discuss writing-related problems with their peers, who are more in tune with the current challenges in becoming an academic writer. Moreover, co-constructive discussions can promote the writing process. On the other hand, peer mentoring ( Topping, 2005 ) might be supportive for undergraduates. From a more experienced peer, undergraduates can receive consolidated support on how to master basic challenges in academic writing such as structuring the text and revising the text. Furthermore, metacognitive regulation in mentoring and tutoring ( De Backer et al., 2016 ) should also be considered as a crucial factor that contributes to improving writing skills.

The study showed that even short-time practice can promote text quality. In addition, in terms of writing development, the notion of Kellogg and colleagues ( Kellogg and Raulerson, 2007 ; Kellogg, 2008 ; Kellogg and Whiteford, 2009 ) that expertise in writing develops with practice was supported. The results imply that writing strategies such as text structure knowledge application strategy should be trained to achieve skills that promote coherence, and that feedback should be aligned to writing experience to improve text quality.

Ethics Statement

All participants volunteered and provided written informed consent. The study was conducted in accordance with the German Psychological Society (DGPs) ethical guidelines (2004, CIII) as well as APA ethical standards. According to the German Psychological Society’s ethical commission, approval from an institutional research board only needs to be obtained, if funding is subject to ethical approval by an Institutional Review Board. This research was reviewed and approved by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (BMBF), which did not require additional Institutional Review Board approval. All data were collected and analyzed anonymously.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the project “Learning the Science of Education (LeScEd).” LeScEd is a project of the Competence Network Empirical Research on Education and Teaching (KeBU) of the University of Freiburg and the University of Education, Freiburg. LeScEd is part of the BMBF Funding Initiative “Modeling and Measuring Competencies in Higher Education” (grant number 01PK11009B). The article processing charge was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg in the funding programme Open Access Publishing. The author would like to thank the student project assistants E. Ryschka, N. Lobmüller, and A. Prinz for their dedicated contribution.

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Keywords: coherence, feedback, higher education, text quality, writing strategies

Citation: Wischgoll A (2017) Improving Undergraduates’ and Postgraduates’ Academic Writing Skills with Strategy Training and Feedback. Front. Educ. 2:33. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2017.00033

Received: 01 March 2017; Accepted: 26 June 2017; Published: 21 July 2017

Reviewed by:

Copyright: © 2017 Wischgoll. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Anke Wischgoll, anke.wischgoll@psychologie.uni-freiburg.de

What is academic writing and why is it important?

Dec 27, 2020 | Academic Writing , College Applications , Englist blog , TOEFL Prep | 0 comments

Academic writing has become an increasingly important part of education as parents and educators realize the value of critical thinking skills and preparing students for college. 

Still, many students, parents, and even other teachers don’t have a great grasp on this area of learning and why it is so critical.

As such, at Englist we find it is important to not only teach academic writing, but also help everyone understand why it is imperative to the development of thoughtful and capable students.

What is academic writing?

First, what is academic writing? Most students see writing as something they just have to do because a teacher says so, and it becomes a painful and time-consuming assignment. Our mission is to end this kind of thinking.

Simply put, academic writing is teaching students how to write essays. That sounds pretty simple, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Essay writing is the process of sharing complex ideas, thoughts, or opinions. Writers learn to construct a rather complicated argument or explanation by combining sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into an essay.

Academic writing demands writers become clear in their explanations and reasoning, direct in their communication, and most importantly, able to make readers understand their topic and thesis.

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• Next: Building an argument >>
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Office of the Vice President for Research

Ovpr announces recipients of 2024 discovery and innovation awards.

The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) is honoring 11 faculty and staff for their exceptional contributions to research, scholarship, and creative activity as part of the 2024 Discovery and Innovation Awards .

“ The winners represent the best and the brightest of our University of Iowa faculty and staff, who are making an impact across a range of disciplines,”  said Marty Scholtz, vice president for research. “Their research and scholarship enhance undergraduate and graduate education on campus, and their efforts to expand the frontiers of discovery betters our community, state, and world.”

The OVPR solicited nominations from across campus for the awards, which include: Scholar of the Year, Early Career Scholar of the Year, Leadership in Research, and awards that recognize achievement in communicating scholarship with public audiences, community engagement, arts and humanities, mentorship, research administration and safety. A campuswide event on April 30 will celebrate the winners.

Faculty Awards

Jun Wang , James E. Ashton Professor and interim departmental executive officer in the College of Engineering’s

 Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, is the 2024 Scholar of the Year . The award celebrates nationally recognized recent achievement in outstanding research, scholarship, and/or creative activities. 

Wang’s research centers on the development of novel remote sensing techniques to characterize aerosols and fires from space. He serves as the University of Iowa’s lead investigator on NASA’s TEMPO, Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring Pollution, which Time magazine named one of its best inventions of 2023. 

“Professor Wang's scholarly endeavors over the past two years stand out as a paradigm of excellence, serving as an exemplary model for both emerging and seasoned faculty members to aspire toward,” said Karim Abdel-Malek, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Iowa Technology Institute.

James Byrne , assistant professor of radiation oncology in the Carver College of Medicine ( CCOM ), is the 2024 Early Career Scholar of the Year . The award honors assistant professors who are currently involved in research, scholarship, and/or creative activity and show promise of making a significant contribution to their field. 

As a physician scientist, Byrne continues to care for patients while developing novel biomedical therapies for cancer, finding inspiration in everything from latte foam to tardigrades. In his first two years as faculty at the UI, he has earned more that $2.5M in external research funding, including a K08 award from the NIH.

“Dr. Byrne’s scientific creativity stems from both an active and curious mind as well as his ability to bridge diverse fields from engineering to biology to medicine,” said Michael Henry, professor and interim director of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center. “These interdisciplinary boundaries are where some of the most interesting and important work is happening today.”

Donna Santillan , research professor and director of the Division of Reproductive Science Research in the CCOM Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, received the Leadership in Research Award , which recognizes research and scholarly accomplishments throughout a career. 

While Santillan’s research has spanned across the field of reproductive science, she has a particular interest in the deadly diseases of pregnancy, including preeclampsia and its intergenerational effects. She designed and directs the Women’s Health Tissue Repository. Santillan’s work has been cited more than 2,700 times, and she has mentored 114 early career scientists and students, a testament to her expansive impact.

“Dr. Santillan has consistently demonstrated an unwavering commitment to fostering the professional and personal development of trainees in research, including myself,” said Banu Gumusoglu, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. “Her mentorship extends beyond the confines of traditional academic settings, touching the lives of many aspiring trainees from high school through residency, clinical fellowship, and faculty levels.”

Stephen Warren , professor of history and American studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS), received the Distinguished Achievement in Publicly Engaged Research Award . The award recognizes an individual faculty member who has put addressing public needs and direct engagement with the public, in the service of improving quality of life through research, at the forefront of his or her academic activities.

A prolific scholar of Native American culture, Warren’s research has centered on the Shawnee people of Oklahoma for the past two decades. He has published four books and co-authored the most recent one , Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country, with Chief Benjamin Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe. 

“Over the last two decades, Professor Warren has established himself as a leading community-engaged scholar, and his achievements in research and publishing demonstrate that community engagement and strong scholarship are not mutually exclusive,” said Nick Benson, director of the Office of Community Engagement. “Professor Warren’s work serves as an inspiration for researchers at Iowa and nationally who seek not only to make a difference in academia, but also in our communities.”

Kaveh Akbar , associate professor of English in CLAS, received the Distinguished Achievement in Arts and Humanities Research Award . This award honors distinguished achievement in humanities scholarship and work in the creative, visual and performing arts. 

Akbar joined Iowa in 2022 to serve as the director of the English and creative writing major. In January, his new novel, Martyr!, was published to critical acclaim. Akbar previously published two prize-winning poetry collections and has served as poetry editor for The Nation  since 2021. 

“Akbar’s leadership in the profession and on campus continues: his transformative work in our department not only enriches the academic experiences of 700+ English and creative writing majors, but also enhances the profile of UI as ‘The Writing University,’” said Blaine Greteman, professor and departmental executive officer of the Department of English.

Cara Hamann , associate professor of epidemiology, received the Faculty Communicating ideas Award . This award recognizes excellence in communication about research and scholarship in the sciences and humanities and the study of creative, visual, and performing arts to a general audience directly or via print and electronic media.

Hamann has frequently shared her work on transportation issues, including teen driving, bike and scooter safety, and pedestrian safety, through peer-reviewed journals and extensive media outreach. Her recent op-ed, “The most deadly traffic policy you’ve never heard of leaves you vulnerable, too,” drew widespread attention to a legal loophole in crosswalk laws and appeared in more than 50 news outlets nationwide, including USA Today .

“Dr. Hamann’s work is not only academically rigorous but also accessible and impactful to a

wide audience,” said Diane Rohlman, associate dean for research in the College of Public Health. “Her ability to communicate with clarity, creativity, and passion coupled with her extensive media outreach, exemplifies how she utilizes multiple approaches to address transportation challenges impacting society.”

Bob McMurray , F. Wendell Miller Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and Caroline Clay , assistant professor of acting in the Department of Theatre Arts, were recipients of the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR) Distinguished Mentor Awards . The awards honors mentors’ dedication to making their students research experiences successful.

“I can’t imagine my research journey without Bob’s welcoming kindness, thriving lab community, and confident mentorship, and I am so deeply grateful for his impact on me,” said Hannah Franke, a psychology and linguistics major mentored by McMurray.

“I know I am far from the only student whose life has been impacted by Caroline Clay,” said Isabella Hohenadel, a second-year theatre arts major. “She deserves to be recognized of all of the wonderful work she does and how much she cares about us as students. I cannot think of anyone more deserving of recognition than her.”

Staff Awards

Angie Robertson , department administrator for CCOM’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, received the Distinguished Research Administrator Award . The award recognizes staff members who performed exceptional service in support of research at the UI by exploring funding opportunities, assisting in grant proposal preparation, submission, post-award administration, and operational support. 

In addition to overseeing every aspect of daily operations for the department, Robertson manages nearly 100 research grants for the department and three longstanding NIH T32 training grants. 

“Angie plays a leading role in our department office, inspiring us to achieve all aspects of our missions ,” said Li Wu, professor and department chair. “She is innovative, collaborative, accountable, and respectful  in her daily work. She exceeds any expectations and sets a great example for staff members in the department.”

Min Zhu , research specialist in the Iowa Institute for Oral Health Research (IIOHR) within the College of Dentistry, received the Distinguished Research Professional Award . The award recognizes staff members who performed exceptional service in support of research at the UI by conducting experiments, collecting, and analyzing results and performing operational duties associated with a laboratory or research program. 

Zhu has worked as a lab bench scientist in the College of Dentistry since 2006, executing experimental work for grants and other research, working closely with IIOHR faculty members, overseeing lab maintenance and environmental health and safety efforts. 

“Beyond her research skills, Dr. Zhu has been an exceptional mentor and educator for my students and other junior researchers,” said Liu Hong, professor of prosthodontics. “Her kindness and willingness to share her knowledge have made her a beloved figure among them.”

Curtis Iberg , manager of sterilization services in the College of Dentistry, received the Innovation in Safety Award, which celebrates exceptional and ground-breaking innovations that advance safety at the UI. Iberg led a major renovation of the College of Dentistry’s instrument processing and sterilization area, with the aim of encouraging better workflow and support for future growth. 

“His innovations in workspace are a valuable asset to the greater University and demonstrates that the most important people to be involved in a space renovation are those that use the area because they can see how the facility can better function and how it can be designed for future needs,” said Kecia Leary, associate dean of clinics.

• A winning model: Bogotá’s charter schools boost students’ academic and social-emotional skills

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Apr 5, 2024, 2:04 PM

By Jenna Somers

Researchers at Vanderbilt University and William & Mary may have found a promising approach to education reform that could help provide high-quality education to students from low-income families. Results from a study on the quality of public-private partnership schools in Bogotá, Colombia—known as schools in administration—demonstrate that students enrolled in these schools have higher scores in cognitive and social-emotional skills than students of similar socio-economic and demographic backgrounds who did not enroll in these schools. Parents and guardians also reported higher satisfaction with the schools in administration and a lower likelihood of transferring to another school.

Much like charter schools in the United States, schools in administration are privately managed but publicly funded. Colombia seeks to leverage both sectors to more efficiently use public resources to provide a better-quality education to students from low-income backgrounds. To ensure the quality of these schools, the government holds them to the same accountability standards as public schools. Furthermore, non-profit organizations selected by the government to manage these schools must demonstrate prior experience managing high-quality private schools.

“The benefits in cognitive and social-emotional outcomes for students at these schools could potentially shift the approach to public education in Colombia. Based on the positive results for students and the satisfaction of parents, these schools not only deliver a quality education, but they promote community confidence,” said Felipe Barrera-Osorio , the study’s principal investigator and associate professor of public policy, education, and economics at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development .

Students’ cognitive skills—those related to thinking, learning, and problem-solving—were measured by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test . Those with superior scores on the test demonstrated better social understanding, emotional health, and well-being. Parents of students in schools in administration seemed to notice the enhanced quality, as only 10 percent of them indicated a desire to change schools, compared to 37 percent of parents whose children were not enrolled in these schools.

Barrera-Osorio and co-PI Andrew Dustan , assistant professor of economics at William & Mary, note several key benefits of schools in administration that may support positive outcomes for students. These schools employ more full-time psychologists and provide more professional development training to teachers compared to traditional public schools. In particular, teacher trainings focus on classroom management and content, whereas teacher trainings in public schools focus more on coexistence in school and managing socio-emotional characteristics of students. That said, the researchers found that schools in administration and public schools collaborate through teacher networks to improve teaching practices.

While the findings from the study offer much promise for the future of providing cost-effective, quality education to students from low-income families in Colombia, the researchers say it is vital to further study the performance, benefits, and characteristics of schools in administration.

Importantly, this is the first study to compare students who applied to schools in administration and were assigned a spot with students who also applied and did not receive a spot. The Colombian government created a priority index of students based on socio-economic status and demographic background. The researchers formed pairs of students who each had the same score on the priority index. Through a lottery system, one student received a spot in a school in administration and the other student did not. Key to the validity of the findings is that the students’ profiles were identical, except whether they attended a school in administration.

This study was conducted in collaboration with Innovations for Poverty Action Colombia and the Bogotá Secretary of Education. It was supported by a one-year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

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