Features of academic writing

Exercise 5

It is often the case that formal words are longer than informal words, formal words are single words not multi-words and formal words are of French/Latin origin rather than their informal equivalents which are of Anglo-Saxon origin. For example: "depart" is from French/Latin but "go" is Anglo-Saxon. Complete the following table:

Formal		Informal
APPEAR		seem
INCREASE		climb
ASSIST		help
cease		STOP
commence		START
UTILIZE		use
decrease		FALL
demonstrate		SHOW
depart		go
DESIRE		want
enquire		ASK
FINISH		end
INFORM		tell
obtain		GET
preserve		KEEP
reject		REFUSE
RELEASE		free
REPAIR		mend
require		NEED
RESIDE		Live
retain		KEEP
Formal		Informal
FINALLY		in the end
IMMEDIATELY		at once
initially		FIRSTLY
intermittently		STOPPING AND STARTING OFTEN. SPORADIC
PRINCIPALLY		mainly
repeatedly		AGAIN
FOLLOWING		next
therefore		BECAUSE
Formal	Informal
COMPREHENSION	understanding
deficiency	LACK OF
opportunity	CHANCE
perspiration	SWEAT
APARTMENT	House
VISION	Sight
Formal		Informal
amiable		FRIENDLY
COMPLETE		Whole
energetic		LIVELY
fortunate		LUCKY
IMMATURE		Childish
INCORRECT		Wrong
inferior		BAD
inexpensive		CHEAP
FAINT		Dim
insane		STUPID
RELAXED		laid back
responsible		IN CHARGE
SUFFICIENT		Enough
SUPERIOR		Better
transparent		CLEAR
VACANT		Empty

OBJECTIVITY

EXERCISE 6 Read the text and rewrite it in a more academic style.

Most people take drug overdoses because they find that it's difficult to sort out their problems clearly. That's why you should treat your patients in a clear way. That means you should treat your patients in a way that helps them to tell the difference between their problems and find ways to deal with them.

__Many patients consume too much of the drug because they do not know the cause of their ilness.Therefore, it is very important for patients to be properly diagnosed by physicians.The vital aspect is to be able to correctly explain that there is a cure by correctly understanding the problems in the sick people.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ACCURACY

EXERCISE 7

Many people would say there was a "mistake" in each of the following sentences. Can you identify them? For each sentence, please do four things:

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  mark the faulty word or words;
  
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  briefly describe what is wrong;
  
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  try to write a correct or improved version;
  
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  decide how important the mistake is.
  
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  A rentcharge is the right to receive an annual sum out of the income of land every year.
  
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  All of the solutions considered so far have only involved Legendre functions of even order.
  
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  Before spelling out exactly what this means, it is worth first asking whether translating machinery is necessarily irreversible.
  
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  Being in charge, the accusation was particularly annoying to me.
  
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  Finally, it enables the therapist to assess the effectiveness of his own clinical skills and, hopefully, to improve them in future.
  
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  He is a former student who I've not seen for years.
  
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  He is an unskilled labourer and works at odd jobs, but he don't do any of them very well.
  
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  However, there were other patients whose lives had ended by suicide.
  
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  I have now discussed the proposals for replacing all the computers with my colleagues.
  
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  It is felt that less people would be put off attending with other problems if the stigma of going to a clinic could be dispensed with.
  
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  It is just possible that you are one of those rare people who has never seriously tried to diet.
  
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  It may be open to challenge on certain grounds, i.e. if an emergency occurs.
  
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  It was the community in it's purest form.
  
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  It was thought necessary to determine legally that someone had attained the age when they were allowed to marry.
  
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  Jean Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) had supposed that the main cause of evolutionary change was because of the "inheritance of acquired character".
  
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  Kinship in these societies had to be completely different to what it was in capitalist society.
  
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  No matter what he says, he has and will always be in charge.
  
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  She could give a better response than that to I and to my friends.
  
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  The category of killings which has come to be known as involuntary manslaughter hasn't nothing to do with involuntariness.
  
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  The committee has not announced their decision yet.
  
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  The emphasis on revolution as ending every stage is, also, much more definately stated than in earlier works.
  
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  The esential feature of these results has been amply confirmed.
  
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  The experiment by Norcross (1958) which used a slightly different version of this procedure produced essentially the same outcome.
  
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  The first really useful realization of the Lie algebra of the Geroch group, was formulated by Kinnersley and Chitre (1977, 1978a, b).
  
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  The more aggressive technologies, those which need a great deal of energy and natural resources and cause extensive environmental pollution, represent a percentage of industrial production.
  
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  Jones and Smith argues that the problem began in December 1942.
  
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  At that time there were hardly any scholarly accounts of the period in question, the only really important biography was that of George V by Harold Nicolson.
  
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  The task - one that involved pedalling on a stationery bicycle - was equally demanding at all times.
  
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  They are, in fact, just the kind of thing the natural philosopher might be interested in.
  
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  This has meant that elsewhere it has been very difficult to clearly assess the extent of the problem.
  
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  Though he has generally been considered anti-intellectual and disinterested in art theory, at this stage of his career he shared the concerns of his fellows of the Petit Boulevard for principles of colour.
  
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  When they were discussing the historical development which led to capitalism.
  

HEDGING

EXERCISE 8

Identify the hedging expressions in the following sentences.

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  There is no difficulty in explaining how a structure such as an eye or a feather contributes to survival and reproduction; the difficulty is in thinking of a series of steps by which it could have arisen.
  
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  For example, it is possible to see that in January this person weighed 60.8 kg for eight days,
  
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  For example, it may be necessary for the spider to leave the branch on which it is standing, climb up the stem, and walk out along another branch.
  
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  Escherichia coli , when found in conjunction with urethritis, often indicate infection higher in the uro-genital tract.
  
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  There is experimental work to show that a week or ten days may not be long enough and a fortnight to three weeks is probably the best theoretical period.
  
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  Conceivably, different forms, changing at different rates and showing contrasting combinations of characteristics, were present in different areas.
  
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  One possibility is that generalized latent inhibition is likely to be weaker than that produced by pre-exposure to the CS itself and thus is more likely to be susceptible to the effect of the long interval.
  
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  For our present purpose, it is useful to distinguish two kinds of chemical reaction, according to whether the reaction releases energy or requires it.
  
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  It appears to establish three categories: the first contains wordings generally agreed to be acceptable, the second wordings which appear to have been at some time problematic but are now acceptable, and the third wordings which remain inadmissible.