Writing Advice
Advice for clearer academic writing
Introduction
Academic writing is built from small, repeatable techniques. This page is a collection of these techniques (collectively known as writing advice) that an aspiring research might find useful. We hope that the contents here would be useful for you (the aspiring researcher) in becoming more aware of these sentence/paragraph-level patterns and to use them effectively for structuring arguments, signal relationships between ideas, and guiding readers through your article.
These are techniques, not rules. Learn the pattern first, then develop your own voice around it.
Writing for the Reader
The best writing is one that the reader could easily understand. This section is therefore dedicated to help (i) improve the clarity of the writing, and (ii) build momentum to encourage the reader to continue.
I found that a powerful way for better writing is to master punctuations. These tools controls the rhythm and clarity of your sentences. Each mark signals something different: a pause, a connection, a break, or an aside. Once you get a feel for what each one does, you stop thinking of punctuation as a set of rules and start using it intentionally.
Read your sentence aloud and exaggerate the pauses. For me, I found the following to be quite a useful intuition. A natural full stop = period. A “but wait, there’s more” pause = semicolon. A quick breath = comma.
Introducing Ideas
A colon (:) signals that what follows fulfils the promise of the sentence before it — use it when you are setting something up.
I use a colon when the first part of my sentence “promises” something and the second part delivers it. Something like “The results revealed one key finding: the proposed method consistently outperformed the baseline” — the first half sets up the expectation, the second half lands it. If the sentence already feels complete and the colon material feels like a bonus, I reconsider whether a colon is actually needed.
| Pattern | Example |
|---|---|
As Emphasis — A: B. |
“This paper explores one aspect of this trend: representational convergence.” [1] |
As a List — A is the following: B, C, and D. |
“The model has three components: an encoder, a decoder, and an attention layer.” |
As a Connection — A is B: C is D. |
“The trade-off is familiar: accuracy improves, but runtime increases.” |
Combining Ideas
Combining means joining two related ideas into one sentence. The main tools here are pairing commas (,) with conjunctions (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so — the FANBOYS) and subordinating words like “because,” “although,” and “while.”
I first ask: are both parts complete sentences on their own? If yes, I need a comma before the conjunction — “Method A is fast, but Method B is more accurate.” If one part depends on or explains the other (like “because” or “although”), it usually reads more naturally without a comma — “The model underperforms because the training data is noisy.” The key thing I’m trying to feel is whether the two ideas are equals, or whether one is serving the other.
| Pattern | Example |
|---|---|
A is B, and C is D. |
“The baseline is non-trivial, and it generalises well.” |
A is B because C. |
“The model underperforms because the training set is distributionally far.” |
A is B, although C. |
“Results are promising, although the sample size is limited.” |
A is B and C. |
“The method is fast and interpretable.” |
Separating Ideas
Separating means deciding where one idea ends and another begins — the main choice being between a period (.) and a semicolon (;).
I ask: are these two ideas closely related enough to live in the same breath? If they feel like two distinct thoughts, I use a period and move on. If separating them feels too abrupt — like they really belong together — a semicolon keeps them connected without fusing them. I think of the semicolon as saying “these two ideas are siblings, not strangers.” Words like however, thus, and nevertheless can follow the semicolon to make the relationship even more explicit.
| Pattern | Example |
|---|---|
A is B. C is D. |
“The baseline performs well. Our method outperforms it.” |
A is B; C is D. |
“The baseline performs well; our method outperforms it.” |
A is B; however, C is D. |
“The baseline performs well; however, our method outperforms it under noise.” |
Interruptions
Interrupting means inserting extra information into the middle of a sentence — a quick aside, a clarification, or an important qualifier.
| Tool | Use when… | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Parentheses | the additional information could be helpful, but not significant | “The method (originally proposed by Author et al.) outperforms the baseline.” |
| Commas | the interruption is worth pausing for | “The method, which relies on attention, outperforms the baseline.” |
| Em Dashes | the interruption is surprising or warrants attention | “The method — the first of its kind — outperforms every baseline tested.” |
In the category of dashes, there are Hyphens (-), En Dashes (–), and Em Dashes (—). These have their own specific use cases which can be found here.
I ask myself: how much weight does this extra bit of information carry? In order of “significance”, I prefer parenthesis > commas > em dashes . In all cases, I check that the main sentence still holds together if I mentally remove the interruption. If removing it breaks the sentence, it’s not really an interruption — it belongs in the main clause.
Structures
Paragraph-Level Structures
Topic Sentences
Every paragraph should open with a topic sentence that states the paragraph’s single claim. The rest of the paragraph supports it.
Weak opening (announces the topic, not a claim): > “This section discusses the limitations of our approach.”
Strong opening (makes a claim): > “Our approach has three limitations that constrain its applicability to > low-resource settings.”
Hedging Language
At the end of the paragraph, we typically want to include some “claim” or statement. However, academic claims are rarely absolute. Hedging signals your confidence level and protects you from over-claiming.
| Hedge level | Examples |
|---|---|
| Strong claim | “X causes Y.” |
| Moderate | “X appears to cause Y.” / “X tends to cause Y.” |
| Weak | “X may contribute to Y.” / “There is some evidence that X influences Y.” |
| Attributed | “According to [Author et al., Year], X leads to Y.” |
Under-hedging (over-claiming) is one of the most common reasons reviewers push back. When in doubt, hedge — but do not hedge so much that your claim disappears entirely.
Sentence-Level Structures
When presenting multiple points, structuring them into two or three segments usually helps in building momentum and rhythm.
I start by asking: are these points contrasting each other, or do they all support the same idea? That distinction shapes the signal words I reach for. Then I think about how many points I have — two points often work well as a contrast, while three give a sense of completeness or progression. Once I have a rough structure, I read the sentence out loud and exaggerate the pauses at each punctuation mark. If it sounds natural, I’m on the right track.
Two-Point Structures
Patterns to contrast points:
| Pattern | Example |
|---|---|
X, while Y |
“Method A is fast, while Method B is more accurate.” |
X; however, Y |
“The baseline performs well on clean data; however, it degrades under noise.” |
Both X and Y … |
“Both approaches rely on attention mechanisms, but differ in how they apply them.” |
Notice the signals — ‘while’, ‘however’, and ‘but’ — that make it obvious to the reader that there is a separate/contrasting idea. We explore this further in Signposting.
Patterns to unify points:
Three-Point Structures
Three-point lists give arguments a sense of completeness. Use one of these scaffolds when you have three parallel claims.
| Pattern | Example |
|---|---|
First … Second … Finally … |
Sequential or ranked claims. |
X, Y, and Z |
Flat list; order implies nothing. |
Not only X, but also Y — and crucially, Z |
Builds to the most important point last. |
I usually avoid even numbered points and prefer odd numbered ones (e.g., 1, 3, or 5). I found that it easier to read and/or build momentum with odd numbered points.
Signposting
Disagreement
Contrast signals tell the reader that something unexpected or opposing is coming. Choosing the right one changes the strength of the contrast.
| Signal word / phrase | Strength | Use when… |
|---|---|---|
however |
medium | the contrast is important but not surprising |
yet |
medium-light | the contrast is slightly unexpected |
nevertheless / nonetheless |
strong | the contrast holds despite strong counter-pressure |
in contrast |
medium | comparing two distinct things side by side |
whereas |
medium | pointing out a difference within the same sentence |
despite X, Y |
strong | Y is true even though X argues against it |
although / even though |
varies | softening a concession before asserting the main point |
Example of a weak contrast: > “The model is fast. It is also inaccurate.”
Revised with a contrast signal: > “The model is fast; however, it sacrifices accuracy under distribution shift.”
Agreement
Use these to build an argument cumulatively.
| Signal | Use when… |
|---|---|
Furthermore / Moreover |
adding a point that strengthens or extends the previous one |
In addition |
adding a related but separate point |
Similarly |
the next point mirrors the structure of the previous one |
Likewise |
same as similarly, slightly more formal |
Indeed |
reinforcing or intensifying the point just made |
Word Choice
Synonyms Are Not Your Friends
In creative writing, varied vocabulary keeps prose engaging. In academic writing, it creates confusion. When you use multiple words to refer to the same concept, it can be quite disorienting for the reader. More importantly, specific words, such as robustness, can mean different things in various subfields (e.g., ML vs LLM robustness). Thus, use consistent words/notations or define them clearly to avoid ambiguity.
- Confusion. Technical readers track concepts by the words attached to them. Swapping terms mid-argument forces them to hold an extra mapping in their head — and they may not realise a mapping is even needed.
- It breaks Ctrl+F. If a concept appears under three different names, no single search finds all of them.
Weak (three names for one concept): > “The PINN is trained to minimize the PDE residual. This error is evaluated at collocation points and added to the data loss. The discrepancy encourages the model to satisfy the governing equation.”
Here, residual, error, and discrepancy all refer to the same quantity — but the reader cannot be sure, especially since PINNs have three distinct losses (PDE, data, and boundary). The sentence also says this quantity is “added to the data loss,” which implies the PDE residual and data loss are separate — but with three names across three sentences, the reader cannot easily tell what is what.
Revised (one name, consistently applied): > “The PINN minimises three losses: a PDE loss computed at collocation points, a data loss, and a boundary loss. The PDE loss penalises violations of the governing equation.”
A fast self-check: pick any technical concept in your draft and Ctrl+F every word you used to describe it. If you find more than one term, standardise on whichever is most precise — then find and replace the rest.
Again, this document isn’t a “rule”. There are definitely occassions where synonyms can be your friends (e.g., breaking a monotone segment). But, as a starting point, I would not over-use them to maintain clarity.
Resources
- How To Train Your Researcher (HTTYR) – EROP mentorship guide
- Reading Advice – tips on reading papers
- Thriving as a Graduate Writer – great e-book for academic writing!