This document provides advice on various aspects of academic writing. It discusses general topics like formulating a thesis, organizing an essay, and developing a provisional hypothesis. It also covers planning and organizing, including choosing a genre, breaking an essay into subparts, and being aware that genres are not fixed. Additional sections provide guidance on critical reading, researching, using sources, specific types of writing like book reviews and comparative essays, and style/editing considerations. The overall document offers a comprehensive overview of the academic writing process from developing a thesis to finalizing style and structure.

1. ADVICE ON
ACADEMIC
WRITING
Alejandro Nuñez

2. General
Planning and organizing
Reading and researching
Using sources
Specific types of writing
Style and editing
English as a second language

3. General topics to write an essay
- An essay should answer a question or a few related questions.
- Formulate as exactly as possible the question(s) you will seek to answer in
your essay.
- Develop by thinking, reading, and jotting a provisional thesis or hypothesis
- Organize your essay in order to present your argument clearly and
persuasively.

4. Planning and organizing
- Organizing an essay: the best time to organize a paper is during the pre-writing stage, not the
writing or revising stage.
- Choose a genre: Knowing the patterns of reasoning associated with a genre can help you to
structure your essay.
- Break down into two sub-parts: It is up to you to decide the order of the two subparts—whether
to analyze strengths or weaknesses first.
- Be aware that genres are not fixed: Read the assignment question carefully for guidance.
- Essay´s structure: the structure of an essay should not be determined by the structure of its source
material.

5. Introductions:
Be aware of the dangers of sinking too much time into the introduction. Some of that
time can be more usefully channeled into planning and writing.
Remember that you may at a later stage need to compress your introduction.
It can be fine to leave the writing of the introduction for a later stage in the essay-
process.
The introductions for most papers can be effectively written in one paragraph
half to three-quarters of the first page. Your introduction may be longer than that, and it
may take more than one paragraph, but be sure you know why.
Get to the point as soon as possible.
If your essay has a thesis, your thesis statement will typically appear at the end of your
introduction, even though that is not a hard-and-fast rule.

6. Conclusions:
Remind the reader of how the evidence you’ve presented has contributed to your thesis.
Reflect upon the significance of what you’ve written.
A good last sentence leaves your reader with something to think about, a concept in some
illuminated by what you’ve written in the paper.
As with introductions, the length of the conclusion should reflect the length of the essay.

7. Reading and researching:
- Critical Reading: in order to write your own analysis of this subject, you will need to do careful
critical reading of sources and to use them critically to make your own argument.
- Critical Reading: What is It?
- To read critically is to make judgements about how a text is argued.
- THE KEY IS THIS:
- don’t read looking only or primarily for information.
- do read looking for ways of thinking about the subject matter.

8. Looking for Ways of Thinking:
Practical Tips:
- determine the central claims or purpose of the text (its thesis).
- Begin to make some judgements about context .
- Distinguish the kinds of reasoning the text employs.
- Examine the evidence (the supporting facts, examples, etc) the text employs.
- Critical reading may involve evaluation.

9. - Practical tips for critical reading:
- Begin by skimming research materials, especially introductions and conclusions, in order to
strategically choose where to focus your critical efforts.
- When highlighting a text or taking notes from it, teach yourself to highlight argument.
- When you begin to think about how you might use a portion of a text in the argument you are forging
in your own paper, try to remain aware of how this portion fits into the whole argument from which it
is taken.
- When you quote directly from a source, use the quotation critically. Introduce the quotation by laying
out the judgments you are making about it, and the reasons why you are using it. Often a quotation is
followed by some further analysis.
- Critical reading skills are also critical listening skills. In your lectures, listen not only for information but
also for ways of thinking.

10. Research Readings
Know what kind of ideas you need to record:
Focus your approach to the topic before you start detailed research. Then you will read with a purpose
in mind, and you will be able to sort out relevant ideas.
Don’t write down too much:
Your essay must be an expression of your own thinking, not a patchwork of borrowed ideas. Plan
therefore to invest your research time in understanding your sources and integrating them into your
own thinking. Your note cards or note sheets will record only ideas that are relevant to your focus on
the topic; and they will mostly summarize rather than quote.
Label your notes intelligently
Whether you use cards or pages for note-taking, take notes in a way that allows for later use.

11. Dealing with New Words:
A key point is that you don’t need to interrupt your reading to look up every hard
right away in the dictionary—in fact, experts say it’s actually better to guess first.
unfamiliar words, but try these tactics for making an “educated guess” at the meaning
as you go. You’ll acquire some real understanding of how words are used rather than
just long vocabulary lists and a dog-eared dictionary. (Eventually you will confirm
guesses with a dictionary.)

12. Research using Internet:
Don’t rely exclusively on Net resources: Cross-checking information from the Net against information
from the Library is a good way to make sure that the Net material is reliable and authoritative.
Narrow your research topic before logging on: Before you start your search, think about what you’re
looking for, and if possible formulate some very specific questions to direct and limit your search.
Know your subject directories and search engines: There are several high quality peer-reviewed subject
directories containing links selected by subject experts. INFOMINE and Academic Info are good
examples.

13. Research using Internet:
Keep a detailed record of sites you visit and the sites you use: Keeping track is necessary
so that you can revisit the useful ones later, and also put the required references in your
paper.
Double-check all URLs that you put in your paper: It’s easy to make mistakes with
complicated Internet addresses, and typos will make your references useless. To be safe,
type them into the Location box of your browser and check that they take you to the correct
site.

14. Using sources:
How Not to Plagiarize
It’s against the rules to buy essays or copy chunks from your friend’s homework, and it’s also
plagiarism to borrow passages from books or articles or Web sites without identifying them.
The purpose of any paper is to show your own thinking, not create a patchwork of borrowed
ideas.
You may still be wondering how you’re supposed to give proper references to all the reading
you’ve done and all the ideas you’ve encountered.

15. Standard Documentation Formats:
Different disciplines use their own systems to set out information about sources.
This are some examples:
NOTES:
When Hamlet protests to his mother, “Leave wringing of your hands” (3.4.34),1
1 William Shakespeare, Hamlet, in Norton Introduction to Literature, 12th ed., ed. Kelly J. Mays
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2016), 1402. Subsequent parenthetical citations will refer to this
edition.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, Joan. The Renaissance Stage. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.

16. The use of quotation
Consider quoting a passage from one of your sources if any of the following conditions holds:
The language of the passage is particularly elegant or powerful or memorable.
You wish to confirm the credibility of your argument by enlisting the support of an authority on your
topic.
The passage is worthy of further analysis.
You wish to argue with someone else’s position in considerable detail.
If an argument or a factual account from one of your sources is particularly relevant to your paper but
does not deserve to be quoted verbatim, consider
paraphrasing the passage if you wish to convey the points in the passage at roughly the same level of
detail as in the original
summarizing the relevant passage if you wish to sketch only the most essential points in the passage

17. How to paraphrase:
You must provide a reference.
The paraphrase must be in your own words. You must do more than merely substitute phrases
and there. You must also create your own sentence structures.
How to summarize
Summary moves much further than paraphrase from point-by-point translation. When you
summarize a passage, you need first to absorb the meaning and then to capture in your own
the most important elements from the original passage. A summary is necessarily shorter than a
paraphrase.

18. Specifi types of writing:
The Book Review or Article Critique: An analytic or critical review of a book or article is not
primarily a summary; rather, it comments on and evaluates the work in the light of specific
issues and theoretical concerns in a course.
The Literature Review: A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic
topic by accredited scholars and researchers.
The Abstract: Though some abstracts only list the contents of the document, the most useful
abstracts tell the reader more. An abstract should represent as much as possible of the
quantitative and qualitative information in the document, and also reflect its reasoning.
The Comparative Essay: A comparative essay asks that you compare at least two (possibly
more) items. These items will differ depending on the assignment.

19. Specifi types of writing:
Writing about History: When writing a historical research paper, your goal is to choose a
topic and write a paper that
1 - Asks a good historical question
2 - Tells how its interpretation connects to previous work by other historians, and
3 - Offers a well-organized and persuasive thesis of its own.
Writing about Literature: Like all university essays, the English paper requires critical thought
and strong argumentation, but its focus on language and close textual analysis makes it
unique.
Writing a Philosophy Essay: In studying philosophy, students aim to do the following:
1 - understand such philosophical questions and the concepts, arguments, and theories that
philosophers use to address them.
2 - think critically about such arguments and theories.
3 - develop their own answers to philosophical questions.
Writing in the Sciences: A science paper should be written in a clear and concise style, its
paragraphs should be coherent, and its ideas should be well organized.

20. ENGLISH AS A SECOND
LANGUAGE

21. Using Articles:
Articles are special modifiers that appear before nouns or noun phrases. Like other
they help clarify the meaning of the noun in your sentence.
Rules for using articles:
1 - A noun is countable if you can have more than one instance of it. The word ”exam” is
countable because you can have, say, four exams scheduled at the end of the year. The
word concentration, however, is uncountable, because it would not make sense to speak of
having four concentrations, even though you will need a lot of concentration to study for all
four exams. Many words have both countable and uncountable meanings, depending on
sentence.
2 - Knowing whether the particular use of a noun is singular or plural is quite
Just ask the question, Am I referring to more than one instance of something?
3 - A noun is definite when it is clear to your reader which specific instance or instances of
entity you are referring to; otherwise it is indefinite. Often the first use of a noun is indefinite
and subsequent uses are definite.

22. Expressions of Quantity: Special Cases of Subject-Verb Agreement:
Subject-verb agreement is generally quite straightforward in English. Check any handbook
for the general rules.
Using Gerunds and Infinitives:
Both gerunds and infinitives can replace a noun as the object of a verb. Whether you use a
gerund or an infinitive depends on the main verb in the sentence. Example:
I expect to have the report done by Friday. (infinite)
I anticipate having the report done by Friday. (gerund)
Following an indirect object (infinitive only)
Some verbs are followed by a pronoun or noun referring to a person, and then an infinitive.
Gerunds cannot be used in this position.

23. Following a preposition (gerund only)
Gerunds can follow a preposition; infinitives cannot. Examples:
1 - Can you touch your toes without bending your knees?
2 - He was fined for driving over the speed limit.
3 - She got the money by selling the car.
4 - A corkscrew is a tool for taking corks out of bottles.
Note: Take care not to confuse the preposition “to” with an infinitive
form, or with an auxiliary form such as have to, used to, going to

24. Verbs for Referring to Sources:
You can indicate your attitude to the sources you cite by choosing specific verbs to refer to
Don’t just keep repeating “Smith says.” There is a wide choice of such verbs in English. Use a
dictionary to check that you have chosen a verb with the nuance you intend.
Examples:
A - Da Souza argues that previous researchers have misinterpreted the data.
B - Researchers have demonstrated that the procedure is harmful.
C - Positivists find that social disorders are exacerbated by class factors.
D - Singh infers that both states are essential.

25. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Prof. C. A. Silver (n.d.) Some General Advise on Academic Essay – Writing.
Toronto, Canada, University of Toronto.
Web site: https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/
Jerry Plotnick (n.d.) Organizing an Essay. Toronto, Canada, University of
Toronto.
Web site: https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/
Deborah Knott (n.d.) Researching. Toronto, Canada, University of Toronto.
Web site: https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/
Margaret Procter (n.d.) Revising and Editing, Toronto, Canada, University of
Toronto.
Web site: https://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/