The document provides advice on academic writing from the University of Toronto. It discusses developing an argument in essays, the differences between high school and university writing expectations, planning and organizing essays, writing introductions and conclusions, developing paragraphs, reading and researching critically, specific types of academic writing, and editing for style. It emphasizes developing a clear thesis, considering the intended audience and discipline, and structuring essays in a logical flow of ideas supported by evidence.

1. ADVICE ON ACADEMIC
WRITING
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
Wanda Fernández - ISFD N° 41

2. SOME GENERAL ADVICE
In order to produce an Academic Essay-Writing, it is fundamental
to keep in mind the following suggestions:
• An essay should have an argument: It should answer a question or a few related questions and it
should try to prove something.
• If an assigned topic does not provide a thesis ready-made, it should contain a provisional thesis or
hypothesis which will be answered in the essay.
• The essay should keep a purpose and organization in mind, an also be revised extensively.

3. THE TRANSITION FROM HIGH SCHOOL TO UNIVERSITY
There are some important differences between high school rules and university
expectations about writing:
HIGH SCHOOL UNIVERSITY
• Provides formulas. • Discourages formulas.
• Offers the student a ready-made structure to
work with.
• Provides freedom for the student to
come up with his/her own way of
structuring his/her argument.
• Teachers just one model for an essay that the
student then applies in all of his/her courses.
• Offers discipline-specific guidelines for
approaching written work.
• Encourages repetition. • Discourages repetition.
• Provides rules. • Encourages critical thinking.
• Rewards the student for demonstrating his/her
knowledge of the material.
• Rewards the students for engaging in
analysis.

4. PLANNING AND ORGANIZING
When the student begins planning, the authors suggest asking the following
questions:
- What type of essay am I going to be writing?
- Does it belong to a specific genre?
Knowing the patterns of reasoning associated with a genre can help you to
structure your essay. Also, it is important to convince the reader of the validity of
your position, so the obligation is to advance in the argument presented, not
reproduce the plot.

5. Another point to have in mind is creating “reverse outlines” such as brief notes, so
while reading through the essay, every time you make a point, summarize in the
margin. Those points read in order should form a coherent argument.
You have to be aware of the importance that a well planned paper means: it is
going to be better organized than a paper which was not planned.

6. A) INTRODUCTIONS:
There are some strategies to be considered to write an interesting, effective introduction
which captures the reader’s atenttion:
1. Find a startling statistic that illustrates the seriousness of the problem you will address.
2. Quote an expert introducing him or her first.
3. Mention a common misperception that your thesis will argue against.
4. Give some background information necessary for understanding the essay.
5. Use a brief narrative or anecdote that exemplifies your reason for choosing the topic. .
6. Define a term that is possibly unfamiliar to your audience but is central to
understanding the essay (for example: in Science or Technical Essays).

7. In order to make your introduction more complete, avoid these common pitfalls:
1. Do not provide dictionary definitions, especially of words your audience already knows.
2. Do not repeat the assignment specifications using the professor’s vocabulary.
3. Do not give details or explanations such as background material. They can be postponed
to the body of the essay.

8. B) CONCLUSIONS:
Some advice to remember about conclusions :
• The conclusions presented have to contribute to the thesis developed.
• They have to involve critical thinking
• Broaden your focus a bit at the end of the essay. A good last sentence leaves your
reader with something to think about.
• Their length should reflect the length of the essay.

9. PARAGRAPHS
A paragraph is a series of related sentences developing a central idea, called the topic
sentence, this is similar to a mini thesis statement: it has a specific main point. Whereas the
thesis is the main point of the essay, the topic sentence is the main point of the paragraph.
However, an essay is unified if all the paragraphs relate to the thesis, whereas a paragraph is
unified if all the sentences relate to the topic sentence.
In academic writing, the topic sentence nearly always works best at the beginning of a
paragraph so that the reader knows what to expect.

10. There are some key points to write an effective, interesting conclusion:
1. If the essay deals with a contemporary problem, the readers have to be warned
of the possible consequences of not attending to the problem or to be
recommended to take a specific course of action.
3. Use a qualified opinion to support the conclusion you have reached.
4. Give a startling statistic, fact, or visual image to make clearly understood the
ultimate point of your paper.

11. In order to develop the ideas in a paragraph, there are useful techniques to be
applied:
- The illustration
- The definition paragraph
- The analysis or classification paragraph
- A comparison or contrast paragraph
- A qualification paragraph
- The process paragraph
- A combination of methods (definition, analysis/classification and ilustration)

12. Also the flow in a paragraph is needed to show connections, by using:
- Repetition of key words, reiterating the focus or using synonyms.
- Strategic pronouns linked to specific nouns.
- Specialized linking words to signal reinforcement, change of ideas or a
conclusión.

13. READING AND RESEARCHING
Critical writing depends on critical reading. Most of the essays you write will involve
reflection on written texts -- the thinking and research that have already been done
on your subject. 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.
To read critically is to make judgments about how a text is argued.

14. HOW DO I READ LOOKING FOR WAYS OF THINKING?
1. First determine the central claims or purpose of the text (its thesis).
2. Begin to make some judgments about context. What audience is the text written
for? Who is it in dialogue with? In what historical context is it written?
3. Distinguish the kinds of reasoning the text employs. What concepts are defined
and used? Does the text appeal to a theory or theories? Is any specific
methodology stated? If there is an appeal to a particular concept, theory, or
method, how is that concept, theory, or method then used to organize and
interpret the data? How has the author analyzed the material? Do not forget the
different ways of arguing. according to the disciplines involved.

15. A SYSTEM FOR DEALING WITH NEW WORDS WHILE READING
Before Reading:
Order to ease the reading, it is not necessary to search for new words but try to
guess the meaning, skimming through the text in order to find the new words that
appear repeatedly in the titles or headings.
While Reading:
- Sound out words new to you
- Examine the structure
- Then look at the context
- Only then, check the dictionary
- Confirm guesses.

16. SPECIFIC TYPES OF WRITING
• The book review or article critique
• Admissions letter
• Annotated biography
• The literature review
• The academic proposal
• The abstract
• The comparative Essay
• Science
• History
• Literature
• Application letters and résumés

17. READING TO WRITE: ABOUT SKIMMING AND SCANNING
There are two effective methods which allow the reader analyze into depth the academic texts.
Whereas skimming and scanning seem to be similar, they have different uses described below:
Skimming Scanning
It gives a sense of the overall progression of the
text.
It helps the student to make decisions about
where to place the main focus in the text:
- The focus helps to predict the direction of the
coming explanation or arguments.
- The reading try to avoid unfamiliar words or
terminology in order to understand the larger
concepts.
It focuses on locating a particular fact or figure, or to
see whether the text mentions a subject the student
is researching or not:
- It is essencial in the writing of research papers or
when the student needs to examine many
articles and books in order to find the material
needed.
- It keeps a specific set of goals in mind to avoid
being distracted by other material.

18. STYLE AND EDITING
1) Lack of agreement
2) Sentence fragments
3) Overly-long sentences
4) Overuse of passive voice
5) Faulty parallelism
6) Vague pronouns
7) Dangling modifiers
8) Squinting modifiers
9) Mixed or dead metaphors
10)Faulty Word choice/ faulty diction
11)Wordiness
12)Comma splices
13)Misuse of comma, semicolon, colon
Hit parade of errors in gramar, punctuation, and style:

19. FURTHER RESOURCES
There are many available resources on the Web, such as :
- Online resourses for Students of English as a Second Language.
- Online resourses on Pursuing a Career as a Writer.
- Online writing Advice from Other Institutions.

20. WEBIBLIOGRAPHY:
• Freedman, Leora y Plotnick, Jerry (n.d.) University College Writing Centre from University of Toronto Website
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/planning-and-organizing/intros-and-conclusions
• Knott, Deborah (n.d.) Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing. New College Writing Centre from University of
Toronto Website http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-and-researching/critical-reading
• Plotnick, Jerry (n.d.) Organizing an Essay. University College Writing Centre University College Writing Centre
from University of Toronto Website http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/planning-and-organizing/organizing
• Procter, Margaret (n.d.) Dealing with New Words. New College Writing Centre from University of Toronto
Website http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/reading-and-researching/new-words
• Procter, Margaret and Visvis, Vikki (n.d.) Paragraphs. University College Writing Centre from University of
Toronto Website http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/planning-and-organizing/paragraphs
• Silber, C. A. (n.d.) Advice on Academic Writing. Department of English from University of Toronto Web site
http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice
• Vogan, Becky and Plotnick, Jerry (n.d.) The Transition from High School to University Writing. University College
Writing Centre from University of Toronto Website http://www.writing.utoronto.ca/advice/general/transition-to-
university