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In the time since you took Core 101 (or the equivalent), the material you are being assigned to read has become more complex. You are being assigned to read material written with more sophisticated sentence structure and broader vocabulary choices. Your professors are also expecting your sentence structure and vocabulary to be more advanced than it was when it was when you were younger. At this point in your academic career, you should be developing a good academic style, speech and writing that are not just correct, but are able to express complex ideas in a smooth way.
- How can being too informal hurt my writing and speaking style?
- How can being too formal hurt my writing and speaking style?
- Why is it important to consider connotation when making word choices for an academic essay?
- What is the most appropriate level of formality for an academic essay?
- How do I incorporate the terminology of the course into an academic essay?
1. How can being too informal hurt my writing and speaking style?
Many students struggle with how formal they should be in an academic essay. Some err on the side of being too informal, writing the way they would speak to their friends:
There are a lot of ways Katniss has to deal with ethics in The Hunger Games. One way is when she takes Prim’s place. Another is when she lies to Peeta that she “likes” him because she wants to him to make it through the games.
Not only is the language conversational, but it is also vague and oversimplified. More precise word choices would more fully explain Katniss’s ethical dilemmas. The sentences are also very simple.
2. How can being too formal hurt my writing and speaking style?
Other students err on the side of being too formal, using sentence structure and vocabulary that seem very academic to them, but which strike the reader as stuffy and clumsy:
A multitude of ethical quandaries face Katniss Everdeen, the protagonist of The Hunger Games. In the second chapter of the novel, Katniss volunteers to partake in the competition in place of her sister so that her sister won’t expire in the arena. Later in the tome, Katniss misleads Peeta into believing that she is more enamored by him than she truly is, having to do this in order to retail an epic romance to the audience so that they can be granted largesse from sponsoring spectators.
In this example, not only is the writer being wordy, but she has also fallen in love with the thesaurus feature of her word processing program, replacing ordinary words with more sophisticated seeming synonyms. However, some of these synonyms may strike the reader as inappropriate for the point the writer is making about the novel, and some might even be considered silly.
3. Why is it important to consider connotation when making word choices for an academic essay?
An effective academic style uses precise language. You should only choose words with which you’re comfortable that you’re using them correctly. That means understanding the connotations