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Academic writing is an essential skill set that all students must develop. In order to succeed in the competitive world of academia, you must be able to communicate your ideas with grace, clarity and power. These ten tips will help you enhance and polish your academic writing so that you can impress your peers, professors and even publications.

1. Write to the level of the intended audience. Academic writing is generally intended for highly educated and well-informed individuals who already know the basics of the topic in question. These readers need no in-depth introduction or explanation of the material. It’s generally advisable to concentrate on the main points of the treatise rather than wasting your readers’ time rehashing information they already know.
2. Build on the past. Academic writing typically requires a great deal of research before the first word is ever written. By compiling and expanding upon on relevant research and published reports on the chosen topic, authors can produce fresh, informative papers that do not simply repeat ideas that have already been examined and published.
3. Get to the point. The first paragraph of the paper should quickly outline the main points to be covered in the entire document. This provides a structure for the paper and quickly establishes the primary topic for the reader. Some scholarly works include a brief abstract that serves the same basic purpose and summarizes the entire paper in a few short paragraphs.
4. Take a stand. Creating a thesis statement and outlining the supporting evidence for that statement is one of the most effective writing strategies. By presenting the hypothesis along with persuasive arguments for its validity, writers can produce a compelling and persuasive piece of academic writing for publication.
5. Provide supporting evidence. At a minimum, an academic paper should include a complete list of sources from which the information used in that paper was obtained. Ideally, academic writing should include complete bibliographic information. This allows researchers and editors to expeditiously refer to the supporting material that was used by the author and evaluate the paper’s conclusions that are based on those resources.
6. Inform the audience. Opinion pieces are best suited for editorial works, not academic papers. By supporting the conclusions of the paper with solid evidence, writers can enhance their overall credibility and ensure that their points are considered fairly and fully by their audience.
7. Avoid literary clichés. Academic writing is typically designed to inform and educate its readers; flowery language and overuse of metaphors and analogies can prove distracting and may diminish the impact of the points made in the paper. Choose language that is suited to the subject matter and that is clear, concise and to the point.
8. Show a little style. Academic papers, like other types of writing, require a specific style and format in order to be readily accepted. Investing in an appropriate style manual and adhering to its recommendations can improve the quality of writing and the likelihood that the end result will be accepted by editors and by the final arbiters, the readers.
9. Edit, edit, edit. Especially when it comes to academic writing, the process of editing is essential and ongoing. Editing should encompass content as well as format; condensing and clarifying the material included in the paper will help ensure that it is both concise and persuasive. By polishing the existing wording and eliminating excess verbiage, writers can produce papers that make their points more eloquently.
10. Proofreading leads to perfect papers. Before submitting academic writing projects for review, authors should carefully examine their papers for any spelling or grammatical errors to ensure that their papers are as credible and cogent as possible. Enlisting a qualified, professional proofreading service that offers academic proofreading, dissertation proofreading, essay proofreading or thesis proofreading and can read over your paper and provide feedback on errors is an excellent way to ensure the quality of the finished product.