Citations + Writing

An Introduction to Academic Writing

Academic writing can take many forms and serve different functions, especially in the context of a graduate school program. Here are some of the varied purposes.

• Demonstrate understanding of a topic
• Report expert opinion about a topic
• Synthesize different pieces of information
• Present your own commentary on a topic
• Use evidence to support a point of view
• Present new information or data about a topic

Your graduate school assignments can include one of these, multiple of these, or all of these (which would be typical of a paper you would submit for publication).

Reporting vs. Synthesizing

For people new to academic writing, the difference between reporting and synthesizing can be a tough concept to understand. Let's see if we can give you some guidelines to help you understand the difference.

It might help to think about reporting like news reporting, "Just the facts, Ma'am." While synthesizing takes information from several sources in order to better explain the why or how of something. 

For more discussion about this topic:

Writing Guides

General Writing Guides

Different Types of Writing

Grammar

Avoiding Plagiarism

Enroll in Bellack Library's short, self-paced online course on Academic Integrity that uses videos and written materials to help you learn to avoid plagiarism. 

Here are a few additional guides and tools that can help you avoid plagiarizing.

Numbers in Text

Need to talk about percentages, statistics, or any other numbers in your paper?

1. Lack of an introduction and/or conclusion: Introduce your paper by outlining the purpose and topic of your paper. Conclude with a summary of the major points and take-away message of your paper. So not introduce new information in your conclusion.
   
   
2. Overuse of quotations: Integrate the evidence, information and data from your sources into your discussion. Use your own words as much as possible and summarize and synthesize what you learn from your reading of the literature.
   
   
3. Word use and semantics matter: The words elderly and homeless are not nouns and should not be used as the subject of a sentence. Although you will often see writers referring to an entire population group as "the elderly" or "the homeless", this is grammatically incorrect and might also be perceived as dehumanizing.
   
   Preferred terms include “older adults” and “persons who are homeless”. In addition, referring to people as “addicts” or “diabetics” focuses on their disease rather than their personhood – people with addiction or people with diabetes are more person-centric descriptions.
   
   
4. Let your citations do their job. Please do not include the full name of authors, name of journals and titles of journal articles or books in your text. This is the purpose of the citation. Also remember that articles are written by authors, not journals
   
   
5. Terms for race and ethnicity: In APA format, the terms that describe race or ethnicity are proper nouns and are capitalized, including White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, European, and Native American. You may see many publications where White and Black are not capitalized – remember that not all journals and authors use APA format.
   
   
6. Avoid starting sentences with a number. When you do use numbers to start a sentence, spell out the number in words. Always spell out numbers less than ten. The following are examples of correct APA format for reporting numbers or statistics within sentences in APA format
   
   Thirty percent (30%) of older adults in the state reported having exercised for 20 minutes or more five or more days a week in the past month on the most recent National Health Interview survey.  
   
   The majority (52%) of people who attended the workshop reported knowing their usual blood pressure reading.
   
   
7. The word data is plural for datum and this should be reflected in your writing. The following sentences are grammatically correct (data are for illustration purposes only)
   
   The data show that the rate of homelessness among families with children under the age of 18 has increased 25% in the past decade.
   
   Data are unavailable for the proportion of the older population who identify as gay or bisexual