How can I tell the difference between
formal and informal styles of writing?
Links to further information
These guidelines
may help you on the occasions when you want your assignments
to look and sound 'academic'.
HOW
DO I CHOOSE THE RIGHT ACADEMIC LEVEL?
Even within academic
writing, there are different levels. Good writers think
about their purpose in writing and their readers when deciding
how formal their text should be. It might help to imagine
a sliding scale which measures the level of formality.
TAFE and university
lecturers expect many assignments to be located towards the
formal end of the scale. Personal journals and reflections
may be more informal. However often you'll be expected
to use a formal academic style. This type of writing
includes:
essays that inform
argue or evaluate
research reports
explanation and
analysis in case studies.
WHAT DOES FORMAL WRITING LOOK LIKE?
There are many
features of formal academic writing and we'll explore just
a few of them here. In general you should try to:
Focus on the issue, not the writer
Teachers expect
that you will have researched the topic and evaluated various
viewpoints inorder to argue for a particular view.
Keeping your writing objective and impersonal can make it
more convincing. Consider:
It will be
argued that the benefits of immigration outweigh the disadvantages.
in preference
to:
I will argue
in this essay that ...
Choose words with precise meanings
Avoid words with
vague meanings as they tend to be more colloquial. Compare:
The writer
looks at the issue
with
The writer
examines the issue.
The second option
is more formal.
Formal choices:
He states … maintains … argues
Informal choices:
He says … talks about …
There are lots
of online questionnaires available to help you identify your
style.
Avoid using slang, jargon, cliches and abbreviations.
Activity
Try
‘translating’ the following text into formal writing.
Two
NSW detectives latched onto a nice little earner
in Manly where, the Police Integrity Commission
heard, the enterprising pair managed to filch
more than $120,000 from drug dealers in just two
months (Sydney Morning Herald, 13/10/01, p 50).
When
you have done your translation, look at a possible
answer. How does your effort compare?
Make your claims
tentative rather than definite
This leaves the door open for further discussion
and/or research. After all, it’s unlikely that you’ve
reached the only possible conclusion! Consider these
sentences and decide which seems more ‘academic’ in tone:
1. Television viewing causes reading problems
in childhood.
2. Excessive television viewing may be a
contributing cause of some cases of reading problems in childhood.
The second sentence acknowledges that there
may be other causes and that reading problems is a large area
that would need to be examined.
Words which signal tentativeness include: may;
might; possibly; in some instances; often; in many cases
