A Blog by Adam Christman

This round of blogs is a series aimed at students who engage in academic writing. In all, the series will constitute a kind of primer on academic writing for students. Each post will tackle a problem I’ve seen in papers from my classmates, my students, and myself.

Today’s post is the final entry in this series on paper writing, and it is another Tips from a Tutor two-fer! First, I discuss “filler words,” and then I finish with my thoughts on consistency.

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What you have to understand is that all of the problems I’ve discussed in this series have plagued my own papers at one time or another. One problem that is hard for me to shake is that of filler words.

In spoken conversation, many of us employ filler words for a variety of functions. This “um” might give me time to figure out how I want to finish this sentence, while that “uh” with a circular hand gesture might indicate that I just started thinking about my answer, and so on. When you’re hanging out with friends and family, filler words are irrelevant. The setting is informal and is based on a loving familial or friendly relationship. But should you use a lot of “ums,” “uhs,” or “well…” when you meet someone in a professional context, or when you apply for a job, or when you talk to your boss?

A research paper, at every level from high school to professional, is a formal presentation that needs the right presentation. An outfit of a t-shirt and jeans is fine for a cook-out with your family, but it does not work at a black tie function. Similarly, you must edit out filler words before you submit your paper. Look at the expensive graphic below for examples of common filler words in academic writing.[1]

Remember this post on assuming words and overused adverbs? What I’m telling you about now overlaps with that idea. Edit these words out. Sometimes you can find a better word, but most of the time you will simply need to find a better way to phrase the sentence without the filler. If you can do this, you are on your way to writing better papers.

(P.S., I do think the word “therefore” can be used as a filler word. Don’t spray this all over your paper. You’re not Paul the apostle!)

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The final topic I tackle in this series on Tips from a Tutor is the idea of consistency.

You will find two benefits from reading something that is consistent. First, the reading experience will be more enjoyable because you will be better poised to understand what the author means. Second, you will find that this is how the best professional papers are written.

What exactly do I mean by “consistency”? Good question, dear Google bot. You might think I mean your paper must be logically consistent. That definition is not the focus of this post, though logical consistency is of obvious benefit to your papers. Without it, you are lost.

What I mean is be consistent in the writing, itself. This can often be most easily addressed by answering certain questions beforehand. In what format are you required to submit your paper? Turabian? Chicago? (Modified Turabian for GGBTS?) Within some formatting styles, there is a flexibility on how to present citations of various kinds. How are you going to cite your sources? In-line citations, footnotes, or endnotes? How are you going to cite the Scriptures? If you abbreviate the titles of the books of the Bible, how will you do so? If you quote from multiple translations of the same text (such as the Bible), how will you indicate to your reader(s) what translate you are using? What terms will you use to discuss your topic? For example, if your paper is on the offices of the church, you must define “elder,” “pastor,” and “bishop” for two reasons: it is for meaning (theology) and for communication to carry that meaning to your reader (paper-writing, sucka!). In the example of the offices of the church, you have to define your terms even if you believe they are three designations of the same office. By providing one central definition for all three terms, you reader(s) will be able to follow your meaning.

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And with that, I bring this series on paper-writing to a close. I hope it was beneficial to you. If you think you missed any entries in the series, feel free to click on the tags at the bottom of this post, or search my blog for either “how to write a paper” or “Tips from a Tutor.”

I am currently in the process of turning this series into a concise pdf that you can download and refer to whenever you are in the throes of writing your papers. Once it is finished, it will be available as a free download right here at adamwchristman.com, and I will make an announcement about it.

See you next week!

[1] BONUS TIP: Don’t EVER use the word “thing(s)” in your papers for ANY REASON. Come up with something better!

This round of blogs is a series aimed at students who engage in academic writing. In all, the series will constitute a kind of primer on academic writing for students. Each post will tackle a problem I’ve seen in papers from my classmates, my students, and myself.

This week’s Tips from a Tutor focuses on two topics. The first is a serious problem in paper-writing. The second is more of a gentle suggestion that should help clean up your papers and make them stronger.

And…no. This is not a bad April Fool’s joke. I mean every word in this entry!

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The first problem to discuss today is the misuse of what I call Assuming Words ™. (No, not really trademarked.)

Many students fall into this trap. Let me give you one example of how you might use this particular bad habit. Maybe you heard your professor argue for a particular understanding of an issue repeatedly over the course of the class, so now that it is time to write your term paper, you incorporate that argument because it is relevant to your topic. Except many students have introduced their professor’s preferred argument with words or phrases like “it is clear,” “obviously,” “of course,” and other words that presume that the following is unquestionably the only way to view it.

There are two reasons why this is a problem in academic writing.

To begin with what might be the most pedantic item in this list, your term paper is supposed to convince your reader of your position. If you utilize Assuming Words casually, especially if you use them throughout the paper, you will not convince most readers. Instead of listening to winsome evidence and the logic of your argument, they are hit over the head with your presumptions.

The second reason comes out of the first. If you use Assuming Words casually, you miss an opportunity to flex the evidence you need (and may even have found in your research). This results in a weaker paper because it relies on your Assuming Words to move the paper along rather than evidence and analysis. At best, casual use of Assuming words is a wasted opportunity to convince your reader(s). At worst, it is laziness and (spoiler alert!) your teachers were once students, and as teachers they read a lot of papers, so for those two good reasons (and more), they recognize lazy work when they see it.

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The second topic on the docket today rests on adverbs of manner, circumstance, and degree.

Words like “easily,” “simultaneously,” and “very” can be helpful. I don’t mean to warn you off them entirely. (Ahem.) Instead, I would caution you to avoid using them too much. I cannot tell you how many papers I have read where any given page is littered with words that end in “-ly.” This is clutter akin to a public speaker uttering the “um” noise after every clause.

In addition, the use of the adverb “very” should be limited. If you modify one or more verbs in every paragraph with “very,” then how is your reader to know the difference in value between your various points? Everything cannot be “very important,” for example. Some things are less important.

I suggest you purchase a good thesaurus or visit thesaurus.com to find ways to better communicate that same idea without a constant stream of adverbs. I point you to the almost-cliche KISS acronym. Keep It Simple, Sam! (Note: This proverb is not only applicable to people named Sam.)

This round of blogs is a series aimed at students who engage in academic writing. In all, the series will constitute a kind of primer on academic writing for students. Each post will tackle a problem I’ve seen in papers from my classmates, my students, and myself.

This week I am discussing passive voice. (If you caught that and the one in the title, you probably don’t need to read this post. Bonus points to anyone who finds irony in other parts of this post!)

The active voice is the normal form of a verb, where the subject performs the action of the verb. This is most easily seen in the proper English word order of Subject ̶ Verb ̶ Object. For example, “Sam hits the ball.” So, “Sam” is the Subject, “hits” is the Verb, and “ball” is the Object. The verb “hits” uses the active voice in order to communicate that it is Sam who performs this action on the ball.

If we took that same sentence and put the verb into the passive voice, it would read, “The ball is hit by Sam.” This is the best use of the passive voice; however, that does not mean it is the right choice for academic writing.

Many students weaken and mar their papers with a poor use of the passive voice. I have seen papers use it from start to finish, thereby spoiling what might have been an interesting, strong voice on their subjects. The passive voice often obscures the meaning of the subject, object, or both.

Many times, when you add “to be” to a verb that does not require it (most especially if you change the main verb into a gerund, which adds “-ing” to the end, also called a participle), you cast the sentence in the passive voice.

In academic writing, this use of the passive should be avoided or edited, and the active voice should always be preferred. Sentences such as the following dilute your message.

“Paul is commanding the Galatians to…”

“The Philippians were told…”

“Joshua is portrayed as a new Moses.”

“Hosea had been saying…”

Instead, these sentences become stronger when cast in the active voice. Consider the following revisions of the four examples.

“Paul commands the Galatians to…”

“The letter to the Philippians says…”

“The author of the Book of Joshua portrays this Joshua as a new Moses.”

“Hosea preached about this previously when…”

These sentences are much stronger and would serve well in an academic or professional paper.

Next week is a Tips from a Tutor Two-fer! See you then.

This round of blogs is a series aimed at students who engage in academic writing. In all, the series will constitute a kind of primer on academic writing for students. Each post will tackle a problem I’ve seen in papers from my classmates, my students, and myself.

This week’s topic is the run-on sentence. I give a definition and reasons to edit these out. Shall we begin?

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A run-on sentence is a sentence in which multiple independent clauses are placed together in a kind of string without punctuation or proper conjunction. When sentences run on in audible conversation, they can be ignored or forgiven or clarified there in the moment. When sentences run on in academic writing, the paper comes across as sloppy, unedited, and (perhaps) as something submitted without much thought given to it. For a clearer, stronger paper, hang in there with me as I explain run-on sentences and how to fix them in your editing process.

If you read Greek, look for an example in literally almost any sentence written by the apostle Paul.

If you’re limited to modern languages, here are two examples.

“I could not find the book on the bookshelf where is it?” or,

“The apostle Paul was a Hellenized Jew raised under Roman rule who studied under Gamaliel he was a great example of a young Jewish man before his conversion to Christianity.”

Both of these examples include at least two independent clauses, but they are jammed together without punctuation or proper conjunction. Independent clauses are units of thought in a sentence (or that make up an entire sentence) that could be a separate sentence if put on their own. Look at a snapshot of one from the second example. “…he was a great example of a young Jewish man before his conversion to Christianity.” The italicized unit of thought is an independent clause because you could write that as a stand-alone sentence and it would make sense. If you took “before his conversion to Christianity” on its own, however, it does not make much sense. It could confuse the reader regarding to whom you refer. It is an adverbial clause that clarifies, and should remain with the independent clause to which it is connected.

Back to the primary issue of run-on sentences. Let’s fix these examples, and hopefully benefit your paper writing.

Example 1 is, “I could not find the book on the bookshelf where is it?”

This example is a bit easier. Simply put a period after “bookshelf” and begin a new sentence. This separates the independent clauses.

Fixed Example 1 is, “I could not find the book on the bookshelf. Where is it?”

The second example is a slightly more complicated.

Example 2 is, “The apostle Paul was a Hellenized Jew raised under Roman rule who studied under Gamaliel he was a great example of a young Jewish man before his conversion to Christianity.”

This run-on sentence has two clear independent clauses, with two dependent clauses that you may want to change into independent clauses (and, therefore, independent sentences). Let’s begin with the simpler work of breaking this long example in two. You could place a period after Gamaliel, making it, “The apostle Paul was a Hellenized Jew raised under Roman rule who studied under Gamaliel. He was a great example of a young Jewish man before his conversion to Christianity.” While a little awkward, this edit will work.

Better work, however, would break this down into three or four sentences. This would change it to something like the following. “The apostle Paul was a Hellenized Jew raised under Roman rule. He studied under Gamaliel. Paul was a great example of a young Jewish man, but his conversion to Christianity changed all that in the eyes of the Jewish leadership.”

Run-on sentences muddy any academic work. Avoid this problem by breaking them into separate sentences. In doing so, you will have clearer and more precise papers.

Come back next week for keeping the passive voice out of academic writing. Until then, excelsior!

This round of blogs is a series aimed at students who engage in academic writing. In all, the series will constitute a kind of primer on academic writing for students. Each post will tackle a problem I’ve seen in papers from my classmates, my students, and myself.

If you are having trouble writing strong papers for your classes, then read on in this Tips from a Tutor Two-Fer!

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The second topic I’ve selected won’t surprise you if you’ve read many pap’r’s.

Contractions!

Contractions are shortened forms of a word or a group of words with the omitted letter typically replaced with an apostrophe. So, you get “I’ve” from “I have,” “won’t” from “will not,” “you’ve” from “you have,” and “pap’r’s” from “trying to be funny.”

We all use contractions in everyday conversation. Many of us utilize contractions even in professional settings. When speaking out loud, they are often, though not always, appropriate.

However, this blog is written for the student working on an academic assignment. For you, contractions are anathema. Steer clear of them! They are informal, and seem sloppy. Instead, write your contractions out while making sure to avoid the passive voice. (For the post on passive voice, stay tuned!)

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If you still struggle to avoid contractions (or the 1st and 2nd person), this can be caught through careful editing. Ding ding! Our second topic of the post.

I cannot emphasize enough how important editing is to turning in a good paper. Whether you have someone else do it or you learn how to do it yourself, you have to get your papers edited before you turn them in.

Would you want to live in a house where the architect took one shot at the blueprints? Where nobody checked over that work, so the construction crews built it exactly to the design? I seriously doubt that you would. Then why would you want to earn a grade based on a paper that had not been picked through carefully?

When editing your paper, work backwards from the end, paragraph by paragraph. Try not to take your words or sentences for granted. In this way, you will pick up on your mistakes of spelling, grammar, etc. And then you edit it again! Never give a paper only one pass at editing. You will miss something, whether that is a misspelled word or a hole in your argument, so multiple passes are highly preferable.

That’s all I have to say about that for now, though I may revisit the topic of editing in the future. Come back next week for more Tips from a Tutor!

I’m bringing (my) blogging back!

To kick off this new round of blogs, I have prepared a series of short blogs aimed at students who engage in academic writing. In all, the series will constitute a kind of primer on academic writing for students. Each post will tackle a problem I’ve seen in papers from my classmates, my students, and myself.

If you are having trouble writing strong papers for your classes, then read on!

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The first topic I have selected is on the use of 1st person and 2nd person personal pronouns in academic writing. These are words like “we,” “you,” and “I.” It is my understanding that there are also others.

STOP USING THEM.

In academic writing, your goal is to sound objective and convince your audience of your hypothesis with the strength of your evidence and argument. You will not accomplish this if you write papers like you write blogs (!) or sermons.

This is a common mistake, but if you are not sure how to go about writing papers in light of this information, I’m here to help!

The academy’s preferred, “objective,” voice sounds something like the following, when referring to the second person. “One would do well to consider how to write academic papers. If one were to ignore practices such as these, worse grades will become reality.” Referring to “one” rather than “you” is far more objective, and always sounds better in academic writing.

When you want to refer to yourself, the author, there is a simple tip I can give you. Don’t.

It will not help your paper. If you absolutely must refer to yourself because, let’s face it, your ego is as big as mine, then refer to yourself as “the author of this paper” or “this author.” There could be a problem with this approach, as some students have tried to use it and wound up confusing the professor regarding the author to whom the student refers. Do you mean the most recently-referenced source? Or do you mean yourself? If you use this approach, be very clear.

That’s all for this week’s Tips from a Tutor. Come back next week for more paper-writing help.