The Most Important Words and Phrases to Avoid in Academic Writing

You will be faced with a lot of academic writing projects whether you are a high school student or a college student already. In addition to thesis statements and analysis, you’ll produce argumentative essays, opinion articles, lab reports, and research papers. If you want to succeed, you have to write better.

You should use well-cited material and utilize formal, academic language while writing an academic paper. When writing academically, there are a lot of terms to avoid Academic Writing Pitfalls. To learn which terms to avoid using in formal writing and research papers, go to the writing advice provided below.

Individual Pronouns

In practically all academic writing, personal pronouns like “I,” “me,” and “my” should be avoided. Your work will often be supported by evidence or study. Putting oneself in the paper weakens its credibility since academics are looking for ideas that you can cite.

Personal pronouns should not be used in even the majority of opinion writings. Once more, you are arguing from logic supported by evidence rather than your own views.

Additionally, you ought to refrain from addressing your audience directly or utilizing the term “you.” Use the word “one” instead, as in “One must always…”

Cliches

Phrases that have been used so often that they no longer seem novel or fresh are known as clichés. Wordy clichés like “thinking outside the box” and “better safe than sorry” are frequent examples. 

It is difficult for your lecturer to take you seriously when you utilize a cliché. It becomes worse the more platitudes you employ. Clichés damage your writing credibility and any research you have done.

Using clichés tends to make writings longer than they need to be. Seek other approaches to convey your ideas, and make every effort to speak in your own unique voice (Carvin, 2023).

Contractions & Abbreviations

While they have their place in writing, contractions and acronyms should never be used in academic writing. An apostrophe is used in a contraction to combine two words into a single word. Examples of contractions are “could’ve” and “don’t.”

Words can be abbreviated using acronyms. Here are few instances:

• Department: Dept.
• Road: Road
• University: University

Proper nouns and lengthier terms are frequently condensed using acronyms.

Abbreviations and contractions are not appropriate for academic writing since they are casual. The formality of your work may be diminished by contractions and abbreviations, even in cases when your research and arguments are of the highest calibre. They can make your writing like 5 examples of scholarly articles appear awkward and break the flow.

Poor Modifiers and Excessive Adverb Use

Overuse of adverbs and weak modifiers might appear beneficial at the time of writing, but they don’t add any weight to your arguments. A modifier is a term, phrase, or clause that adds emphasis, clarity, or power to a sentence’s meaning. Weak modifiers might even take away from the meaning of a phrase rather than adding to it. The terms “merely,” “rather,” and “fairly” are among examples.

Adverbs can alter other adverbs, verbs, or adjectives. The list of terms that are deemed overused adverbs is as follows:

• Really
• Very
• Totally
• Usually
• Typically

Professors view overused adverbs and weak modifiers as filler words because they increase word count without improving meaning. Eliminating some words from a statement may frequently make it better. If the meaning of the statement is still unclear, consider using a stronger verb or adjective.

Idioms

Idioms are sentences with meanings that are not clear from understanding the meaning of the constituent words. Interpretations are symbolic rather than factual. Idioms are often only understood by people who belong to that particular culture or who speak that particular language.

Examples in common English are:

• “Raining cats and dogs”
• “Under the weather”
• “Once in a blue moon”

Idioms should be avoided in formal writing as they compromise the credibility of academic writing. 

It’s also possible that someone who doesn’t speak English will read your writing. They might be able to grasp certain English idioms, but not all of them.

Silent Tone

Passive voice might be difficult to understand. An actor and a recipient of the action are frequently found in a sentence. It doesn’t read properly when the actor is the object and the recipient is the topic of the sentence.

Take a look at these two statements:

• Active voice: Jakob was taken to the cinema by Liam.
• Passive voice: Liam took Jakob to the cinema.

As you can see, the first individual described is the one carrying out the activity in the active example. The action is being given to the second individual. Compared to the second case, it reads far clearer. Primary homework help online suggests that, when at all possible, avoid using passive voice. In casual writing, you should even make an effort to avoid using passive voice, as it nearly always makes the text seem unnatural and challenging to read. 

Transitional Phrases

Transitional words let writers shift from one thought to the next. Since they may join two concepts together, certain transitional words are useful in writing. In writing, transitional words like “however” have a function. You may have seen a lot of Write my assignment for me cheap services doing this. To observe we suggest you to read more blogs or articles online.

Certain transitional terms are superfluous. Students frequently add filler text when they should be transitioning between concepts or paragraphs. Among the needless transitional phrases are “in conclusion” and “furthermore.”

When use a transitional term, consider if understanding your point is required. You ought to remove it if it isn’t.

Colloquial Terms

The terms and expressions that we employ in casual conversation are known as colloquial terminology. Idioms and colloquial terminology can overlap and are slang words. Colloquialisms include expressions like “kinda,” “y’all,” and “go nuts.”

Colloquialisms detract from academic writing’s formality. It’s possible that your lecturer believes your vocabulary is lacking.

Conclusion

When writing for academic purposes, use formal language (Quetext, 2023). If not, you risk receiving worse marks and suffering from poorer writing. Remember these writing advices.

In summary, the following terms and expressions should not be used in academic writing:

• Personal Pronouns: Including oneself in a document undermines the validity of your findings from study. 

• Clichés: Clichés are too informal for a college essay and are overused.
• Contractions and Abbreviations: Word reduction is improper in academic writing.
• Weak modifiers and overused adverbs: These are superfluous words that might give the impression that you’re writing more than you actually are.
• Not everyone, especially non-native English speakers, is familiar with all idioms.
• Passive Voice: Using passive voice in your writing adds extraneous words and makes it harder to read.
• Transitional Words: Some words that are used to break up sentences are unnecessary since they don’t clarify anything.
• Colloquial Terms: These expressions don’t fit the official tone that academic writing demands.

Make sure your assignment is formatted correctly and proofread it before turning it in. Make advantage of a plagiarism detector as well. Sometimes, even when you didn’t mean to copy, you could accidentally plagiarize. You should consult your school’s style guide since you will most likely need to utilize MLA or APA.