Academic Writing for Graduate Students by Praveen “Krish” Veerasubramanian

Great writing skills are assets that come in handy in all circumstances. However, academic writing at graduate school is a different ballgame altogether in that it incorporates stricter elements of formal language and predefined structure. Irrespective of whether you are writing a term report or a scientific paper, your writing improves with practice – this is especially true for international students who speak English as a second or a foreign tongue. While you might have secured a respectable score in your TOEFL, there is always room for continual improvement. UCI provides several excellent avenues for this and we shall be exploring these resources here.

• Program in Academic English – This program offered by the School of Humanities, has been engineered to benefit non-native speakers. It aims to polish their writing, conversational, and presentation skills.
• Writing Support at Graduate Resource Center (GRC) – The GRC provides writing support services for the diverse academic needs of graduate students. It organizes the ESL/ELL academic writing workshop series that address specific grammar and language mechanics of a formal English composition. Writing consultants at the GRC also provide individual meetings with students to review academic content (publications, dissertation/thesis, conference paper, resume/CV, cover letters, etc.) and organize boot camps and workshops periodically, relating to scholarly writing. The GRC also hosts targeted writing groups and offers dedicated writing space for graduates.
• UCI Libraries – The library would be your go-to place for research needs and the UCI libraries seldom disappoint you. The UCI library website is a great place to start locating various UCI libraries and exploring their resources. It provides helpful information and tutorials on topics, such as browsing and borrowing books, interlibrary loans from other UC libraries, research guides and tools, accessing multimedia resources, and off-campus resource access. One can also find help exploring subject-specific content by contacting subject librarians. The library also provides dissertation consultation services to critique theses for formatting requirements.

General Tips for Academic Writing

The GRC writing consultants advise students to have these three ‘C’s in mind while writing –

• Clarity – Introduce your argument/idea at the beginning of your write-up. Stick to one idea per paragraph and focus on it. Make use of clear topic sentences. Lucid, simple sentences are appreciated than long, “sophisticated”, and potentially ambiguous lines. Be mindful of punctuations and grammar errors.
• Coherence – Use signposts throughout your write-up, such as brief summaries of what had been discussed before. It is also important to cater to the needs of the audience – know your audience and compose accordingly. It might sometimes be crucial for your words to reach a non-specialist in your field.
• Concision – The best way to represent complex ideas is by using short, simple sentences. Avoid unnecessary repetition or redundancy.

Other Pointers

• Plagiarism – Academic dishonesty in the form of plagiarism is viewed seriously in UCI. Plagiarism can often lead to unpleasant consequences for the student. Ignorance of plagiarism is no defense for plagiarizers. It is every student’s responsibility to be aware of what constitutes as plagiarism.
• Read More – Find exemplary scholarly publications in your field and analyze them to understand the organization of ideas. Use them as model articles for your own.
• Citation Managers – These are handy tools that make the life of graduate students easier. Software, such as Endnote, Mendeley, Zotero, etc., can be used to create libraries of the articles you read and cite them in your research writings. You can also change the style of your references with just a click of the mouse button!

Extra Resources

• This list of resources curated by the School of Humanities is an excellent starting point for international students looking for self-improvement in English language.

Praveen “Krish” Veerasubramanian Home Country: India The Henry Samueli School of Engineering Biomedical Engineering, Ph.D.