How to Write Clearly in Academic Papers
Clear academic writing puts a short subject next to the real verb, then places new information where readers expect emphasis. This page follows the APA 7 student-paper checklist (last updated 8 September 2021) for Publication Manual §§4.1–4.11, Turabian’s five sentence principles (Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers, 5th ed., p. 148), Nature Portfolio’s “How to write your paper”, the UNC Word Choice, Style, Scientific Writing, and Reorganizing Drafts handouts, and Gopen and Swan’s 1990 American Scientist essay “The Science of Scientific Writing.” It is the sentence-level rewrite. It is not the audience decision, the grammar-error map, or the active-versus-passive voice choice.
By CitationEasy Editorial Team22 min read
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Quick Answer: How to Write Clearly in Academic Papers
Name a short, concrete subject, put the real action in the verb, and keep those two next to each other. Put familiar information first and the new claim at the end. Prefer the everyday word when it is just as precise. Define a technical term or abbreviation the first time you need it, then reuse that exact term. Cut empty openers such as “it is important to note that.” Point to the voice guide only when the problem is who performs the verb, and to grammar mistakes only when the sentence is actually ungrammatical.
Revision templates (fill with your claim; do not invent data)
Subject + verb first:
Who or what did what. Then the limitation, method, or exception.
Action in the verb:
Not “the implementation of X resulted in Y,” but “X did Y.”
Familiar, then new:
Old information at the start of the sentence. The finding, number, or claim at the end.
Term on first use:
Full name (ABBR), then ABBR. Italics on the first key term that you immediately define (APA §6.22).
Cut, do not decorate:
Delete “the fact that,” “it should be noted that,” and “it is interesting that” (UNC Sciences). Keep the clause that remains.
The American Psychological Association restates Chapter 4 of the Publication Manual (7th ed.) on the student-paper checklist. The handout is dated © 2021 and last updated 8 September 2021. Continuity, conciseness, and clarity are three separate checklist blocks; the jargon sentence is not identical in each.
APA Style student-paper checklist, Continuity (Publication Manual §§4.1–4.3)
Check for continuity in words, concepts, and thematic development across the paper. Explain relationships between ideas clearly. Present ideas in a logical order. Use clear transitions to smoothly connect sentences, paragraphs, and ideas.
APA Style student-paper checklist, Conciseness (Publication Manual §§4.4–4.6)
Choose words and phrases carefully and deliberately. Eliminate wordiness, redundancy, evasiveness, circumlocution, overuse of the passive voice, and clumsy prose.
Do not use jargon, contractions, or colloquialisms.
Avoid overusing both short, simple sentences and long, involved sentences; instead, use varied sentence lengths.
Avoid both single-sentence paragraphs and paragraphs longer than one double-spaced page.
APA Style student-paper checklist, Clarity (Publication Manual §§4.7–4.11)
Use clear and precise language. Use a professional tone and professional language.
Do not use jargon, contractions, colloquialisms, or creative literary devices.
Check for anthropomorphistic language (i.e., attributing human actions to inanimate objects or nonhuman animals).
Make logical comparisons using clear word choice and sentence structure.
What This Page Is For
Use this guide when a draft is grammatical but hard to follow: the verb is a noun, the subject is twelve words away from the action, a familiar word would have done the job, or a number hid inside “various outcomes.” Write for your audience decides how much to explain. Headings and subheadings labels the sections. Revision strategies is the process after the draft exists. Format academic papers is margins, title pages, and typeface. Keep those jobs off this URL.
Every full example below is copied from a page we opened. Invented literacy-program statistics, fake “15% / 22%” gains, and made-up journal sentences from an earlier version of this guide are gone. The 2026-08-26 refresh also treated one Gopen and Swan option as their final rewrite; this version prints the published first sentence, their two trial revisions, and the paragraph they actually settled on. Where a pattern is useful and no official sentence exists, the row is labelled as a template.
Clarity Is Communication, Not Decoration
George D. Gopen and Judith A. Swan’s 1990 American Scientist essay is still the shortest statement of the job. They were rewriting published scientific prose, not simplifying it for the public:
Gopen and Swan, “The Science of Scientific Writing” (1990)
We argue here that complexity of thought need not lead to impenetrability of expression.
The fundamental purpose of scientific discourse is not the mere presentation of information and thought, but rather its actual communication.
It does not matter how pleased an author might be to have converted all the right data into sentences and paragraphs; it matters only whether a large majority of the reading audience accurately perceives what the author had in mind.
UNC’s Word Choice and Style handouts say the same thing to students who are trying to “sound smart”:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice”
But the most important goal of academic writing is not to sound smart—it is to communicate an argument or information clearly and convincingly.
Using simple words does not indicate simple thoughts.
In an academic argument paper, what makes the thesis and argument sophisticated are the connections presented in simple, clear language.
UNC Writing Center, “Style”
First, remember that your goal in academic writing is not to sound intelligent, but to get your intelligent point across.
Choose the Precise Everyday Word
APA §§4.4–4.9 and UNC both reject padding. The scientific-writing handout adds the precision gate that students miss: pick the familiar word only if it does not throw away a technical distinction.
UNC Writing Center, “Scientific Writing”
When given a choice between a familiar and a technical or obscure term, the more familiar term is preferable if it doesn’t reduce precision.
| Complex | Simple |
|---|---|
| efficacious | effective |
| utilize | use |
| elucidate | explain |
| proximal | close |
UNC’s own precision pair shows when the fancy word is the right one. In a methods or results sentence, correlated is a statistical claim. Related is not a synonym:
UNC Sciences (official pair)
Precise:
population density is positively correlated with disease transmission rate
Less precise:
population density is positively related to disease transmission rate
A wrong everyday word is also a clarity failure. UNC Word Choice’s pairs are official; keep both lines in English:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice” — misused word and unwanted connotation
Misused word:
Cree Indians were a monotonous culture until French and British settlers arrived.
Revision:
Cree Indians were a homogenous culture.
Unwanted connotation:
I sprayed the ants in their private places.
Revision:
I sprayed the ants in their hiding places.
Jargon that is there to sound learned is a clarity failure, not a field requirement. UNC’s Word Choice handout gives the pair:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice”
Jargon:
The dialectical interface between neo-Platonists and anti-disestablishment Catholics offers an algorithm for deontological thought.
Revision:
The dialogue between neo-Platonists and certain Catholic thinkers is a model for deontological thought.
A loaded word that the writer never defines is the same problem at paper scale. UNC’s Word Choice pair keeps society from doing unexplained work:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice” — loaded language
Loaded:
Society teaches young girls that beauty is their most important quality. In order to prevent eating disorders and other health problems, we must change society.
Named:
Contemporary American popular media, like magazines and movies, teach young girls that beauty is their most important quality. In order to prevent eating disorders and other health problems, we must change the images and role models girls are offered.
Cut Wordiness Before You Add Emphasis
APA §4.5 names the enemies: wordiness, redundancy, evasiveness, circumlocution, and clumsy prose. UNC’s Word Choice table is the student-facing version of that rule. These substitutions are UNC’s, not ours:
| Wordy | Concise |
|---|---|
| I came to the realization that | I realized that |
| She is of the opinion that | She thinks that |
| Concerning the matter of | About |
| During the course of | During |
| In the event that | If |
| In the process of | During, while |
| Regardless of the fact that | Although |
| Due to the fact that | Because |
| In all cases | Always |
| At that point in time | Then |
| Prior to | Before |
The science handout adds three openers that contribute no information: “the fact that,” “it should be noted that,” and “it is interesting that.” Delete them. If the remaining clause is not worth keeping, the sentence should not have been there.
UNC’s Style handout adds three wordiness habits that Word Choice does not table: a cliché standing in for a claim, a stack of qualifiers, and a redundant pair. These are UNC’s official examples:
UNC Writing Center, “Style” — cliché, qualifiers, redundant pair
Cliché:
France bit off more than it could chew in Vietnam, and America’s intervention was too little, too late.
Revision:
As the French faltered in Vietnam, even American intervention could not save the collapsing regime.
Qualifier stack:
Most people usually think that many puppies are generally pretty cute.
Revision:
Most people think that puppies are cute.
Redundant pair:
Adrienne fulfilled all our hopes and dreams when she saved the whole entire planet.
Revision:
Adrienne fulfilled all our hopes when she saved the planet.
Hedging is the evasiveness APA §4.5 tells you to cut. One cautious verb is scholarship. A stack of “might / possible / perhaps / some” is a writer hiding from a claim. The shape is a template because no official handbook prints this exact pair:
Hedging template (not an official sample sentence)
Evasive:
It might be possible to suggest that there could perhaps be some relationship between these variables.
Appropriately cautious:
The data suggest a relationship between these variables.
Keep the Subject Next to the Verb
This is the failure students hit after they have already “used simple words.” Gopen and Swan’s first reader expectation, and Turabian’s second principle, are the same rule.
Gopen and Swan (1990)
Readers expect a grammatical subject to be followed immediately by the verb.
Anything of length that intervenes between subject and verb is read as an interruption, and therefore as something of lesser importance.
Turabian, Student’s Guide to Writing College Papers, 5th ed., p. 148 (CMOS topic sheet)
Make subjects short and concrete, ideally naming the character that performs the action expressed by the verb that follows.
Avoid interrupting the subject and verb with more than a word or two.
Put key actions in verbs, not in nouns.
Put information familiar to readers at the beginning of a sentence, new information at the end.
Avoid long introductory phrases: get to a short, familiar subject quickly.
Gopen and Swan’s first worked case is a published mitochondrial-genetics sentence. The grammatical subject (The smallest) sits 23 words away from the verb (has been identified). They print the original, then two trial revisions, then the paragraph they actually chose. The science stays; the interruption does not. Keep every line in English:
Gopen and Swan — published first sentence and their revisions
Published original:
The smallest of the URF's (URFA6L), a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.
Trial revision if the 207-nt definition is important:
The smallest of the URF's is URFA6L, a 207-nucleotide (nt) reading frame overlapping out of phase the NH2-terminal portion of the adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) subunit 6 gene; it has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.
Trial revision if that definition is an aside:
The smallest of the URF's (URFA6L) has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene.
The paragraph they settled on (opening):
The smallest of the URF's, URFA6L, has been identified as the animal equivalent of the recently discovered yeast H+-ATPase subunit 8 gene; but the functional significance of other URF's has been more elusive.
UNC Sciences gives the same diagnosis on a methods sentence. The subject (the osmoregulatory organ) and the action (activates / expels) were too far apart, and three verbs said the same job:
UNC Sciences (official pair)
Complex:
The osmoregulatory organ, which is located at the base of the third dorsal spine on the outer margin of the terminal papillae and functions by expelling excess sodium ions, activates only under hypertonic conditions.
Clearer:
Located on the outer margin of the terminal papillae at the base of the third dorsal spine, the osmoregulatory organ expels excess sodium ions under hypertonic conditions.
A long string of prepositional phrases is the same structural problem. UNC Sciences quotes Michael Alley’s 1996 The Craft of Scientific Writing as the “what not to do” case — eleven prepositions in one sentence:
UNC Sciences quoting Alley (1996)
...to confirm the nature of electrical breakdown of nitrogen in uniform fields at relatively high pressures and interelectrode gaps that approach those obtained in engineering practice, prior to the determination of the processes that set the criterion for breakdown in the above-mentioned gases and mixtures in uniform and non-uniform fields of engineering significance.
UNC Style’s Gilligan sentence is the student-facing version of that stack. Circle the prepositions, then ask “Who did what to whom?”:
UNC Writing Center, “Style” — prepositional pile-up
Wordy:
The reason for the failure of the economic system of the island was the inability of Gilligan in finding adequate resources without incurring expenses at the hands of the headhunters on the other side of the island.
Revision:
Gilligan hurt the economic system of the island because he couldn’t find adequate resources without angering the headhunters.
A modifier that attaches to the wrong noun is the same structural problem. UNC’s Word Choice handout uses this pair; it is a dangling modifier, not a vocabulary issue:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice”
Unclear:
Having finished with studying, the pizza was quickly eaten.
Clear:
Having finished with studying, the students quickly ate the pizza.
Put Familiar Information First and New Information Last
Gopen and Swan call the start of the sentence the topic position and the end the stress position. Turabian’s fourth principle is the same rule in student language. This is not a second voice essay: the bees/pollen pair is about whose story the sentence is telling.
Gopen and Swan (1990) — topic position
“Bees disperse pollen” and “Pollen is dispersed by bees” are two different but equally respectable sentences about the same facts. The first tells us something about bees; the second tells us something about pollen.
A sentence is too long when it has more viable candidates for stress positions than there are stress positions available.
They close the essay with seven structural principles. None of them is a readability-formula word limit:
Gopen and Swan (1990) — seven principles
Follow a grammatical subject as soon as possible with its verb.
Place in the stress position the “new information” you want the reader to emphasize.
Place the person or thing whose “story” a sentence is telling at the beginning of the sentence, in the topic position.
Place appropriate “old information” (material already stated in the discourse) in the topic position for linkage backward and contextualization forward.
Articulate the action of every clause or sentence in its verb.
In general, provide context for your reader before asking that reader to consider anything new.
In general, try to ensure that the relative emphases of the substance coincide with the relative expectations for emphasis raised by the structure.
Put the Action in the Verb
Turabian’s third principle — “Put key actions in verbs, not in nouns” — is the nominalization rule. Gopen and Swan state it as “Articulate the action of every clause or sentence in its verb.” UNC Style’s official pairs hide the verb in a noun, then put it back:
UNC Writing Center, “Style” — nominalization and empty opener
Noun-heavy:
The discovery of the aliens was made by the government.
Verb-first:
The government discovered the aliens.
Empty opener:
There is a need for further study of aliens.
Revision:
We need to study aliens further.
Weak verb:
The aliens have a positive effect on our ecosystem.
Stronger verb:
The aliens improve our ecosystem.
APA §4.3 warns about noun strings for the same reason: early childhood language intervention program evaluation protocol forces the reader to unpack the stack. Break it: a protocol for evaluating an early-childhood language-intervention program. That unpacking is a template for the shape, not a claim about a real protocol.
Define Jargon and Abbreviations on First Use
APA §4.9 tells you not to use jargon; APA §§6.24–6.31 tell you how to keep the abbreviations you cannot drop. Nature’s author page is written for professional scientists and still refuses unexplained acronyms.
APA Style student-paper checklist, Abbreviations (Publication Manual §§6.24–6.31)
Use abbreviations sparingly and usually when they are familiar to readers, save considerable space, and appear at least three times in the paper.
Define abbreviations, including abbreviations for group authors, on first use.
APA Style student-paper checklist, Italics (Publication Manual §§6.22–6.23)
Use italics for the first use of key terms or phrases accompanied by a definition.
Nature Portfolio, “How to write your paper”
Keep technical terms to the places where they are needed. Define abbreviations at first use and use them sparingly.
Write clear and direct sentences. Using the active voice (‘we performed the experiment...’) typically helps readers better understand concepts and results described in a paper.
State the main finding clearly. A reader should be able to understand what you found and why it matters from the title and abstract.
Ask a colleague outside your immediate field to read the title and abstract.
UNC Sciences is stricter than “define it once.” Use the technical word only if you will need it more than once. Their example is a real distinction, not a decoration: in a paper that keeps comparing viral strains, enveloped beats “surrounded by a membrane,” but only after you define it. A one-off mention should stay in everyday words.
Be Specific: Numbers Beat “Various Outcomes”
APA §4.10 (logical comparisons) and the UNC science handout both reject comparisons that leave out one side of the pair, and they reject qualitative words when a quantity exists. Do not invent numbers. Use UNC’s official pairs, or a labelled template:
UNC Sciences (official pairs)
Qualitative:
development rate was fastest in the higher temperature treatment
Quantitative:
development rate in the 30°C temperature treatment was ten percent faster than development rate in the 20°C temperature treatment
Figurative:
experimental subjects were assaulted with a wall of sound
Specified:
experimental subjects were presented with 20 second pulses of conspecific mating calls
A logical comparison needs both items on the page. APA §4.10 is the rule behind “more than” and “compared with.” Template shape, not a published result:
Logical-comparison template (APA §4.10 shape)
Incomplete:
Participants in the treatment group scored higher.
Complete:
Participants in the treatment group scored higher than participants in the control group.
Do Not Give the Study Human Verbs
APA §4.11 (anthropomorphism) is a clarity rule, not a style flourish. A theory cannot conclude, a paper cannot believe, and a study cannot collect the data — the authors did. The checklist’s wording is “anthropomorphistic”; quote it as printed. The pair below follows that shape; it is not a published study:
Anthropomorphism template (APA §4.11 shape; not a published study)
Study as actor:
The study collected 40 interviews and concluded that wait times predicted no-shows.
Researchers as actors:
We collected 40 interviews. Wait times predicted no-shows.
Voice is the other half of that diagnosis. The checklist says to use the active voice as much as possible and the passive only when the recipient of the action should come first, and it tells you to use first person for your own work:
APA Style student-paper checklist, Pronouns (Publication Manual §§4.16–4.21)
Use first person pronouns to describe your work and your personal reactions (e.g., “I examined,” “I agreed with”), including your work with coauthors (e.g., “We conducted”).
That decision, including I and we, lives on active vs passive voice. Do not turn this page into a second voice essay.
Keep Lists Parallel and Pronouns Pointed
APA §§6.49–6.52 require items in a list to be parallel. The checklist’s one-line restatement is official:
APA Style student-paper checklist, Lists (Publication Manual §§6.49–6.52)
Ensure items in lists are parallel.
A mixed list is a clarity problem even when every item is grammatical. Template shape:
Parallel-list template (APA §§6.49–6.52 shape)
Not parallel:
The study examined student motivation, how they performed academically, and their satisfaction.
Parallel:
The study examined student motivation, academic performance, and satisfaction.
UNC’s Word Choice handout treats an unclear pronoun as a word-choice failure. Their example is the official pair:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice”
Unclear he / him:
My cousin Jake hugged my brother Trey, even though he didn’t like him very much.
Named:
My cousin Jake hugged my brother Trey, even though Jake doesn’t like Trey very much.
Make the Thesis Carry the Key Terms
Sentence-level clarity starts at the claim. UNC walks through three thesis drafts for a real assigned text, Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Version 3 is stronger because the key terms are named, not because the vocabulary got fancier:
UNC Writing Center, “Word Choice” — Huckleberry Finn theses
Version 1 (vague):
There are many important river and shore scenes in Huckleberry Finn.
Version 2 (clearer destination):
The contrasting river and shore scenes in Huckleberry Finn suggest a return to nature.
Version 3 (key terms in the claim):
Through its contrasting river and shore scenes, Twain’s Huckleberry Finn suggests that to find the true expression of American democratic ideals, one must leave “civilized” society and go back to nature.
Build or test that sentence with the thesis-statement generator only after you can name the key terms. The longer process lives in how to write a thesis statement.
Paragraph Length and Transitions
APA §4.6 is more specific than “keep paragraphs short.” Do not write a one-sentence paragraph, and do not let a paragraph run longer than one double-spaced page. Vary sentence length instead of writing a page of 40-word sentences or a page of eight-word sentences. Continuity (§§4.1–4.3) is the other half: reuse the key terms you just defined, and write the relationship (however, therefore, for example) instead of hoping the next heading will do it.
| Job | Typical signals |
|---|---|
| Addition | also, and, furthermore |
| Contrast | but, however, in contrast |
| Result | so, therefore, as a result |
| Example | for example, for instance, specifically |
| Sequence | first, then, finally |
Discipline Notes Without a Second Guide
The rule does not change by field. What counts as a precise word does.
- Sciences and medicine. UNC’s science handout: quantify, drop metaphors (“a wall of sound”), and keep subject and verb together. Nature wants the finding in the title and abstract, active voice as the default, and abbreviations defined once.
- Social and behavioral sciences. APA Chapter 4 is written for you. Watch anthropomorphism, first person for your own actions, and logical comparisons. Bias-free language is Chapter 5, not a clarity trick.
- Humanities. UNC’s Huckleberry Finn theses are the model: name the key terms in the claim, then keep using those terms. Theoretical vocabulary is allowed when you will use it more than once and define it on first use.
How to Catch Unclear Sentences
UNC’s Word Choice, Style, and Reorganizing Drafts handouts still teach the fastest checks for a buried verb.
- Read the draft aloud, slowly. UNC Word Choice: if a sentence does not make sense to you or to a listener, rewrite it. Stumbles are structural, not “style.”
- Reverse-outline after you draft. UNC’s Reorganizing Drafts handout: after the draft exists, list what each paragraph is actually doing, then test that list against the thesis. Their Huckleberry Finn example is the same claim as the Word Choice thesis.
- Ask a reader outside the subfield. Nature tells authors to have a colleague outside the immediate field read the title and abstract. If that reader cannot say what you found, the sentences are still presenting information instead of communicating it.
- Skim the first seven or eight words of every sentence. Turabian’s check: a short, concrete subject should already be visible. If it is not, the sentence starts too late.
UNC Writing Center, “Reorganizing Drafts”
A “reverse” outline is one you make after you have written a draft.
The reverse outline will help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both your organization and your argument.
Clarity checklist (APA §4 + Turabian + UNC + Gopen and Swan)
- Subject and verb are within a word or two of each other
- The action is a verb, not a noun ending in -tion
- Familiar information is at the start; the new claim is at the end
- The sentence tells one story (topic position) and stresses one new point
- Every abbreviation and key term is defined on first use
- A familiar word replaced a fancy one wherever precision survived
- Comparisons name both sides; quantities replace “various” and “higher”
- Studies and theories do not collect, conclude, or believe
- Lists are parallel; every they / this / it has one noun
- No paragraph is one sentence; none is longer than a double-spaced page
- The draft still makes sense when read aloud
Finish the sentence, then check the marks
Clarity is word choice and sentence shape. Use the grammar checker for agreement and comma splices, and the paraphrase checker when a source sentence is still too close to the original. Voice decisions stay on the voice guide.
Related guides
- Active vs Passive Voice in Academic Writing
- Common Grammar Mistakes in Academic Writing
- How to Write for Your Audience
- Revision Strategies for Academic Writing
- Headings and Subheadings
- How to Write a Thesis Statement
Frequently asked questions
- How do I write more clearly in an academic paper?
- Put a short concrete subject next to a verb that names the real action, then place new information at the end of the sentence. APA 7 §§4.4–4.6 call that conciseness; Turabian p. 148 and Gopen and Swan call it meeting reader expectations. Define technical terms once. Cut empty openers.
- Is jargon always wrong in academic writing?
- No. APA §4.9 and Nature both reject unexplained jargon, not field vocabulary. UNC Sciences says to keep the technical word when you will use it more than once and it is more precise (correlated rather than related; enveloped rather than “surrounded by a membrane”). Define it on first use.
- How long should an academic sentence or paragraph be?
- APA §4.6 does not set a word count. It forbids a diet of only short sentences or only long ones, forbids one-sentence paragraphs, and forbids paragraphs longer than one double-spaced page. Gopen and Swan add that a sentence is too long when it has more stress-worthy claims than stress positions. If a sentence needs more than one idea, split it after the first verb has done its job.
- Should I use I or we to write more clearly?
- APA §§4.16–4.17 tell you to use I or we for your own actions (“I examined,” “We conducted”) instead of “the researcher” or “this paper.” That is a voice and person decision. Use the active vs passive voice guide; do not hide the actor in a nominalization on this page.
- What is anthropomorphism in APA Style?
- APA §4.11: do not give human actions to inanimate objects or to nonhuman animals. A theory can address a question; it cannot conclude. A study cannot collect interviews. Name the researchers. The official checklist spells the adjective “anthropomorphistic.”
- How do I fix a wordy academic sentence?
- Delete the UNC Word Choice list first (“due to the fact that” → “because”; “at that point in time” → “then”). Then ask Turabian’s three checks: Is the subject short? Is the action a verb? Is the new information at the end? If a stack of hedges remains, keep one cautious verb.
- What is a nominalization, and why does it hurt clarity?
- A nominalization is an action parked in a noun (implementation, improvement, discovery). Turabian p. 148, Gopen and Swan, and UNC Style all tell you to put that action back in the verb. UNC’s official pair is “The discovery of the aliens was made by the government” → “The government discovered the aliens.”
- Do I have to define every abbreviation?
- APA §§6.24–6.31: define an abbreviation on first use, and usually only if it will appear at least three times and save space. Do not define dictionary abbreviations (AIDS, IQ) or standard units. Nature adds that after the first definition you can often use a pronoun instead of repeating the acronym in every sentence.
- What is the topic position versus the stress position?
- Gopen and Swan: the first words tell the reader whose story the sentence is (“Bees disperse pollen” is about bees; “Pollen is dispersed by bees” is about pollen). The last words receive the emphasis. Put old information first and the new claim last. That is Turabian’s fourth principle in different words.
- How is this different from the grammar and audience guides?
- This page rewrites grammatical sentences that are still hard to read. Grammar mistakes fixes agreement, splices, and fragments. Write for your audience decides how much to explain and which terms the venue already knows. You often need all three, in that order.