ABSTRACT
The academic essay is the wrong place to experiment with writing styles; save the experimentation for a creative writing class or private notebooks, letters, emails or text messages. It is difficult to lay down guidelines about what is acceptable in this respect, but it is important to develop an ear for the appropriate language to use. While text message abbreviations are effective in text messages, and some journalistic writing and advertising copywriting too, they are completely inappropriate in a student essay. One way of developing sensitivity to academic writing and markers’ expectations is to look at other students’ essays, preferably alongside the feedback received from markers. The commonest mistakes that students make are leaving the apostrophe out altogether, writing phrases such as ‘Hardys novel’ rather than ‘Hardy’s novel’. One of the easiest ways to make our writing more direct is to eliminate passive constructions.
