Academic words

[zaed_salah]

Hello Teachers

I've reead in a topic that academic writing do not uses verbs much, and it's perferable to use nouns and adjective, is that correct?.
Also, is it better to use grammar rules as much as I can like; passive, conditional .., or just writing simple direct sentences will be enough?

Thank you all

[river]

In general, the best writing is simple and direct. Don't use a clause if a phrase will do; don't use a phrase if a word will do. Choosing strong verbs streamline and strengthen sentences:"The machine pulverizes the ore" rather than "the machine crushes the ore into fine bits."

[nyggus]

Hi, Zaed_salah & River:

Academic writing has its own rules: it is enough to read several academic papers to notice it. However, the language depends on a topic you're working on. I suppose that I don't have to convince you that academicians working on English literature will use different language than academicians working on mathematics, agriculture, or medicine. Each such group has its own peculiar language, which is a bit different than "other languages." This is why a professional English editor who is not the expert in a particular academic field may fail to correct an article, although it is written in English.

In general, scientists try to use simple language. This is because it helps the non-native English reader understand the paper. If your paper contains numerous idioms, long phrases that can be rephrased in a shorten way, prepositions, or proverbs, it would be less understandable to most of the possible readers: they have to focus then on understanding both the topic and the language. However, my personal opinion is that even in academic writing it is good to add some idioms and interesting sentence structures: the academic writing and language must not become the "most ugly language on the world": this is language of science! Another problem here is that non-native academicians have to pay much of their attention to learning of English, which sometimes does not give them much pleasure.

Best,
Nyggus

[Tdol]

Avoiding excessively long sentences is one thing, and a good one, but the structure of academic writing is almost never that simple- the reader will get bored of simplistic sentence structure.

[river]

"Simple" and "simplistic" are not synonymous. I find that most bad ideas are hidden in complicated language. In fact, an idea that can't be translated into terms the rest of us can understand is probably wrong.