Academic Phrasebank

The University of Manchester's Academic Phrasebank is a brilliant resource for academic writing, providing extensive examples of the many different structures and phrases you need to employ to express yourself clearly in writing. Have a browse, or search by language function for specific phrases used for defining terms, giving examples, describing trends, or whatever your writing purpose happens to be. Have a look at the sample to give you an idea.

Structure of a paragraph

At H.E level you are likely to be writing longer assignments than you have before, and due to the complexity of the material it can often be tempting to throw all your ideas together on the page. Good academic writing, however, needs to be clear and easy to read as well as communicating ideas at a high level. Paragraphs serve a key function here. This resource from Eden Skills helps you remember the simple rule of one point per paragraph. It shows how to structure a paragraph so that you are not combining too much information at one time.

Critical vs descriptive writing

As you progress further with your studies your writing approach will need to become more critical than descriptive, as you begin to engage with your discipline on an analytical level. This resource from the University of Plymouth shows the difference between writing which is only descriptive, and writing which is critical - and which will enable you to achieve the highest marks at H.E level.

Components of an academic style

The Academic Writing page from the University of Leeds is useful in explaining how academic English differs from your normal, every day language. For example, remember to avoid using contractions (saying it's instead of it is), and that personal pronouns (I, we) are not normally appropriate in academic writing.

Grammar and Punctuation help

This brilliant grammar and punctuation tutorial from the University of Bristol provides a comprehensive review of the essential punctuation for academic writing, and explains those all too common confusions such as 'there', 'their' and 'they're'.

Spending an hour working through the exercises on this site is a really worthwhile way to boost your formal writing and will help you not just in college but when writing in your professional life too. Alternatively, if there's one area you're particularly confused about you can navigate straight there for clear explanations and examples.