Essay writing
To write a good academic essay, we need to work through three major stages.
Source: UTS
Mouseover the Essay writing tab above to see more on writing (argumentative) essays.
Structuring your essay
Essay structure and thesis statement (with key)
Outlining is essential to writing a well-organised essay:
Essay outlining (with key)
Outline template -- use this to plan your essay
After you finish writing, reverse outlining can help you to check that you've structured your essay well. It's also a great technique for understanding complex texts. Here's another guide to reverse outlining.
Thesis statements
Developing Strong Thesis Statements (Purdue OWL)
Try this worksheet on constructing thesis statements.
Rhetorical moves
In academic writing, we are always building on the arguments of others (thus the need to always cite what others have written). Graff and Birkenstein, the authors of "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, liken this to entering an ongoing conversation. Copy or download this list of writing frames (courtesy of Dave Stuart Jr.) from their book to help you shape your argument.
Below are some possible rhetorical moves for writing argumentative and scientific papers (Macknish, 2010). Not all are obligatory.
Cohesion and coherence
Cohesion (with key)
More transitions can be found in the document above ('They say/I say').
Other resources (language use, editing, referencing)
Features of academic writing (e.g. hedging)
Academic Phrasebank ("aims to provide you with examples of some of the phraseological ‘nuts and bolts’ of writing organised according to the main sections of a research paper or dissertation")
Editing checklist (plenty of time must be reserved for editing and proofreading, which also includes checking your references)
More academic writing resources