• Sentence types
  
  There are four types of sentences in English: simple, compound, complex and compound-complex.
  
  
  • Simple sentences consist of one independent clause (that is to say, at least a subject and a verb and, perhaps, an object, complement or adverbial).
    
    

    Slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1863.

    
    
    
  • Compound sentences consist of two independent clauses joined by a conjunction (and, or, so, but, etc.).
    
    

    Slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1863 but was still widely practised until the end of 1865.

    
    
    
  • Complex sentences consist of one independent clause and one dependent clause linked by a subordinating conjunction (when, if, because, since, before, although, etc.).
    
    

    Although slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1863, it was still widely practised until the end of 1865.

    
    
    
  • Compound-complex sentences contain more than one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
    
    

    Although slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1863, it was still widely practised until the end of 1865 and racial bias still pervades American society today.

  
  
  
• Sentence length
  
  Well-written texts are made up of sentences of different lengths: short, medium and long. If you write too many long sentences, readers may feel overwhelmed by the excess detail and be unable to identify the important points. If you write too many short sentences, readers again may be unable to identify the important points and your text will sound childish.
  
  
• Sentence openers
  
  Sentence openers are any structures in the initial position of a sentence. They can give writing greater sophistication and help maintain readers’ interest. In his book The Craft of Scientific Writing, Michael Alley defined seven different types (Alley, 1996).
   
  
  • Subject-verb
    
    

    Slavery was abolished in 1863.

    
    
    
  • Prepositional phrases
    
    

    In the Deep South, the Ku Klux Klan was set up as a vigilante justice system in 1865.

    
    
    
  • Transitional words
    
    

    However, the organization was suppressed in 1872.

    
    
    
  • Introductory subordinate clauses
    
    

    Although the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery, it did not change the basic power relations between African Americans and whites.

    
    
    
  • Infinitive phrases
    
    

    To fully understand the influence of racial bias on the 2016 election, we measured anti-immigrant sentiment and racial resentment separately.

    
    
    
  • Participle phrases
    
    

    Summarizing the work of numerous political scientists, the author claims that the decisive factor in the electoral victory was racial resentment.

    
    
    
  • Verb
    
    

    Note that the victorious candidate never distanced himself from the opinions of white supremacist leaders.

    
    To see the importance of sentence type, sentence length and sentence openers, take a look at the following text (from Alley, 1996), in which there is very little variety.
    
    

    Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. A cloud of hot rock and gas surged northward from its collapsing slope. The cloud devastated more than 500 square kilometers of forests and lakes. The effects of Mount St. Helens were well documented with geophysical instruments. The origin of the eruption is not well understood. Volcanic explosions are driven by a rapid expansion of steam. Some scientists believe that the steam comes from groundwater heated by magma. Other scientists believe the steam comes from water originally dissolved in the magma. We have to understand the source of steam in volcanic eruptions. We have to determine how much water the magma contains.

    
    
    All the sentences are of the same type (simple), all are of approximately the same length (short/medium) and all open in the same way (subject-verb). This means that readers pause at very regular intervals and the greater stress that is naturally given to the subject falls in exactly the same place, thus creating an extremely monotonous rhythm. Now compare it to the following revised version.
    
    

    Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. Its slope collapsing, the mountain emitted a cloud of hot rock and gas and, within minutes, the cloud had devastated more than 500 square kilometers of forests and lakes. Although the effects of the eruption were well documented, the origin is not well understood. Volcanic explosions are driven by a rapid expansion of steam and, recently, there has been considerable debate over the source of this steam. Is it groundwater heated by the magma or water originally dissolved in the magma itself? To understand the source of steam in volcanic explosions, we have to determine how much water the magma contains.

    
    
    The revised text above has a much more varied rhythm because it exploits the variables of sentence type, length and opener. The first sentence is simple, short and has a subject-verb opener. The second sentence is compound, long and opens with a participle phrase. The third sentence is complex, medium length and opens with a subordinate conjunction. And so on.

• Express characters in subjects and actions in verbs
  
  In an affirmative or negative sentence
  
  
  • the grammatical subject is the noun (or nouns) before the verb, and
    
    
  • the characters are the nouns that express the concepts, people or things you are writing about.
  
  
  Readers will understand a text more easily if its grammatical subjects are also frequently characters. For example, the following text feels dense for two reasons.
  
  

  Between 1980 and 2005, the evolution of the banking industry observed a significant growth of the savings bank sector but has since then witnessed the virtual disappearance of the savings bank.

  
  Firstly, the grammatical subject of the verb is not a character. The author is writing not about an evolution (the grammatical subject) but about the banking industry and the savings bank sector (the characters of the text). Secondly, the actions done by these characters are expressed in the form of nouns (evolution, growth, disappearance). Most readers will understand the sentence more easily if you make the characters the grammatical subjects of the actions they do.
  
  

  Between 1980 and 2005, the banking industry evolved in such a way that the savings bank sector grew significantly but since then this sector has virtually disappeared.

  
  This process of expressing the action of a sentence in the form of a noun and not in the form of a verb is known as nominalization and, although it can be used to good effect on occasion, it should be avoided when it forces an abstraction that is not a character into subject position.  
  
  

  The separation of the components of a mixture is made with chromatographic techniques and the identification of organic compounds is carried out with spectroscopic techniques.

  
  

  The components of a mixture are separated with chromatographic techniques and organic compounds are identified with spectroscopic techniques.

  
  
  
• Keep the subject short
  
  Readers will understand a sentence more easily if the subject of the verb is short and concrete or a familiar abstraction and if the longer, more complex information comes after the verb.  
  
  

  Novel nutritional technologies and innovative techniques for optimizing yield and increasing profit in a context of increasing production expenses is the subject of the section below.

  
  

  The section below discusses novel nutritional technologies and innovative techniques for optimizing yield and increasing profit in a context of increasing production expenses.

  
  
  
• Keep the subject towards the beginning of the sentence
  
  Position the subject of the main verb towards the beginning of a sentence. Too much information before the subject will overload the reader.
  
  

  Citing the example of a 17-year-old student who was working 35 hours a week in a well-known burger chain restaurant so that he could pay for a new car while simultaneously studying full-time for his university entrance examinations at the local secondary school, Dr Smith urged for greater communication between parents and educational institutions.

  
  

  Urging for greater communication between parents and educational institutions, Dr Smith cited the example of a 17-year-old student who was working 35 hours a week in a well-known burger chain restaurant so that he could pay for a new car while simultaneously studying full-time for his university entrance examinations at the local secondary school.

  
  In the first text above, the subject of the main clause (in bold) is the forty-fifth word. In the second, it is the tenth. Readers find it much easier to understand long pieces of text if they appear after the subject and the verb rather than before them.
  
  
• Maintain the subject-verb-object connection
  
  The essential elements of an English sentence are the subject, the verb and the object. Those sentences that keep these elements together tend to be clearer than those that separate them.  
  
  

  Dr Jan Wilkinson, despite criticism from both within her discipline and without, defended her thesis on notional groups in her next paper.

  
  

  Despite criticism from both within her discipline and without, Dr Jan Wilkinson defended her thesis on notional groups in her next paper.

  
  
  
• Respect end focus
  
  End focus is the principle that the new or most important information in a clause or sentence comes at the end. The following sentence is the last one from a thesis on juice concentration processes.
  
  

  The main conclusions are that low values of retention and permeate flux are the causes of the problems in juice concentration processes.

  
  The information is not in the correct order. Juice concentration is the topic of the research, it is announced in the title (Juice Concentration: Problems and Solutions) and is, therefore, a major character throughout the text, so the final sentence should position it, as a major character, in subject position and then go on to provide some information about it after the main verb. The aim of the sentence is to communicate what problems juice concentration involves, so this information should be placed in the focus position.
  
  

  The main conclusions are that the causes of problems in juice concentration processes are the low values of retention and permeate flux.

  
  Likewise, in the following text the author sets up an expectation in the first sentence – that the number of sensors is important – but then buries the information that responds to this expectation in the middle of the following sentence.
  
  

  The tests showed that not all of the sensors helped to monitor the ripening process. In fact, for purposes of classification, with two sensors best results were achieved.

  
  The principle of end focuses requires a second sentence such as the following.
  
  

  The tests showed that not all of the sensors helped to monitor the ripening process. In fact, for purposes of classification, results were best with just two.

Figure 1. Indenting

Another way is to leave a complete blank line between one paragraph and the next.

Figure 2. Blank lines

• Exploit repetition
  
  One way to make text cohesive is to repeat words, to repeat ideas using different words (synonyms) or to refer back to previous ideas using pronouns or shell nouns (see example text below). Repetition, particularly of characters in subject position, and constant reference back to previous information gives text a sense of unity and focus.
  
  
• Use transitions
  
  Transitions are words and phrases that signal relationships between ideas. They can be used to good effect at the beginning of sentences to make text flow but, be careful, they cannot replace good organization. One of the dangers of transitions is to use too many of them.  
  
  

  Addition	Cause/effect	Sequence
  Also	Because	First/In the first place
  Again	Since	Second/In the second place
  Then	Thus	Third
  In addition	As a result	Next
  Moreover	Therefore	Finally

  
  
  

  Contrast	Example	Summary
  In contrast	For example	To conclude
  However	For instance	To sum up
  Although	By way of example	In conclusion
  Despite	In this case	In brief
  On the other hand	Namely	In the final analysis

  
  
  
• Move from old information to new
  
  Text is more readily understood if writers begin their sentences with old or familiar information and then go on to add something new or unfamiliar. The old/familiar information comes from two sources: (a) the sentences readers have just read, and (b) readers’ knowledge of the subject. This principle goes hand in hand with the principles of characters as subjects and end focus. As soon as writers have stated their main characters (normally towards the beginning of the text), readers will accept them as familiar information, so when characters are regularly placed at the beginning of sentences, the information naturally flows from old to new.

• General considerations
  
  In miniature, the title of your humanities paper should reflect four aspects of your academic writing skills that will continue to be important in the rest of the paper: your summary skills, your ability to write for a specific community, your authorial voice and your intention to make an original contribution to the field.
  
  The title shows your summary skills by describing the subject of the paper clearly and concisely. When your paper is an analysis, you may be able to do this in just a few words.
  
  

  Cycles of Neglect in Hideo Tanaka’s Dark Water

  
  But when it reports on a procedure or describes a specific project, the title may need to be longer.
  
  

  Subtitling Flamenco for Netflix: Creating the Subtitles and Pivot Language Dialogue List for the Documentary Flamencas: mujeres, fuerza y duende

  
  Whatever its length, aim for a title that avoids unnecessary words. For example, the following titles describe the main ideas in the paper but are rather long.
  
  

  Robert Rauschenberg’s use of the painting Bed to examine the concept and practice of portraiture The relationship between moments of sadness and pleasure in the novels of J. P. Donleavy

  
  You can shorten the phrases by removing any unnecessary words to get better titles.
  
  

  Rauschenberg’s Bed as an Examination of Portraiture Sadness and Pleasure in J. P. Donleavy

  
  After summary skills, your title should reflect your ability to address your particular academic community, also called your discourse community. This means showing you are familiar with the concepts customarily discussed by members of the community and successfully including the academic terms they use. To indicate this knowledge and ability, the second title above might be slightly revised.
  
  

  Sadness and the Notion of Jouissance in J. P. Donleavy

  
  Second, show you know what is expected of you by the community in more general terms. For example, because research indicates that papers with shorter titles can get more citations and are easier to understand (Letchford et al, 2015), short titles are valued by academics in general. You may only be planning to publish this paper as a final project in your university repository, but the reader will value your short title as attention to good academic practices.
  
  After summary skills and familiarity with your discourse community, the title should reflect your authorial voice: the style and features of your writing that distinguish it from other people’s. This may sound daunting if you are just beginning your academic career, but in practice you can start simply by adding a detail that is originally yours but also fits with what your discourse community would expect. For example, you could give authorial voice to the title above by rewording it to remind the reader of something that was typical of Donleavy, namely his habit of giving novels alliterative titles (The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, The Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman, etc.).
  
  

  The Joyless Jouissance of J. P. Donleavy

  
  Speaking directly to your discourse community and working on your authorial voice are also closely connected to the fourth and last aspect that your title should reflect: your intention to make an original contribution to research. In fact, the three often go together.
  
  

  From Charlie to Evan and Bach Again: Improvisation as a Constant in Musical Practice

  
  The title above comes from a paper defending the musical genre known as free jazz. In it, the writer proposes that free jazz musicians today use the same techniques that classical musicians used in other periods of history and that, for this reason, their music deserves similar critical attention. The paper therefore clearly addresses a discourse community (scholars of musicology) and sets itself a task (to convince the sceptics). But to argue the case, the writer will quickly need to assert their knowledge of the subject and find an authorial voice, and this is where the title is important. In the example above, the writer asserts their knowledge by choosing as examples of free players two well-known musicians who happen to have the same family name (Charlie Parker, who will be known by specialists and non-specialists alike, and Evan Parker, who only specialists or enthusiasts will recognize) so that they can omit the name and make the reader call it up from their own specialist knowledge – or to be more precise, make the reader appreciate that they, the writer, know enough to engineer the coincidence in the first place. And second, as in the J. P. Donleavy title earlier in this page, they create a sense of voice by engaging in wordplay (where “Bach” refers to both Johann Sebastian Bach and the word “back” in the common phrase “and back again”).

• Give your opinions
  
  This project is an opportunity for you to develop and discuss your own ideas. Unlike other disciplines, such as the pure sciences – in which the expression of personal opinion is not conventionally expected or even accepted in written texts – in the humanities you should feel free to state your own opinions clearly and unambiguously (by using forms such as in my view, I think, I believe or my opinion is). In fact, if you do not put forward your own opinions, it might appear that you are simply summarizing other people’s views.
  
  

  The arguments set out in the above articles, in my own view, do not provide an entirely satisfactory analysis of this question. Unlike these authors, I believe that it is essential to look closely at the painter’s very early works if we are to fully understand her influences.

  
  
• Give the specialists’ view too
  
  But, as an important part of academic discussion, you also need to present your ideas with reference to the critical opinions expressed in the literature of your own field (e.g., published academic studies such as monographic works, chapters or journal articles). You do not have to agree with these studies; in fact, you might want to express your absolute disagreement with them, but you do need to present your ideas in the company of these recognized sources.
  
  

  Specialists such as Keegan (1984); Carpenter and Elliot (2007); and Reeves (2010; 2012) have argued that Neanderthal wall paintings have little or no aesthetic function. However, this final project will propose, in keeping with Wragg Sykes (2020), that this is no longer a sustainable position.

• Critical writing takes into account not just one but a range of sources.
  
  
• Critical writing examines and assesses its sources.

• Is my argument sufficiently supported by other sources? Have I (or have any of my sources) made claims that have no evidence?
  
  
• Am I limiting my sources and my own analysis to only one point of view? Am I taking distinct and maybe contradictory opinions into account?
  
  
• Am I adequately examining my own opinion and those of my sources? Do I clearly indicate the strengths and weaknesses of these views?
  
  
• Are these sources reliable? Are they recognized within my own academic area?
  
  
• Are these sources and their opinions relevant to my topic?
  
  
• Are these ideas sufficiently recent?
  
  
• Am I presenting all sides of the argument in a balanced way? Do I give too much emphasis to one point of view?
  
  
• Am I being honest about the limitations of my own opinion? (It is valid and responsible to accept that a view, however compelling, might need more evidence or discussion?)

• Cohesion. A paragraph should be about a specific topic, announced in the opening sentence and discussed by all following sentences.  
  
  
• A clear structure. There are many ways of organizing the sentences, depending on your own discussion (chronology, order of importance, etc.), but the order should be clear and easily understandable. This will guide your reader through your argument and force you to stay relevant.
  
  
• Coherence. This refers to the ways in which the sentences relate to each other through transition words (for example, indicating order, contrast, continuation, logic, etc.). Other elements of coherence include using the same tense in each sentence and ensuring that the dominant point of view (yours, a critical source, etc.) is the same throughout.
  
  
• Roundedness. A rounded paragraph is one that clearly establishes its topic and develops that topic through well-connected sentences. But it also means that the sentences suitably perform the function of introducing, discussing, supporting and concluding the paragraph topic, which basically means that a good academic paragraph should have at least four sentences.

This discussion considers the marginalisation of the Porter sisters’ contribution to Walter Scott’s historical novels, a marginalisation arguably caused by Scott himself. It is relevant to remark that, unlike Scott, the sisters have now almost entirely fallen into what Clifford Siskin termed “the Great Forgetting”. But this also leads me to consider how literary history is written, how women novelists are silenced and, perhaps, how the traditional subjects of women’s fiction are assumed to be strictly domestic.   However, the foundation for the Porter-Scott rift that I am discussing here is actually the nature of childhood, and how its recording and recollection is partisan and partial. This debate ought to be primarily literary; instead, it has conventionally been presented as an overly sentimental reaction by the Porters to perceived slights and disloyalties. Or, to express this in a more nineteenth-century way, “Ladies who assume masculine functions must learn to assume masculine gravity and impartiality” (Phillips, C. S. M., The Edinburgh Review, 1849, p. 436).

• Avoiding redundancy (e.g., “each and every”; “first and foremost”; “true and veridical”)  
  
  
• Avoiding repetition (e.g., stating the same opinion more than once in a single section)
  
  
• Eliminating unnecessary qualifiers (e.g., “very”; “really”)
  
  
• Replacing phrases by a single word (e.g., “in light of the fact that…” by “because”)
  
  
• Keeping sentences as short as possible, and avoiding complex dependent clauses

The object of this chapter, which forms part of the second section of this dissertation and which begins the more analytical phase of this project, is to look at the evidence for the use of the phrase-initial adverbial ‘so’ as a marker of academic discourse. This chapter is very important in the overall work presented here due to the fact that it presents the part of the project in which a close analysis of evidence is carried out.

This chapter (2.1) begins the analytical part of the project; it assesses evidence for the use of the phrase-initial adverbial ‘so’ as a marker of academic discourse.

• Avoid lengthy quotations. Summarizing the source is a more effective way of using it if you need to refer to an extensive amount of text.
  
  
• Be careful if you are incorporating the quotation into the structure of your own sentence. Whatever source you use, it must be grammatically coherent with the sentence in which it appears.  
  
  
• Avoid using snippets of quotation within a single sentence. This will appear as clumsy writing on your part and suggests that you have not adequately integrated the source into your own text.
  
  
• Do not modify the primary text without indicating this. Modification includes modernizing spelling, changing capital letters, adding emphasis (italics, bold, underline) or altering the word for grammatical reasons. If the original quotation contains an error, that must also be indicated using the Latin adverb sic meaning “thus” or “just as” (from the full form sic erat scriptum, “thus was it written”). Otherwise, it might be assumed that the error is your own.
  
  
• Always give precise bibliographical indications of the source material, either in parenthesis or as a footnote. Fuller details must also be given in the bibliography. The reader should be able to access this source material on the basis of the references that you provide.
  
  
• Ensure that all quotation – short or long – conforms strictly to the writing format applicable to your end-of-degree project (MLA, Chicago, etc.).

• Avoid lengthy citation, which will distract from your own text and make it appear less important. Again, summarizing is more effective if you need to refer to a substantial amount of text.
  
  
• Ensure the grammatical coherence of the citation that you use, if it is incorporated into your sentence.  
  
  
• Fully indicate any modification that you make to the cited source.
  
  
• Provide complete bibliographical reference.
  
  
• Ensure that all citations are correctly formatted.
  
  
• Except for sources that are of major and ongoing importance to your field, ensure that your sources are as contemporary as possible. (See Writing critically and consult your tutor or supervisor.)

• Do not simply repeat yourself in an attempt to close your discussion with a list of points you have already raised.  
  
  
• Avoid introducing new ideas; all significant contributions regarding the subject at hand should have already been mentioned in your discussion.
  
  
• Summarize what you have discussed, mention and evaluate the most important points you have raised throughout your analysis and suggest the impact these might have beyond your research and on the wider context.  
  
  
• Avoid including lengthy quotations. If you want to draw attention to a pivotal critic of the work you are analysing, someone who has heavily featured throughout your paper, try to paraphrase their ideas instead of directly citing them.
  
  
• Do not forget about your title. It is easy to get lost in the discussion as you discover new aspects about your chosen topic that are exciting and inspiring. For example, write the final project’s title in large letters and stick it above your writing station for the duration of your assessment. This will serve as a visual reminder of what you need to focus on.

Buñuel was a communist atheist who opposed the Spanish government, a stance he made obvious through his film Tristana. Don Lope’s murder represents the fall of the government and power for oppressed peoples. By the end of the film, Tristana is free but she still has challenges to face and overcome. The amputation of her leg is a metaphor for pain and struggle, but the new prosthesis gives her power to recover. The film is one of Buñuel’s best.

The amputation of her leg is a metaphor for pain and struggle, but the new prosthesis gives her power to recover.

Buñuel was a communist atheist who opposed the Spanish government, a stance he made obvious through his film Tristana.

It is important to recall that Tristana is a film made by a communist atheist who stood against everything the patriarchal Spanish order represented for society at that time. Spain was still emerging from a harsh dictatorship during the late 1970s, a situation Buñuel reflected on and referred to symbolically throughout the film, employing different narrative and audiovisual techniques to do so. Whilst extreme, the protagonist’s murder of Don Lope is also a figurative dethroning of the oppressor of all individuals under similar circumstances; those oppressed in personal relationships, by institutions or by their surroundings. The young protagonist eventually achieves freedom, but as the film’s final montage suggests, society’s conditioning is unavoidable and the spectator cannot overlook the societal and political challenges still to be overcome. The amputation, as read through different contexts presented in the film, stands to represent a crippled nation; a country set to achieve emancipation but at the cost of war and loss. However, the prosthesis, which is gained, represents strength and courage against the oppressor. Buñuel’s aim was to challenge his audience to question the world they live in, and Tristana exemplifies this call for criticism, reaction and rebellion. The film also serves as a point of reference for political criticism in twenty-first-century cinema, which begs the question as to whether films are still capable of such an artistic commentary. Subtlety is an art form in itself, but in today’s politically-polarized society where such subliminal messages are no longer necessary, do filmmakers still draw on these powerful artistic techniques to get under their audience’s skin?

García Márquez comments on the “discovery of a genuine world that I never expected inside of me” (García Márquez, 247) when he read James Joyce’s Ulysses, and the immediate impact Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis had upon him, literary proof that translations are vital to the continual development and evolution of style and ideas.

García Márquez, Gabriel. Living to tell the Tale, translated by Edith Grossman. New York: Knopf, 2003.

“...elidida en la novela, la boda cobra una presencia extraordinaria en el filme, donde es escenificada como boda negra —caracterización a la que contribuye la escenografía de funeral— en sintonía con una vinculación entre la boda y la muerte recurrente en el texto buñueliano.”

In contrast to Poyato Sánchez, who suggests the wedding can be seen as representing a funeral and the death of Tristana’s freedom (Poyato, 743) given the black outfits and tearful statues, the wedding could also be seen as a positive step for Tristana; a public demonstration of empowerment.

Smith declares... Smith argues that... Smith believes that... The work of Smith shows that... As Smith indicates... As Smith implies... As Smith suggests... Smith thinks that... Smith addresses the fact that...

• General considerations
  
  In all the ambits, while it might be tempting to submit your final project as soon as you have inserted the final full stop, do not be so quick to forget about it completely!
  
  When you start planning the project, look at how much time you have before the hand-in date. Leave yourself a few days between finishing your draft and submitting the finished paper to read through your work with fresh, critical eyes. This will give you time to take a step back from your work and spot any mistakes, add important information you may have overlooked or take out anything you now deem to be redundant.
  
  This process is known as editing and is an essential part of publication. It might seem daunting at first, but it increases the academic quality of your work. It is much easier to criticize and make improvements to your writing than it is to create content from scratch. The bulk of the work is done, now this is your chance to polish it off.
  
  Finally, print out your project. This helps you see your writing with fresh eyes, as if it were written by someone else. Take a different coloured pen and do not be afraid to cross things out or add comments to the page. Visualizing the editing process before you make and save your changes will help guide you through the process.
  
  
• Structure
  
  When you first start the editing process, focus on the overarching structure of the project. Make sure your discussion presents your ideas in a logical order, that it flows through your argument and leads the reader to a coherent conclusion. Do not be afraid to rearrange your paragraphs, perhaps turning two shorter paragraphs into one paragraph or cutting out unnecessary introductions to create space for more valuable content. If you do this, however, read through the project again to ensure your new order flows logically.
  
  
• Content
  
  It is common to finish a draft over the word limit, but that limit exists for a reason. Concise writing is an art form, and even if you have not managed it so far, editing your work tightens up your ideas and leaves you with a clean and polished paper. Here are a few tips for this final stage:
  
  
  • Delve in a little deeper. Look at the sentences that make up your paragraphs. In Catalan and Spanish, the tendency is to write long sentences with lots of information. However, English-speaking readers are much more receptive to shorter sentences that break up the information into digestible chunks and facilitate their understanding of your argument. That being said, these are often used alongside longer, more complex sentences to make the paragraph more interesting to read and easier to understand (see Sentence variety). Look out for repetitions. Your reader will have good academic skills, so avoid explaining your points more than once, or extending your argument with redundant examples, simply to stress how important you think it is.  
    
    
  • Check your ideas against your original plan. Have you included everything you believed would be useful during your research stage? A lot of preparation has gone into this project. Make sure you have not left anything important out, but also only include the most relevant arguments in your discussion, those that will lead the reader to the clear conclusions you have drawn. Do all the points you make help answer the question or title of your paper? Everything you write should be relevant.  
    
    
  • Have another look at your introduction. It might not have been the first thing you wrote; but now you have had a chance to look at the whole text as a body of work, does your introduction do its job? Does it signpost your reader through your work? Make sure to revise it, especially if you moved things around as you edited!
  
  
  
• Spelling
  
  Make sure your spelling is consistent throughout your paper (See Spelling at the UB for more details). Also check common spelling mistakes caused by confusion between there, their and they’re, or our and are, or it’s and its. These are common signs that you failed to proofread your work and can lead your reader to draw negative conclusions about your competence.
  
  Finally, always run a spelling and grammar check once you have finished writing. It may pull up some errors you missed in your own proofreading!
  
  
• Punctuation
  
  Review your use of commas. Even native English speakers have trouble using commas correctly, but they can make or break your writing. One trick is to put commas where you would naturally take a pause when speaking. (Note that Purdue University offers excellent advice on using commas.) Try reading your paper aloud, which might also help you spot other mistakes, such as repetitions. Finally, consider using semicolons to join longer sentences, particularly when building an argument.  
  
  
• Check and recheck your references
  
  Reference your citations correctly. Take another look at the referencing style guide recommended for your degree. Check that all your citations include the relevant information and whether they are listed as footnotes or embedded within the text itself. Check that your bibliography is listed in alphabetical order and include all the information that is relevant to the publication of each source. Again, the information you need to include will be detailed in the referencing style guide you are using.
  
  
• Feedback
  
  Asking for feedback is one of the most useful ways to help improve the academic quality of your paper. If your tutor offers to read a draft of your final project, accept! After all, the tutor is the person who will be marking the final version. Once you have spent so long engaged in the writing stage, it is often difficult to see your own mistakes or spot ways in which you can improve.
  
  If you have already handed work in and had it marked, look at the feedback from your teachers. Are there any recurring comments? Have they given you any tips on how to structure your paper more effectively? Look at all their comments as constructive criticism and apply this to your final project. Swap your work with a classmate to get a fresh perspective. Peer learning can be very effective, especially when someone looks at your work objectively.

• A description of the general topic and background
  
  
• A literature review
  
  
• Definitions of terms
  
  
• A problem statement
  
  
• The paper’s scope and aims
  
  
• A hypothesis
  
  
• An outline of the planning and/or methodology

• Verb tenses
  
  In your methods write-up, you must describe actions you have already taken. Therefore, write about them using past tenses (past simple, past continuous and past perfect).
  
  

  Once the seeds had been planted, the temperature was lowered to 4°C.

  
  To state the purpose of an action, you should use the full infinitive.  
  
  

  The distributed representations are built to capture the statistical properties of the dataset.

  
  For more emphasis, precede the full infinitive with the words in order.  
  
  

  The distributed representations are built in order to capture the statistical properties of the dataset.

  
  
• Passive voice
  
  The advantage of using the passive voice is that you need not state the agent that performs the action. This is desirable if the identity of the agent is not an important factor in the process described or if the agent’s identity is obvious and needs no mentioning. This will often be the case in the methods section. Generally, focus on the object of the study, not the person conducting it.
  
  

  It was first seen that there were vortex formations at 28 rev/s. I first saw vortex formations at 28 rev/s.

  
  

  Vortex formations were first seen at 28 rev/s.

  
  The first sentence in the first box above is unnecessarily long; and in the second sentence, the identity of the seer is superfluous information. The sentence in the second box, which uses the passive voice, is best.
  
  In the example above, there is no need to identify the subject. In other cases, however, if the lack of a subject in a passive sentence created ambiguity, it would probably be better to use the active voice.
  
  
• Connectors
  
  Given what has been explained above, that you should describe your method in chronological order, it makes sense to words and phrases that clarify the sequence of the process, like next, then, once, after this, after that, following this, following that or subsequently.
  
  

  Each of the shifted sequences is then used to form training samples. Once we had researched the state of the art in computer image recognition, reviewed the literature and selected libraries (OpenCV) and the most appropriate techniques (SIFT and SURF), the next step was to prove, by experiment, the following hypothesis.

• Presenting your results
  
  The focus of the results section is not the writing, but the data. This part of the Llibre d’estil looks briefly at the different ways you can present your results in the text, in tables and figures.  
  
  If your results can be summarized clearly and easily in just a few words, then do this. Give a quick explanation and include the data in brackets.  
  
  

  The differences between the OSR and the OSMAnd clone routing searches were minimal (14 m and 8 m). (Adapted from Cuadrat, 2012  )

  
  
• Tables and figures  
  
  Your experiments will have produced a series of data that need organizing. The easiest way to organize these data is to prepare tables and figures. Tables and figures should present your data in a way that they are self-explanatory. In other words, they should be able to stand alone without any accompanying text and still be easily understood by your readers.  
  
  Likewise, once you have produced your tables and figures, you should be able to see a logical sequence that will help you explain the key results. This sequence can then be used to number your tables and figures. The numbering is separate for tables and figures, i.e., Table 1, Table 2, etc., and Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. (and not Table 1, Figure 2, Table 3, etc.).  
  
  You need to identify your tables and figures clearly with legends. They go above tables, and below figures. These legends should be short, but clear and comprehensive. They must explain what data the reader will find.  
  
  

  Table 1. Values monitored in the testing (CPU load, memory use, time per search, and quality of the route) for each data file, each case, and online/offline status (Adapted from Cuadrat, 2012  )

  
  You must refer to all the tables and figures in your text. If you include a table or figure, it must serve some purpose; do not add a table or figure if it is not going to back up (or refute) your hypothesis. When you refer to them, use Table X and Fig. Y, respectively. In other words, abbreviate the word figure, but not table.

• Tables
  
  Tables are relatively straightforward. They are the easiest way to present your raw data. However, you should not just dump all your raw data into them without first filtering, ordering and categorizing them. This categorization should be clearly marked by giving each column a logical heading. Although you must keep headings short, they must be understandable – in other words, better long than unintelligible. Tables are not designed to show trends or patterns; this is what figures are for.
  

  Table 1. Values monitored in the testing (CPU load, memory use, time per search, and quality of the route) for each data file, each case and online/offline status (Adapted from Cuadrat, 2012  )
  
  

• Figures
  
  Figures, in turn, provide a visual depiction of your data that often makes it easier to highlight trends or key findings. There are a wide range of different types of figures: from photographs and illustrations to pie charts and scattergrams. The best choice in each case will depend on the type of data you have and the point you want to make. If you are not sure which format is best, try presenting the data in a number of formats and then choose the one which presents your data most clearly.
  
  Photographs, illustrations and screenshots can present information quickly and easily; their use should be clear. Maps are an obvious example.
  

  

  Figure 1. Areas with 3G coverage in Spain (Adapted from Cuadrat, 2012  )

  However, generally speaking, you will have a greater need for the typical types of figures used to portray data visually: bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, scattergrams, etc.
  
  Bar charts are best used to easily compare one variable in different categories.  
  

  

  Figure 2. Prices of the healthy food basket in 18 shops in deprived areas with poor access to healthy food (blue) and in 2 large supermarkets (orange) (Adapted from Duval, 2016  )

  Pie charts can be used to compare proportions.
  

  

  Figure 3. Share of worldwide 2011 smartphone sales to end users by operating system (Adapted from Cuadrat, 2012  )

  Line graphs can be used to illustrate change; they are often used to illustrate change over time, for example.

  

  Figure 4. Layout execution time (Adapted from Ciberta, 2014  )

  Scattergrams are used to illustrate two variables simultaneously and are often used to highlight a pattern or trend.

  

  Figure 5. Premier League: shots taken vs. faced per match (2017/18) (Adapted from Mayhew, 2018  )

  These are common types of figures, but there are many other kinds. Take advantage of tools like MS Excel or Google Sheets to experiment with different formats until you find the ideal way to present your data clearly and coherently.

• Step 1: Interpret results
  
  Make a general claim about what your experimental results mean. If possible, use affirmative statements in the present tense, indicating that your finding will continue to hold true. Only use modal verbs of uncertainty and doubt (may, might, could) and hedging verbs (suggest, indicate, seem, suggest) if you are unable to prove your results.
  
  Move 3, Step 1 is often introduced with phrases like these.
  
  

  This proves that…   The implication is that… This finding clearly shows that…

  
  
• Step 2: Compare results with the literature
  
  Comparing your results with the work of other researchers has several functions: among others, it places your work in a context, which highlights its relevance, and supports (or refutes) current understanding. The language used in this step is often that of agreement and support.
  
  Move 3, Step 2 is often introduced with phrases like these.
  
  

  The findings of the current study support those by… The results were consistent with those reported in… Our findings agree with the findings made by… Like [name of author], we found that… Our results go beyond those of previous studies and show that… Unlike [name of author], we did not find…

  
  
• Step 3: Explain results
  
  In this step, explain what you have found. The language used tends to be that of cause and effect. Most of the key sentences are written in the present simple tense and often in the passive. State whether your findings were expected or unexpected and, particularly in the latter case, say what you had been expecting and why, and then provide an explanation for the difference. This explanation need not be definitive and may be merely speculative, but readers will be unsatisfied if you leave any surprises unaccounted for.
  
  Move 3, Step 3 is often introduced with phrases like these.
  
  

  One possible explanation for this difference is that… This can be explained by… This may be because… This is caused by… Surprisingly/Unexpectedly, we found that…perhaps because we were unable to ensure that the [X] variable remained constant.

  
  
• Step 4: Evaluate results
  
  In this step, summarize the main implications of your findings and their significance. Explain whether they support other work in the literature and how they contribute to further the understanding of the research problem. Has your study responded fully or only partially to your research question? Does it raise new questions? Can your answer be related to other research questions or does it support or call into question current hypotheses in the field? Again, if necessary, use hedging language to limit the force of your claim.
  
  

  Overall, these findings are consistent with other research and show that… These results may be useful for researchers seeking to innovate in… Our findings provide valuable insight into… The broad implications of the present research are that… These findings provide a potential explanation for…

  
  Likewise, make sure that you point out the limitations of your work. All studies have limitations, and it is important that you recognize them. Remember, too, that the limitations you identify may be an opportunity for future research. A typical source of limitations is the methodology you used: if the sample is too small, it may be difficult to find significant relationships; if there is little prior research on the topic, your study may have a weak foundation; if the data is self-reported, there may be biases due to selective memory, attribution or exaggeration. Another source of limitations is the time you have available. Discuss limitations in the past tense and use subordinating conjunctions such as although and prepositions such as despite to contrast strong and weak points.
  
  

  Although differences were found between the control and the experimental group, they were not significant. Despite the scalability limitations of our method, it was effective for small batches of samples. A further limitation of our study is that we analysed a small sample. Our study does not provide a complete picture of... One concern about our findings is that…

Table of contents

Note that this is just an example of what a table of contents might look like in a publication in the social sciences. For the purposes of your Final Project, your faculty will tell you what format you need to follow.

Physical Exercise and Self-Esteem in Young Male Adults

Attitudes of Adolescent Girls towards Alcohol Consumption

Association between Attitudes of Adolescent Girls towards Alcohol Consumption and Selected Demographic Variables

Self-Esteem in Young Male Adults: Positive Effects of a Three-Month Physical-Exercise Programme

• It is short (although not as short as two of the three titles above).
  
  
• It is specific (it identifies the variables that are the object of study).
  
  
• It limits the scope of the study (to the population of young adult males).

• It locates the dependent variable (self-esteem) prominently in initial position, thus indicating that this is the main focus of the study.
  
  
• It indicates what the findings were (positive effects).
  
  
• It gives information about the study design (three-month physical-exercise programme).

The Scientific Research Article: Evolution from 1665 to the Present Day Novel Ethnographic Methodologies: Use in Medical Education Research Political Opportunism and the Disregard for Ethical Values: From Brexit to Trump

A Modern Approach to Grammatical Prescription: How Robert Lowth’s Letters Reveal a Descriptivist Base to 18th-Century Grammars A Turning Point in the Modern History of Spain: How Franco Had to Abandon All Imperial Ambition After the Meeting at Hendaye

Evaluating Patient-Centred Medical Home Models: An Anthropological Approach Explaining Self-Harm in the Privileged Western World: Evidence from Participant Observation and In-Depth Interviews

“Do What I Say, Not What I Do”? A Study of Value Transmission between Fathers/Mothers and Children (Silva et al., 2020  ) Women on Top: The Love Magic of the Indian Witches of New Mexico  (Gutiérrez, 2007  )

• Indicative/descriptive
  
  Indicative/descriptive abstracts are tables of contents more than summaries of the study as a whole. They are usually written as one paragraph, they describe rather than paraphrase and they are often written in the present tense. They tend to be used for documents that are less structured (for example, literature reviews) and longer (conference proceedings), and they give information on the purpose, the scope and the methodology but not on the results — sometimes because there are none. Indicative/descriptive abstracts, then, rouse curiosity about the work that has been done by giving essential preliminary information but do not satisfy this curiosity by giving specific answers. In the digital age, this type of abstract is hardly ever used for research studies. However, before online publication databases, the indicative/descriptive abstract was printed at the top of a paper mainly to encourage readers to continue reading and to facilitate the reading process by providing a brief preview. It was not regarded as an independent unit because it was not read without reference to the article itself.
  
  
• Informative
  
  Unlike indicative/descriptive abstracts, informative abstracts provide all the important information in a document and can therefore be regarded as miniature versions of the original. They are designed to optimize access to information so that readers get maximum benefit from minimum reading effort. They, too, are generally written as a single paragraph; they summarize all the sections of the paper (thus adding results, discussion and conclusions to the information given by an indicative abstract); and they use a variety of verb tenses depending on whether they are giving background information, describing the work done, or discussing the findings and their possibilities for the future. They tend to be longer than indicative/descriptive abstracts because they give more information, but they are usually no longer than 300 words (and often considerably shorter). Nowadays, the majority of abstracts for research documents in the social sciences are informative.
  
  
• Structured
  
  Structured abstracts provide the same information as informative abstracts but in distinct, headed sections (for example, Background, Methods, Results, Discussion), not in a single paragraph. This format was first developed in the 1980s in the health sciences to help professionals locate relevant, quality articles. It is a format that is still largely used only by researchers in the health sciences; but it may be required of social scientists working in overlapping fields (for example, nursing, medical anthropology, etc.), so consult your tutor if you think this format might suit your research text.
  
  Because most abstracts for research documents in the social sciences nowadays are informative, this is the format examined in the example below. As already mentioned, you should structure the abstract as a single paragraph. The numbers in square brackets mark the beginning of the sections discussed subsequently.
  
  

  Jazz Chants for Vowel Reduction and Language-Learning Motivation in Adolescent Learners of English in Catalonia [1] A lack of attention to pronunciation in foreign language lessons, together with L1 cross-linguistic influences, can lead to students having a negative perception of their own “foreign accents” partly because of their failure to achieve full vowel reduction. Although textbooks include pronunciation guidelines and exercises, using them has not resulted in significant improvements in student pronunciation or motivation. [2] The hypothesis of this study is that jazz chants – a pronunciation technique that focuses on word-level and sentence-level stress – will have a positive impact on the pronunciation and motivation of adolescents learning English as a foreign language in a Catalan secondary school. [3] The jazz chants technique was used in the daily English classes of a test group of 18 batxillerat students (one class group of 17–18 year olds) over a 3-month period. This test group was contrasted with a control group of comparable size which used traditional materials over the same period of time. Students from both groups were asked to record themselves reading a short text pre- and post-intervention and they were judged to have improved or not on the basis of their pronunciation of the weak vowels in unstressed syllables. [4] It was found that the jazz chants technique was more effective than the traditional materials at improving vowel reduction and motivation. It appeared to change students’ perceptions of their own accent and their attitudes towards pronunciation. However, its effect differed according to gender and stated first language, and proved to be more successful in female speakers of the Eastern/Central variety of Catalan. Also, improvements were moderate and the samples small so it remains to be seen whether longer interventions in bigger groups can give better results. [5] The results support the hypothesis that jazz chants can improve the pronunciation and motivation of English-language learners in the public education system in Catalonia.

  
  From the structure and content of the abstract above we can draw some conclusions about how to write informative abstracts in general.
  
  [1] Briefly give background factual information or describe the situation, problem or gap that has prompted you to focus on your chosen topic. The context you give here will explain why your research is important and why readers should care. It is the reason you asked the research question you did. Note that you have to assume that all those interested enough to read the abstract are specialists in the field, so there is no need to explain commonly used technical terms (for example, vowel reduction). Also note that the verbs are all in some form of the present tense (present simple and present perfect) because you are describing the current state of affairs.
  
  [2] State what your study does, what its purpose is or what problem it is attempting to solve. You might also make an explicit reference to your hypothesis (as is the case here). Make sure you define the scope of the research. In this case, it is not a study on “pronunciation and motivation” in general but on the “pronunciation and motivation of adolescents learning English as a foreign language in a Catalan secondary school”.
  
  [3] Describe your methodology. Although you do not have to give all the details in the abstract, give enough information to convince readers that it is sufficiently rigorous to generate reliable findings. Note the use of the past simple tense because you are describing work done.
  
  [4] One of the main functions of abstracts is to highlight new contributions to science, so this is a particularly important part of the text. Be positive about your results and findings without overstating their value because sometimes it is easy to exaggerate the significance of evidence from just one study on a particular issue. Be clear about general trends but use hedges (may, might, suggest, probably, etc.) so that you are not too forceful. Careful use of verb tenses can help you to express your findings. The text above uses the past simple tense in this part, which serves to limit the findings to the context of this particular study. If, however, you use the present simple tense, you make the much stronger claim that your results are generalizable and that you have found a general truth. Take care: there is a big difference between “It was found that the jazz chants technique was more effective” and “It was found that the jazz chants technique is more effective”.
  
  [5] In your conclusions, the last part of the abstract, make an explicit statement about what your research has achieved, what contribution it has made or whether it supports your initial hypothesis.
  
  You also need to think of other issues when drafting an abstract. Do not forget that there is a strict limit on the number of words you are allowed to write. Respect the word count because if you do not your supervisor may send it back to you and tell you to do it again. Or worse, they may start cutting out text without asking so that the end product is not a faithful reflection of the work you have done or what you think. The word limit for the text above was 300 words and the author has written precisely 300, not one word more or one word less. This is no coincidence. It is the result of constantly editing, applying the principles of plain prose and investing a considerable amount of time and effort.
  
  Remember also that abstracts are published and read by themselves, so they must make sense as independent, self-contained descriptions of research. Readers need to understand the key points even if they never see the whole article. For this reason, abstracts make no reference to the literature; readers should not be required to consult other works to make sense of the text they are reading.
  
  And, finally, although the abstract is one of the first sections of the text you read, after the title, it will probably be one of the last parts you write. It represents the complete document, and you have to know what is in the complete document before you can write it. The existence of a complete document can also help in the process of drafting the abstract because you can select the sentences that best represent each section, modify them and link them to form a cohesive unit.

• Move 1: Establishing a territory (the situation)
  
  
  • Step 1. Claim importance.
    Describe the research area and discuss why it needs to be studied.
    
    
  • Step 2. Make generalizations about the topic.
    Discuss the current state of knowledge or practice, or describe a particular phenomenon.
    
    
  • Step 3. Review previous research.
    Summarize the research done in the field to date. This is not a complete literature review, just a brief mention of major studies.
  
  
  The information given in the first of the three moves of a typical introduction section identifies and describes an area of research with reference to the existing literature. It indicates the origin of the issue you have decided to focus on and provides context in terms of theory, research and practice. Likewise, it shows how other studies have approached the same or similar issues, although it does not attempt to make a full review of the literature, merely situate the present research in its proper context. In general terms, it answers the question “What did I know about the topic before I started this study?”. The information you give shows readers that you have a general understanding of the research problem you have decided to investigate and that you have sufficient knowledge for them to trust your judgement, analysis and findings.
  
  
• Move 2: Establishing a niche (the problem)
  
  
  • Step 1a. Counter-claim.
    Announce a point of view that goes against current thinking or identify a weakness in previous research that undermines prevailing theories.
    
    
  • Step 1b. Indicate a gap.
    Identify a gap in previous research or an area that has not been studied.
    
    
  • Step 1c. Raise a question.
    Like identifying gaps, in this step ask questions that have not been answered by previous research.
    
    
  • Step 1d. Continue a tradition.
    Take over where previous research has left off, thus advancing science by making a contribution to existing lines of research.
  
  
  The information in Move 2 makes a clear statement about a theoretical or practical issue in the scholarly literature that requires attention, improvement or further investigation. On the basis of this statement, readers see the significance of your study and will judge its relevance. This problem statement is the origin of all subsequent hypotheses and assumptions.
  
  
• Move 3: occupying the niche (the solution)
  
  
  • Step 1a. Outline the purpose.
    Clearly state the objectives of the study.
    
    
  • Step 1b. Announce the present research.
    State what you did and what you intended to accomplish.
    
    
  • Step 2. Announce principal findings.
    Provide a brief summary of the significance of the main findings (for example, “Our findings suggest that there is a need for…”).
    
    
  • Step 3. Indicate text structure.
    Describe how the rest of the text is structured.
  
  
  The information in Move 3 tells readers how you intend to provide new understanding that builds on the work done by previous research and adds to the existing body of knowledge. Essentially, you explain how you filled the gap, answered the question or continued the research tradition that you outlined in Move 2. It can also reveal your findings, although some researchers and journals prefer not to give this information here since it has already been disclosed in the abstract. Ask your final project supervisor for advice on what to do.  
  
  If you are writing a standard IMRaD text, Step 3 of Move 3 may not be required because, as the acronym suggests, the structure is totally predictable. However, if you are writing a text with a structure that does not adhere faithfully to the IMRaD format, readers may find it useful if you indicate the sections and the order in which they will occur. This will facilitate the reading process and help readers to find relevant information.

• Overview

• Language features

We asked the participants to respond to the questionnaire and informed them about the aims of the study.

The participants were asked to respond to the questionnaire and were informed about the aims of the study.