In academic writing, you need to remember to include correct spelling and punctuation, for example, the correct use of apostrophes.
If you’re not sure about anything to do with spelling or grammar, there’s lots of websites that can help you. Learning how to do this will not only help you with your academic writing, but will also help you in the workplace.
You also need to avoid slang expressions or less formal ways of describing things. For example, you wouldn’t write about quitting smoking, but talk about stopping smoking or smoking cessation.
You should avoid shortened forms of words such as wouldn’t or don’t. These are called contractions. You need to write these out in full, e.g. would not and do not.
A formal style of writing is written in full sentences, not in note form or bullet points. See our ‘Editing your work’ section for more help with writing sentences.