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1 Academic culture
You, we, I
Unlike a guide such as this, an academic essay does not directly
address the tutor. ‘You’ should be kept out of an essay. Use it for a
seminar, a tutorial delivery or a conversation with friends and tutors.
‘We’ will usually do as a substitute for the colloquial ‘you’. On the
uses of ‘I’ and ‘we’, see the discussion on pp. 148–51.
Abbreviations
Practice with abbreviations varies considerably. Even common ones,
like NATO or MP, should be approached warily, though widely
known acronyms like Unesco or Anzac which have passed into the
language – indicated by the use of lower case after the initial letter –
are usually acceptable. With a less well-known one (judgement on this
A skeleton key to stylistic conventions – 233
will often depend on which part of the world you live in), the best
procedure is to write the name out in full at first mention and include
the abbreviation in parentheses (e.g. South East Asia Treaty Organi-
zation (SEATO)). Thereafter, you can use the abbreviation alone. This
rule is sometimes applied to standard technical abbreviations (e.g.
kilometres (km)) where much use has to be made of them. ‘Etc.’ is
probably best avoided altogether, and is not improved by writing ‘et
cetera’. Prefer ‘and so on’, but use it sparingly.
2.3 Layout
Layout concerns the disposition of your text on the page. Every reader
appreciates a well-designed page. Pay attention to rules like double
spacing, the numbering of pages and the width of margins. Don’t go
overboard with the use of the different fonts in your word-processor;
and before you print out an essay, be sure that any headings or sub-
headings are not left stranded at the foot of a page. Bear in mind that
you want the tutor marking your essay to start out well-disposed
towards the job of reading what you have written.
234 – Conventions of academic writing
Indenting of paragraphs
Unless your matter is a long quotation or something else inset into
the text, indent the first line of each paragraph. If you do not, it can
be difficult for a reader to see where a new paragraph begins if the
preceding one finishes at the end of a line. One way of overcoming this
is to leave double your usual space between paragraphs. Indenting,
however, is the more widespread practice.
2.4 Quotations
The setting-out of quotations often causes difficulty. The common
conventions are these:
2.5 Notes
Notes may be placed either at the bottom of the page (footnotes) or at
the end of the essay (endnotes). Endnotes are usually numbered con-
secutively throughout the essay, and footnotes from 1 on each page.
Some disciplines have strict conventions governing either or both of
these. Study your style guide. There are also conventions governing
where you place the identifying number in your text. The most com-
mon in the arts disciplines is to place it at the end of the appropriate
sentence or after the nearest punctuation mark after your reference.
You may, however, be permitted to place it somewhere else within
the sentence. An alternative, now being practised in some disciplines,
is to gather all references together at the end of a paragraph.
This is the skeleton. Now use it to examine any system you have in
front of you by looking for the following kinds of variation:
r Omissions. Sometimes there are major limbs that become
detached (e.g. publisher’s name, page number, p. before
page number).
r Additions. Sometimes other bones are added on (e.g. the
name of the editor of a book in which an article appears, the
volume and number of a journal).
r Order of assembly. Sometimes the elements are sequenced
one way (e.g. first name, given name, date, title, place) and
sometimes another (e.g. given name, first name, title, place,
date).
r Punctuation. Almost every time you look at a new system
you will find the bones secured at the joints by different
conventions of punctuation. Look in particular at the use
and disposition of parentheses, commas, colons, semi-colons,
full stops, single quotation marks, double quotation marks
and capital letters. You will rarely be able to predict with
confidence how they operate in an unfamiliar system. The
only rule that seems not to be variable is the one which says
that the titles of books or other major works (not essays or
journal articles) and the names of journals should be in
italics.
r Context. In some disciplines one set of conventions might be
used for references appearing in footnotes or endnotes and
another for references appearing in the bibliography at the
end of the same essay.
r Citing websites. Websites must be cited in full, including the
usual http://www.appearing at the beginning. It is usually
238 – Conventions of academic writing
essay to essay. The point was made in chapter 1 that you should not
spend so much effort on conforming to these conventions that other
aspects of your thinking, reading and writing suffer. The fact remains,
nevertheless, that well-written essays tend also to get the essentials,
if not all the details, of these conventions right.