6 Must-Follow Tips for Editing an Academic Paper

Editing an academic article is a bit different from the work for a blog or publishing a novel. Because academic and scientific articles are written in a formal style, they must be carefully edited to ensure the communication of ideas unequivocally, with clarity and solid structure from beginning to end.

Academic work must be taken literally, so let's explore these 6 best practices for editing.

1. Make sure the style is consistent at all times.

There are many formats for writing an academic paper, so choose the style that best suits your work and make sure it is applied consistently at all times.

The APA (American Psychological Association) writing format was designed for publication in psychological journals but is widely used in many scientific fields. Regardless of the style you choose, follow the appropriate schematics and formatting structures for the greatest success.

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Some general guidelines to follow are:

• Maintain consistency with the width of the margin: upper, lower and both sides.
• Font size should be used consistently.
• Double-space text, including references and bibliographies.
• The text must be aligned with the left margin.
• If you are going to publish your work, use a Running Head (a short title of no more than 50 characters) at the top of each page, aligned to the left.
• Use the active voice. This is an area of ​​change from the past where an impersonal form was the traditional rule, and personal pronouns were not used.
• Pagination and order of pages. The page number should appear at the top of each page, either centered or in the right margin. And the order of the pages should be as follows:
• title page
• summary
• Body
• references
• appendices
• Footnotes
• tables
• figures

2. Evaluate your work to see if there are support parallels.

When writing an article, it is easy to simply write down ideas as they appear in your head without worrying about your relationship with your main topic. When editing, you must ensure that all these ideas are married and parallel to each other. For example, is your thesis parallel to the final paragraph? The conclusion must support the exact position of the thesis without qualifying conditions or statements.

In addition, your thematic sentences should reflect the points in your thesis. If your thesis states that A, B, and C are qualities found in D (D is your thesis), then you must commit the appropriate space to analyze A, B, and C to support your claims.

And, any quotation used in your work should be examined to ensure that they support your thematic sentences, which in turn support your thesis. The thread of your theme should go through the entire fabric of your paper.

3. Watch your words.

An academic document is intended to be read by colleagues and professionals within a given field, so the use of technical terms and industry verbiage is an encouraged and accepted practice.

Avoid common mistakes that detract from your authority or professionalism: spell checkers will lose the homonyms and the meaning behind their word choices, so take the time to carefully edit the Common mistakes in the use of English (Paul Brians).

Some of them are:

• Misuse of plurals and possessives.
• Confusing effect and affection.
• Invent words when there are many good ones available.
• Without knowing the exact meaning of the words he uses.
• Use of jargon or jargon.
• Do not use appropriate words and technical terms.
• Use of contractions.
• Abbreviations Avoid them and spell your words. However, acronyms are preferable after they have been explained for the first time.

It is worth reading this article from the University of Pennsylvania, which covers these points and more, in detail.

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4. Reduce the talk.

An academic job is formal by nature, but it doesn't have to be boring or boring. Apply the following principles of writing and editing for effective communication of your ideas.

• Write from a sketch. This gives structure to your thoughts, so your writing is always on the subject. And having structure means that you don't have to use filler words or try to "sponge" your paper.
• Stick to one idea per paragraph. And every idea should always be clearly related to the main idea of ​​your thesis.
• Rework long sentences in clear and compact structures.
• Use nouns and expressive verbs to express your ideas and avoid trying to animate your writing with adjectives and empty adverbs. Read your text aloud to determine where you can make your prose more direct and vivid.

5. Citations

Bibliographies, references, and citations. There is no way around it, they should be included in your work. Many different formats can be used to refer to the resource material used in a document, so it is better to predetermine what are the preferences and guidelines for each.

In essence, all require a minimum of information to allow others to locate the source material they have cited:

• A bibliography requires the name of the author, the title of the book and the date of publication.
• A magazine article should include volume and page numbers.
• Conference documents need the conference title, page numbers and publication details.

Your work will need to have a reference for each source you mention so that peer reviewers and those who mark your work can easily access your supporting documentation. Without them, your credibility and your brands will suffer. It is a valuable detail that must be respected.

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6. Review

To be effective, your academic work must be polished and professional in all aspects. And nothing says "amateur" like misspelled words, careless punctuation, and grammatical errors. Do not have a spell checker to do this for you, as there are simply too many cases in which words and mistakes are overlooked for any number of reasons.

And there you have our 6 best tips for editing an academic article. Use these ideas to give your work all the opportunities to stand out and be noticed in the middle of the competition.

For more information visit: https://www.scientific-editing.info