10 Important Rules in Academic Writing

One of the most lucrative areas in freelance writing gig is academic writing. Just imagine the number of students who do not have the time to finish their essay assignments, case studies, movie reviews, term papers, thesis, dissertations, and all kinds of academic works. In the United States alone there are hundreds of thousands of high school, college, and even post-graduate students who are willing to pay good freelance writers to finish their writing assignments.

Just imagine the number of ESL students from Arab countries studying in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and Canada who regularly visit the net to look for good academic writers to do their academic works. In Elance.com alone there are thousands of writing works available for freelancers across the globe. However unlike any other writing works, academic writing is very demanding.
Writing academic works is not the same as writing web contents. The language and style required in academic writing works are formal. That is why any writer who would like to try academic writing needs to know the nature of the job, the standards in academic writing, writing styles, referencing, and the clients’ requirements. The following are ten important rules for novice academic writers.



1. Assess yourself. It is important to understand that academic writing covers a very broad topical area. Among the most popular topics in academic writing are business, politics, marketing, personal essay, case study, social study, economy, education, among many others. Just imagine that there are a number of subjects, specializations, courses, and disciplines being offered in colleges and universities. So before you click the start button, try to assess your line of interest and focus only on it.
2. Know the nature of academic writing job. Most academic writing works are formal. New academic writers need to understand that there are a number of dos and donts in academic writing. Contractions like ‘won’t, shan’t, I’ll, I’d and the like are not allowed in academic writing. Thesis works and dissertations require more formal writing treatment and style.
3. Be familiar with referencing standards. If you’re a newbie in this business, expect that your clients would ask you to use different kinds of referencing and citation styles. Some of the most required referencing styles are
APA, Harvard, MLA, and Chicago. It takes time before you get yourself familiar with these referencing and citation styles. It is advisable to look for sample works online.

4. Take writing orders that you are familiar with. Do not take orders that you cannot finish on time or you are not interested in. Always look for orders that you can deliver on time and with high quality.
5. Avoid plagiarism. Never commit plagiarism. Learn how to paraphrase and always use attribution whenever you try to borrow the ideas of others.
6. Maintain access to online libraries. Since research is an indispensable part of academic writing, it is important to have access to different online libraries and databases like
EBSCO, google books, google scholar, Questia, libraryspot.com, elearners.com, among others.
7. Follow the client’s instructions. Your failure to comply with the client’s instructions means that you are an ineffective academic writer. It is important to pay attention to details. Ask the client if you have a question and try to encourage him/her to make suggestions.
8. Review your finished work. In assessing your work, try to use the following tests: grammar test, referencing test, and compliance test. Try to spot misspelled words or grammatical errors, assess whether you followed the proper referencing style, or whether you complied with the instructions.
9. Beat the deadline. This is very important. All is futile if you failed to deliver the work on time. Don’t forget rule number 4, always take writing orders that you are familiar with to finish the job on time.
10. Don’t forget rules 1 to 9.