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Introduction to Academic Writing

Our online guide to academic writing covers the key skills for writing at university level, including style, structure and how to develop your academic voice.

Paragraph structure

Writing at university requires making your reasoning explicit and clear. Ideas need to be evidenced from your wider reading. It is not enough to string ideas together; you need to develop ideas in paragraphs. It is important to structure the whole line of argument (reasoned analysis) by building ideas through linked paragraphs which build into arguments. The TED paragraph model can be used to make your paragraphs work harder:

 
Topic		 Signpost main topic and introduce main idea with relevant context. Make your idea clear.
 
Evidence		 Give evidence to support your claim from your reading.
 
Discussion		 Discuss ideas in more detail; give further explanation and explore complexity if relevant.

Here’s an example of a paragraph that follows the TED model:

Topic The subject of procrastination is relevant in organisations with regard to productivity, and researchers in universities are becoming more concerned with procrastination and its impact on student success.
Evidence Hussain (2019), in a cross-university study, reports that 87% of students identify procrastination as a key barrier to achieving academic outcomes, 46% use postponing work to motivate them to last-minute action, 23% believing that such tactics are detrimental to wellbeing and overall course achievement.
Discussion The reasons for procrastination are complex, but our understandings are finally developing beyond the usual expressions of procrastination and its antecedence in perfectionist mindsets, Sirois (2019) argues that procrastination functions as a mood-repair tactic, which could fundamentally be described as misregulation as it is based on false assumptions which ultimately serve to undermine self-control in the longer term. Therefore procrastination could undermine identity beliefs and create more stress for individuals concerned with competence and performance.
Relevant resource:
For academic phrases you can can adapt and use in your writing, see: Manchester Academic Phrasebank, University of Manchester