Walden University Writing Center

Where instructors and editors talk writing.

• Commonly misused words

• Catch your reader’s ear: A five part blog series on scholarly tone and voice   

• Revision by subtraction: Creating clear ideas by considering word choice

• The art of imprecise word choice: Using pronouns for clarity and concision

• For the good of all humanity, imperatives must be abolished!

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“It appears the authors contrived a contextual audit of distinct, historical orators and their praxes in order to generate a conspectus of western rhetorical practices”

“The authors created a list of distinct, historical orators and their habits to create a summary of western rhetorical practices.”

“The authors researched a list of distinct, historical orators and their habits to create a summary of western rhetorical practices.”

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If you want to level-up your scholarly voice, there’s one part of speech I recommend focusing on: verbs, the words that convey the action in each sentence. Today, let’s consider three different kinds of verbs that can make a big difference towards improving your scholarly writing.



Avoid Verbs that Express Feelings
When you’re passionate about your topic, it’s tempting to bring your personal opinions into a paper. However, it’s best to avoid phrases such as “I believe,” “I think,” and “I feel” in academic writing. Because you’re the one writing the paper, your reader will safely assume that you believe, think, or feel what you’ve written. Furthermore, academic writing privileges research-based evidence over personal opinion. 

Instead of writing an opinion, like this one:

I think that students need to pay more attention to what they read.

Support your beliefs with evidence from your research:

Adler (1940) argued that most Americans did not understand what they read, so the author outlined a series of three reading strategies to aid comprehension.

Your own opinions can be a great place to start, especially when choosing a topic, but it’s important to ground your academic writing in research and remain objective as a scholar.

Vary Verbs that Introduce
It’s often a good idea to introduce evidence with a brief contextualizing phrase. However, it can be tiresome to write “according to so-and-so” over and over again. To add some variety into your use of evidence, incorporate different kinds of verbs into these introductory phrases.

The way you compose your introductory phrases can also show your reader your own perspective on the evidence. If you agree with the source material, you might say the author concluded or proved, whereas if you disagree with it, you might say the author chose or justified. If you don’t have any feelings about it either way, you might say the author proposed or examined.

See this verb “cheat sheet” for a great list of verbs that you can use in your own writing.

Replace “to be” Verbs
To really make your writing more dynamic, try omitting all versions of the verb “to be.” These include be, am, is, are, was, were, been, and being. Instead, substitute verbs that better convey action. For example, take a look at this passage in which a student describes themself:

When I was a college student, I studied nursing and earned my BSN. After graduation, I was a nurse in an emergency department for 6 years. I am now a lead nurse in the emergency department of my hospital. I am interested in earning my MSN so that I am able to continue to advance my career and contribute to social change.

Let’s find all of the “to be” verb conjugations. I have highlighted them below:

When I was a college student, I studied nursing and earned my BSN. After graduation, I was a nurse in an emergency department for 6 years. I am now a lead nurse in the emergency department of my hospital. I am interested in earning my MSN so that I am able to continue to advance my career and contribute to social change.

Now, look at this revision, which avoids the “to be” verb:

I earned a BSN from Walden University. After graduation, I served as an emergency department nurse for 6 years. Now, I work as a lead nurse in the emergency department of my hospital. Earning my MSN will allow me to continue to advance my career and contribute to social change.

I hope you’ll agree that the revised version is not only more concise, but also more interesting to read.

The next time you revise a piece of writing, I hope you’ll look at the verbs in your paper in a new light—they really can be key for making your writing sound more interesting and scholarly.



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My post today will focus on using sentence structure to enhance scholarly voice in writing. To do so, I would like to present two areas related to sentence structure where writers sometimes falter and create unclear expression: the use of ambiguous subjects for sentences, such as using the pronoun "it",” “this,” or “that,” and using passive voice.


Scholarly voice is important for several reasons. As a Writing Instructor, I encourage writers to practice clarity of expression and writing concisely in their work, which means that sentences are clear and words are used economically. However, when writers focus solely on these two characteristics of scholarly voice readers can be left with more questions than answers as they read over previous sentences to understand the next sentence.

Ambiguous Subjects Lead to Unclear Sentence Structures
Before discussing the use of ambiguous subjects for sentences, it might help to take a quick refresher on basic sentence structure. The structure for clear and complete sentences is subject à verb à object.

Note: Throughout this post, the highlighting and font styles in the "examples" correspond to the parts of the sentence: yellow highlighting in bold type (subject); green highlighting in underlined type (verb); blue highlighting in italicized type (object).

Example: Nurse practitioners would benefit from emotional intelligence training to ensure that they cultivate a community of trust and respect among nursing staff.

When using this sentence structure, the subject of the sentence, nurse practitioners, is specific; thus, the point is clear for readers. However, what happens when the sentence that follows includes a subject that is more ambiguous?

Example: Nurse practitioners would benefit from emotional intelligence training to ensure that they cultivate a community of trust and respect among nursing staff. It can also support relationships between nurses and their patients.

Wait, what does “it” refer to here? The subject of the last sentence was nurse practitioners, so the use of an ambiguous subject in this sentence makes it hard for readers to know exactly what “it” refers to since “it” doesn’t have a clear antecedent (it is not clearly connected to a subject). “It” could refer to nurse practitioners, but the reader doesn’t know for sure. It could refer to “emotional intelligence.” “It” could refer to “training.” Without a specific subject, the reader is left to guess. And since clear, direct, specific prose are important characteristics of scholarly voice, forcing the reader to guess creates non-scholarly voice.

Instead of referring back to previous terms, topics, and subjects using ambiguous pronouns, I recommend that writers write clear, direct, unquestionable subjects into all of their sentences. “It,” “this,” and “that” might seem like scholarly shortcuts to achieving economy of expression, but be careful. The more your reader has to guess as to what you mean, the less scholarly your writing voice becomes.

Passive Voice Leads to Unclear Sentence Structures
While APA warns about the use of “it” and other less specific subjects for sentences, the style guide also warns about passive voice, which can occur when the subject of the sentence is proceeded by the verb. Structuring sentences in this way creates passive constructions because it is often unclear who or what is acting on the verb For instance, let’s say you want to paraphrase an author:

Example: It was argued that emotional intelligence training can also support relationships between nurses and their patients (Minton, 2018).

Since “it” doesn’t create a clear and specific subject, this sentence is already in danger of falling into the passive voice. We also can’t answer the question “who did the arguing,” which makes the subject of this sentence further obscured. Clearly, the lack of specificity and precision in this sample sentence stands in the way of the reader’s understanding.

Let’s look at how slight changes to the sentence structure can improve the reader’s understanding, thereby enhancing the writer’s scholarly voice. Recall the structure for clear and complete sentences: subject à verb à object

Let’s start by finding a clear subject for this sentence. Since “argued” is our verb, ask yourself, who did the arguing? Yes, Minton! Therefore “Minton,” the author of this information, is a clear and specific subject for our sentence. Let’s move the subject to the fore of the sentence and see how that creates a clearer, more scholarly sentence.

Example: Minton (2018) argued that emotional intelligence training can also support relationships between nurses and their patients.

Notice that not only the subject of the sentence is specific, but the rest of the points in the sentence are specific as well to ensure clarity of expression and connection and flow among points.

Example: Nurse practitioners would benefit from emotional intelligence training to ensure that they cultivate a community of trust and respect among nursing staff (Minton, 2018). Minton (2018) argued that emotional intelligence training for nurses can also support relationships between nurses and their patients.

In conclusion, while the use of some pronouns, such as “it,” are acceptable in APA style scholarly writing, these pronouns need to be clearly connected to a subject within the sentence and should not result in passive voice.

We’d love for you to share with us an example of the appropriate use of “it” in a sentence or let us know what other pronoun use complicates the clarity of a sentence. And stay tuned to the blog in the upcoming weeks as we continue our exploration of scholarly voice and tone. 



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You probably spend a lot of time working on discussion posts, essays, and projects for your classes, but do you spend the same amount of time on your cover letter and resume? It may seem like the most important focus for these documents is your actual experience and education, but sentence structure, word choice, and organization matter too. All the academic writing skills you have learned about and refined as a student writer can be applied to the career search and application process. The Walden University Career Services Center provides education and support for the career navigation process. The Writing Center often works with Career Services to share tips and advice for crafting application documents. Although a cover letter may not bear resemblance to a course paper, it is possible to apply academic writing skills and knowledge to the cover letter.




Here is a collection of some of our resources for writing application documents

Become a stronger job applicant using academic writing skills: From document formatting to sentence structure, this post reviews some important things to keep in mind when writing a variety of application documents.

Tips to make your cover letter strong: Your cover letter may be the first thing a potential employer reads, so start with this page on our website to discover techniques to make an impact with your cover letter.

How to Write A Dynamic Cover Letter:  Let a career services adviser explain the process of writing a cover letter.

Is your resume ready for your next career move? It's nice to have a reminder to keep your resume current and ready to submit. Here, you can read about resume tips from a career services adviser, including how to use strong and clear verbs. 

While you probably won't be including outside research and citing sources in your cover letter and resume, you will be able to find ways to apply your academic writing knowledge.




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I’m continuing our series on narrative assignments this week, and today we’ll be focusing on details. I have an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, so I have studied narrative structures before, and am here to give you some advice to help you shape your narrative Walden assignments.

As a creative writer, I’ve done a lot of work constructing and deconstructing nonfiction narratives. For your work here at Walden, everything is nonfiction and has a logical flow, but some assignments are more narrative than others in that they require you to recount a story or event. In these cases, the approach and expectations of the reader are similar to writing an academic paper, but it can get tricky because there are so many personal details to choose from. Today I’ll discuss how you can narrow down the details to enhance your narrative.


Let’s say you are asked to tell a story of a leader who inspired you recently in your office. You are telling this story in order to show how some of your course readings apply to real scenarios. The story ends when you’ve explained a specific instance in which this leader inspired you.

Include Relevant Details
Let’s say Linda is the name of the leader in your office who inspired you. Linda handled some very passive aggressive behavior in a meeting very effectively by using some of the techniques you’ve been reading about in class. So, ask yourself, what details are relevant and necessary for the reader to understand what happened? Essentially, what details, if left out, would create a gap in the story? You can list all the details you can think of as an exercise and then pick the ones that you need to include from there. Here are some possible details you can choose from to include in this narrative: 

• You have worked with Linda for 10 years

• You have always admired Linda

• The colleagues in the meeting have a history of negative behavior

• Linda is the manager of the project the meeting was about

Which of these details are essential to understanding the story? 3 and 4 are likely the most important to readers being able to follow what you’re saying. It may seem like 1 and 2 are relevant, because they’re part of your background with Linda, but they are not essential for the reader considering the purpose here is not a profile of Linda and your relationship, but a specific action Linda took.

Here’s an example of how a paragraph might look with all the above details:

I’ve worked with Linda in my office for 10 years and she is a great manager. I have always admired and enjoyed working with Linda. We recently had a meeting for a project Linda managed, and some coworkers were very passive aggressive and not productive during Linda’s presentation. These particular coworkers have a history of negative behavior and have negatively impacted past meetings as well. Linda handled this interaction very effectively by using Townsend’s (2017) approaches of effective communication.

Now this paragraph is by no means ineffective, but you want your readers to focus on the important and most relevant details that will enhance your narrative—and when you include details not tied in to the meaning or purpose of your work, you can create confusion or a muddled narrative.

A revised paragraph with clearer focus might look more like this:

My manager, Linda, is an effective leader, and recently inspired me with how she handled some negative interactions during a meeting. Linda was the manager of the project we had the meeting for, and while the coworkers present were in a different department, we had worked with them before and had some difficulties. In previous meetings the coworkers had not paid attention while Linda presented and were un-receptive during group discussion and brainstorming. During this meeting, these coworkers interrupted Linda during her presentation and whispered to one another during group discussion rather than engaging with the group. Linda used Townsend’s (2017) approaches for effective communication to speak to these coworkers in the meeting space and establish clear communication for the group.

See how this revision actually has more details, but they are about the most relevant aspects of what happened in this narrative. It is important for a reader to know what exactly happened, that this was established behavior, and how Linda handled the situation in order to understand why the writer is inspired by Linda. We can assume that the narrative will continue from here, explaining exactly what Linda said and did concerning Townsend’s techniques.

So when writing a narrative as part of your academic work, remember to:

• Ask yourself: What story am I telling? Why? Where does it end up?

• Write down the details

• Pull out the essential details for your focus

And of course you can always submit your work to the Writing Center! Narratives are very difficult since we know so much background information about the topic, so one of the best practices, and one every creative or other type of writer uses, is to get a second set of eyes on your work. 

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Sometimes, as Writing Instructors, we see a particular problem that seems pretty minor, but when it comes up a lot, we feel compelled to write about it nevertheless. Such is the case, I have noticed, with the word “including.”

The word “including” serves a specific function and should never be misused, or simply added for no reason. Literally, the word means “containing as part of a whole.” This is important to remember. Only use the word “including” when talking about a part of something, not the whole of something.

What do I mean? Let's take a look at some of my favorite characters from literature to find out. 


You might see a sentence like this:

“Snow White lived with seven dwarfs, including Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful, and Doc.”

This type of sentence makes me Grumpy. It doesn’t work because the author of this sentence is not writing a partial list of the seven dwarfs. The author, has, in fact, named every single member. Therefore, the word “including” does not belong and should be removed:

“Snow White lived with seven dwarfs: Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful, and Doc.”

Now, if you were to provide only a partial list of the seven dwarfs, that would be different, and you would use the word “including”:

“Snow White lived with seven dwarfs, including Bashful and Doc.”

This is a partial list, and not a full list. So the word “including” is appropriate here.

I urge students to look at words like “including” carefully in sentences. Often they do not serve a point and can be easily removed with no damage to the meaning of the sentence. Most importantly, remember the word “including” only applies to a partial list, not a full list. If you want to make your reader Happy, practice precise and critical word choice in your next writing assignment. 


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To understand your argument, readers need to understand the terms you use. When you use a term that is unique to your field or your study, or if you use a term in a unique way, it needs to be defined.

In showing how a definition aligns, readers need more than just the definition and a few lines that say, “This is the case of my study.” The discussion that follows a definition must be stated in terms of the definition. Readers need to know how the tool (definition) fits the job (your study), rather than just learning the characteristics of the tool. So instead of simply discussing Creswell's ideas on mixed-methods research, also describe what Creswell's ideas have to do with your own.  In sum, the definition and the discussion need to be interwoven.




According to Gary Burkholder, Senior Research Scholar at Walden U, abstract, textbook definitions should be avoided. Instead, they should reflect the context in which they are used. Otherwise they may fail to clarify the relationship between a term and how you use it in your study. Since such terms vary so greatly based on the context of the particular study, imprecise use often creates confusion for readers. Here are some common errors (which are true especially of quoted definitions):

• It may be too broad or too narrow for your study
• It may may lack detail or include extraneous material
• It may reflect an angle or nuance that does not align with your study

And by using paraphrase and summary to your advantage, you can choose to avoid explicit definitions. So, rather than starting out by writing “Creswell defines x as _________ ” and following with a discussion of your study in light of Creswell, you could first tell your readers the nature of your study, for example, and then use Creswell for support (typically as a parenthetical citation). Of course, the Creswell citation must truly contain material that supports your study. This model avoids the stricture of leading a paragraph with a (quoted) definition.

To illustrate the importance of contextualizing such definitions, here are two examples from recent Walden dissertations. In the first example, the writer defines the nature of qualitative research. (The a/b/c list format was added to help show the topic sentence defines the contents of the paragraph.)

Quantitative research is “(a) deductive, (b) objective, and (c) general” (Morgan, 2013, p. 47). In this research method the researcher uses a (a) deductive reasoning that starts with a premise and hypothesis, followed by standardized procedures, and ends with a logical conclusion.... Quantitative research is also (b) objective because it minimizes the researcher’s personal biases by using standardized measurements (Morgan, 2013). The purpose of standardized measurements is to separate the researcher’s beliefs from the results and conclusions. (c) Generality is another characteristic of quantitative research because the researcher can study a wider range of people and settings (Morgan, 2013). Generality leads the researcher to develop research questions based on the elements or variables found in theoretical or conceptual frameworks.

As you can see, what the student implied she would explain is, indeed, explained directly and in the same order. Support for the definitions is given parenthetically, which improves clarity and flow. Note that only three words are quoted in the paragraph.

The case is different, however, in the following paragraph by a different author. They are weakened by issues with context, completeness, and flow. (To simplify commenting on the problems, I’ve added my own analysis within brackets.)

Other research designs such as ethnography [this term would need to be defined] and phenomenology are not adequate…. Phenomenology is an approach with many nuances and addressing subjective experiences (Gill, 2014), such as perceptions of an organizational leader about succession. Phenomenology is a way to explicate diverse experiences, reducing the unique individual experience to the common experience and revealing the experiences as universal (Van Manen, 1990). [An explanation would be needed about (a) why either approach—ethnography or phenomenology—would not be adequate and (b) the relationship of the design(s) to the student’s research.]

In this case, the introductory (topic) sentence is not a guide to the paragraph’s content. Parts of the definitions are incomplete and are not shown to be aligned with the study. Some terms within the paragraphs have yet to be explained.

No one knows better what you want to say in your study than you do. Definitions are an important part—sometimes pivotal—and readers don’t have the chance to ask questions. It is up to you, the author, to ensure that no questions need be asked. This extended discussion of definitions, quotations, and flow can be summarized in three points:

Beginning Monday, this blog will be focused on exploring word choice and how it functions in the scholarly writing Walden U students are asked to do. Our posts in the coming weeks will provide instruction for writers to consider when they're making their writerly decisions. As always, we'll have plenty of practical, example-based suggestions for you to try out in your own writing.

Our main goal with this is to give you strategies for harnessing your own scholarly voice. To do so, we have a variety of topics relating to word choice. Here's is the upcoming schedule:

April  11th: How can you define your terms in a way that's useful to your reader?
April 18th: Guidelines for effective pronoun use in APA style
April 25th: Using "including" as a tool

With this lineup of posts coming up in the next weeks, we hope you start to practice new ways to shape and organize your writing. And what better way to do that than from the ground up!

As a teaser, check out the Writing Center's homepage of information on Word Choice by following the link.



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Etc

Due to the Fact That


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