Introduction
In academic writing, you are required to write formally. This doesn't mean you should try and cram every big or impressive word you know into your sentences until they become almost illegible.
Writing formally is a lot simpler than you might think. This section of the Skills Guide will outline three areas where most common mistakes occur:
Contractions
When writing an essay, you should avoid using contractions as they are not formal.
Contractions are usually marked by an apostrophe to represent where the letters have been removed from.
In ‘don’t’ the o from not has been rerplaced by an apostrophe between the n and t.
Code Switching
While you will have times where you will need to use formal language, this does not mean that you have to change who you are.
'Code switching' is essentially adapting to your lexical environment. When you are with friends you may joke, speak in slang and not worry so much about your punctuation or grammar. Your tone and use of language would shift to a more formal and carefully planned structure if you were in an interview or writing a cover letter for a job. This is code switching, and you have probably been doing this naturally without even thinking about it.
Essays require the formal code. This is because an essay is a piece of academic writing and therefore must be written formally.
Slang
Slang is part of everyday speech for many. The dictionary expands to include many slang words as they come into common use. This means it may be hard to notice when you are using slang words.
If you are unsure of whether you have used a slang word, it may be beneficial to type it into a Word document and right click on it to use the synonyms feature. If the synonyms suggested do not have similar meanings to the word you intended, then you are likely using slang. ‘Totes’ for example, meaning ‘totally’ 'certainly' or 'absolutely' when using the synonym function returns as 'tote bags', ‘carts’ or ‘carriers’ which indicates totes, in this instance, is slang.