Polishing Your Essay Draft

     Use scientific style (e.g., no jargon or colloquial expressions, avoid contractions).

 

     Express ideas succinctly.  For example, don’t say “at the present time” when you could say “now”.

 

     Avoid redundancy (e.g., you don’t need to say “a total of 68 participants” when

“68 participants” means the same).

 

     Vary your sentence length, but avoid overly long sentences.

 

     Break ideas into paragraphs.

 

      Be careful with word choice, always using the exact word you mean.  For example, don’t say “Bloggs suggested something” when you really mean that “Bloggs found something”.

 

     Vary your language.

 

      It’s good to use a Thesaurus to help you to think of different ways of saying things, but make sure that you don’t use unusual words that obscure your meaning.  A Thesaurus should be used to help you find another similar word that is in common usage.  Don’t use it to impress the reader with your incredible vocabulary.

 

      Avoid using personal pronouns (except if you were speaking about your own experiment).  Don’t use personal pronouns in a general sense (e.g., “as soon as we emerge from the womb, we start to explore our environment”).  Also avoid statements such as “I think”, “I suggest”.  These can usually be rephrased (e.g., “A possible explanation is that ...”).

 

      Be careful with attributions, especially when using words such as this, that, these, those, they.  Make sure your meaning is clear.  For example, consider the following sentence: “The teachers continued to help the children until they became bored with the task”.  Does “they” refer to “the children” or “the teachers”?

 

      Avoid anthropomorphism (i.e., attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects or animals).  For example, “the experiment found that ...”.  An experiment can’t find something, though the experimenter can.

 

      Avoid sexist or otherwise politically incorrect language.  For example, rather than saying “a client should feel free to express his concerns”, you could say “clients should feel free to express their concerns” or “a client should feel free to express his or her concerns” (use the latter sparingly).

 

      Keep singular and plural nouns and verbs consistent in a sentence.  For example, “a child should share their toys” is incorrect because “child” is singular and “their” is plural.  Rephrase as either “children should share their toys” or “a child should share his or her toys”.  Also remember that the words “data” and “phenomena” are actually plural.  So you would say “the data were collected” rather than “the data was collected”.

 

     Keep verb tense consistent within a sentence.

 

 

 

      Active voice is usually preferable than passive voice.  For example, it’s better to say “the child hit the Bobo doll” than “the Bobo doll was hit by the child”.  If you can put “by zombies” after the verb, it’s passive voice.

 

      Avoid ending a sentence with a preposition (e.g., from, to, with, in).  For example, instead of saying “Some children do not have anyone to play with”, you could say “Some children lack playmates”.

 

      If you have more than one idea in a sentence, make sure the different parts could not be misunderstood.  For example, consider the following sentence: “There was a decrease in depression scores and the reporting of greater activity levels”.

Here, you would expect both parts of the sentence to follow the word “decrease”.

Therefore, it could be assumed that there was a decrease in the reporting of greater activity levels, whereas the writer may have meant that greater activity levels were reported.

 

      Be consistent when presenting lists.  For example, consider the following sentence: “Important tasks for an athlete include the management of anxiety, preparing physically, and visualising the outcome.”  It would be better to change the first point to “managing anxiety”.

 

      Watch grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  See Ch 3 of the APA Manual for more detail.

 

 

Examples of poor sentences

 

Unclear attribution

 

At the individual level, caring for a spouse with dementia has a profound impact on their life.

This essay will explore why athletes are prepared to use performance enhancing drugs and how to change their acceptance in the sporting arena.

These feelings can lead to negative thoughts towards their parents.  They may then decide they have not taken their interests into account.

Role modelling is far more rapid than the relatively slow process of instrumental training where complex behavioural sequences can be acquired quickly and completely.

Hope theory can be applied as a framework to build capacity in schools with staff.

Friction between parents and carers is also a result of disagreement over eating habits, and mothers, especially fell stressed over finding clothing that looks nice and fits their child.

If the attitude towards the behaviour is positive, they really want to have unsafe sex

they are more likely to engage in the behaviour.

A non-profit organisation or charity would need to set up the program to be the governing body and take on the subsequent research.

Clearly the intervention program needs to measure its effectiveness.

 

Anthropomorphism

 

It might be useful to provide a more detailed model of the individual that can systematically appraise the covert cognitions and motivations of people.

Family systems perspective says that individuals can be understood through assessing family interactions.

A family is an open and living system that has adaptive and self organising mechanisms that can cope with changes and challenges.

 

Not a full sentence

 

A lack of federal funding to support such a program and Medicare billing for the counselling component.

Following this an education program for students and staff that focuses on recognition, prevention and social/technological solutions to protect against future cyber-bullying. Also if the choice is termination, the grief at the loss of a grandchild.

 

Poor grammar

 

Adolescent offenders of child sexual abuse are an important issue.

This essay will look at a potential intervention fort adolescent offenders discussing the limitation of these interventions and how the intervention could be evaluated.

Such adolescents are at risk of developing negative attitudes toward condom use and of having multiple sexual partners.

 

Awkward

 

Considering youths seek out groups as a form of social identity, generally of a similar age, a national advertising campaign could be implemented.

Health consequences for young women are more severe than more young men.

The aim is to adopt a negative attitude towards doping by all members of the sporting community.

These transitions affect the family at all levels that eventually leads to the emergence of

new patterns.