Writing should be accessible, consistent and concise: use short, direct words and sentences. Learners want to breeze through your writing, grasping the meaning quickly.
Breakdown
Break down general directives into manageable steps: all important ideas and steps have to be made explicit in the text so that they can be easily understood.
Sequencing
Use clear sequencing. Sentence structure should be chronological; for example,
peel the carrots and dice them into cubes
not
begin to dice the carrots into cubes after you have peeled them
Instructions
Give clear and simple instructions such as ‘look at’ and ‘find’. Encourage active participation by asking students to ‘think about’ and ‘make notes on’.
Active
Use the active voice; for example,
the designer discussed ideas with the client
not
the ideas were discussed with the client by the designer
Jargon
Where possible, provide definitions for industry-specific terminology, jargon or terms relating to the unit or subject’s learning outcomes.
Break it up
Writing should be broken up with headings, tables, charts, bulleted lists and illustrations where appropriate to the learning. This assists with readability.
In general, the style, voice and tone in writing express the attitude of a writer at that moment and in relation to a particular subject and audience.
It’s important to remember that a topic’s voice in our context is not reflective of the Learning Designer’s own opinion or attitude.
Style
Style is a technical term for the effect a writer can create through attitude, language, and the mechanics of writing.
Voice and tone
Voice
Here are some examples of greetings from different voices:
- Good day, m’lady
- Good day, madam
- Greetings, sir
- What’s up, dude?
- Hey, bro!
- Hello there sir, ma’am
- Hey you!
- ‘Ello gov’na
- G’day, mate
- Aloha!
Each greeting has the same basic meaning but is expressed in a completely different voice. Several factors contribute to each voice—for example, some are formal while some are informal; some show an accent; some use slang, and some even use different languages.
Voice can be institutional, or academic—that is, objective and formal. Or voice can be personal—in fact, your distinct voice. You will need to decide whether you want your tone to be informative or affective—that is, do you want to inform your readers or to persuade them in some way? Your style and attitude toward your subject combine to create your voice and tone.
Your goal in most academic writing is to convey facts about a subject, integrate opinions based on facts, and synthesise what is being learned as the topic progresses. You will discover, however, that some academic writing is persuasive.
Knowing how to find your voice in academic writing will help you develop your critical thinking and avoid unintentional plagiarism.
In academic writing, you write in a way that presents your own ideas as well as the ideas of others. This means you must have a way to distinguish between your ideas and the ideas of others. We use the term ‘academic voice’ to talk about distinguishing between your thoughts and words, and those of other authors. Think of it as a ‘written’ conversation between yourself and others who have information to share.
The three main ‘voices’ in academic writing are:
- your own voice as a writer
- the direct voice of a source
- the indirect voice of a source.
These are briefly described in the following table.
| Type of voice | Description |
|---|---|
| Own voice as a writer | This is your personal voice. You may or may not use ‘I’ but the reader has to have a sense of your opinion or position on whatever is being discussed in the assessment task. |
| Direct voice of a source | You might use the voice of a source to back up a claim you have made. This is often done in the form of a direct quotation. This means you, as the writer, have copied an idea ‘word for word’ from a source using “quotation marks”. |
| Indirect voice of a source | In academic writing, you will often use a source indirectly to support a claim you have made. To do this, you may change the words or phrases in the original text to other words with a similar meaning through summarising or paraphrasing. |
Adapted from Academic Skills, The University of Melbourne
The following video explains voices in academic writing and answers the questions:
- What do we mean by voice?
- What are the main types of voice?
- Which type of voice should you use in academic writing?
Tone
Tone is the way in which you are doing the writing. Tone means the attitude conveyed in the writing and may encompass formality, objectivity, intimacy, and similar aspects.
Please ensure that content, case studies, learning activities and assessments reflect men, women and children in a broad social demographic that is representative of our multicultural society.
Up Education uses italics to indicate:
- emphasis
- technical terms and keywords being defined or referred to for the first time
- non-English terms that have not been incorporated into common English usage
- titles of books, magazines, newspapers, websites (not web pages), movies and television shows.
Examples are:
- Unbelievably, it was the only example in the entire book.
- inter alia
- a priori
- prima facie
- The Sydney Morning Herald
Legislation: acts, ordinances and regulations
First references to an Act or Ordinance should always give the title in full (including the date), and be written in italics.
An example of a frequently used term is:
- Copyright Act 1968 (first mention)
- Copyright Act (no italics or date for subsequent mentions)
If there is only one act cited in the entire document, subsequent references can simply state: the Act.
Non-use of italics
Non-English words that have become standardised in the English language do not require italics. In this category are words such as ergo, pizza, et al. and ad hoc. Also in this category are names of foreign dishes, such as coq au vin and crème brûlée.
Similarly, there are terms that may be italicised in another context, but that are rendered without italics in Up Education module templates and courses, due to their ubiquity in a specific industry or discipline. For example, if you are editing a dental practices unit, and there is extensive discussion on the condition of trigeminal neuralgia (facial nerve pain), the first occurrence of this term within the body of the text is rendered in italics, and subsequently without italics.
Italics can also form part of the style for titles of certain cited sources, such as book and journal titles, in running text.
Don’t italicise the titles of UP Education documents.
Italicisation can be a grey area as usage varies greatly according to context, genre and discipline. If in doubt, please annotate for UP Education’ determination.
Apart from proper nouns, which always take a capital letter, use of capital letters for some words or terms often depends on context or usage. Honorifics are capitalised, for example: Dr Jones, Ms Smith, Professor White; while the general terms are not capitalised: the doctor, the professor.
There are three types of brackets
- round brackets ( ), often called parentheses
- square brackets [ ]
- angle brackets < >
Round brackets (parentheses)
Use round brackets to add extra information to a sentence. You can use em rules or commas instead of brackets.
We plan to hold a writing seminar (originally scheduled for last year) in July.
We plan to hold a writing seminar—originally scheduled for last year—in July.
We plan to hold a writing seminar, which was originally scheduled for last year, in July.
Round brackets and punctuation
If the words inside the brackets aren’t a complete sentence, the full stop or question mark that ends the sentence goes after the brackets.
We’re coming on Friday (31 May).
If the words inside the brackets are a complete sentence, the full stop or question mark that ends the sentence goes inside the brackets.
We decided to hold the meeting on Monday. (The secretary couldn’t come any other day.)
Square brackets
Use square brackets to indicate that you have added words or comments that weren’t in the original material.
‘I appreciate it [the nomination], but cannot accept.’
Angle brackets
Angle brackets are often used to enclose email or web addresses.
