 I'm here today to talk about academic style. What is academic style? I bet you thought academic style was something with long, complex sentences and difficult words. Well, actually, it's a lot different. There's many aspects to academic style that aren't complicated and aren't difficult. The first aspect I'd like to talk to you about is tone. What is academic tone? We're looking at objective arguments rather than subjective arguments. What does that mean? It means objective are things that are based on fact rather than feeling. They use logic and reason over emotional arguments. The other thing about academic tone is that we tend to not use words that have a lot of slang or spoken type backgrounds and also we don't stay away from negative forms and contractions. The second thing about academic style is the use of authority. What this means is that if you make a statement, you must back it up. You need to prove your authority. In this way, we often cite a lot of sources. We don't give anecdotal evidence. What is anecdotal? It's a story. It's something you've heard. We always rely on something academic. That's why we use sources like Google Scholar. One of the quotes, if you look at Google Scholar, is stand on the shoulders of giants. What that means is that we use these academic giants to back up what we say. Everything we say must be based on something, on some kind of research. The other thing about academic writing is that we have to look at how we say things. Not too exact, but a little more tentative. For example, you might start off an essay saying something like, Hong Kong students do not speak English at home, but actually that's a little too exact. Can you back that up? Do you have a giant to depend on? Where's your research? You might need to be a little more tentative to hedge that sentence by stating something like, few Hong Kong students speak English at home, or use a study. This study by Zhang in 2008 demonstrates that few Hong Kong students speak English at home. The last thing I'd like to talk to you about academic style is that it's carefully structured. I'm sure you've heard about this before. You have to have a clear introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. However, it's very important that you actually follow this advice and make these things work for you. It doesn't need to be complicated, but it does need to be clear. So let me sum up. Academic style is clear, structured, concise, not overblown. It's sophisticated and interesting. It doesn't need to be dull, but it doesn't have to be complicated either. It should be meticulously referenced. The more references and citations that you use will strengthen your essay. And you need to make it logical and persuasive and stay away from emotion. Where can you learn about this? You can learn more on eLearn in your notes and also by visiting the SIL in A305.