Academic Writing The Mechanics

Sentences  Must have a subject and a verb  and maybe an object  Who, what the subject is doing, to what  Pay attention to the tense  Keep the main subject and verb close together  Create complex compound sentences  Use connecting words  And punctuation  Check for clarity  Do you have a long preamble at the start?  Makes it difficult for the reader to get the point  Are the subject and verb close enough together?  Makes it difficult for the reader to get the point

How to write a sentence  Start with the subject  What the sentence is about  E.g. Software Development Projects  Perhaps add a short introductory phrase  Keep subject and verb close  E.g  Software development projects frequently fail due to a lack of understanding of requirements by the project team.  OR  However, it is widely recognised that software development projects frequently fail due to a lack of understanding of requirements by the project team

Problems  Sentence Fragments  Incomplete, cannot stand alone  E.g.  Emphasising the fact that software development is difficult.  Corrected  The consistent level of software project failure as reported in the Standish Chaos reports emphasises the fact that software development is difficult.

Punctuation - Comma  Separate items in a list  Software development consists of the phases analysis, design, implementation, testing and maintenance.  To mark a phrase at the start or end of a sentence  However, …  To mark a phrase in the middle of sentence  The number of software development projects considered to be failures, as identified in the Standish Chaos reports, has remained largely consistent for the last five years.  First part, non-essential part, second part  To join main clauses  The waterfall model is still widely quoted as a model of software development, but it is recognised as being unrealistic.  To introduce a quote  As Boehm states, “  Beware of the ‘comma splice’  Joining two sentences with a comma

Incorrect?  Business analytics has been identified as one of the top ten technologies in the last few years, typically it is in the top five.  This proves that sequential software development processes do not reflect the reality, detailed surveys of project teams will support this.

Punctuation – Colon  Use after a statement to introduce explanation, clarity, illustration or reinforcement of that statement  Initial Statement : Second Statement  Can be used to introduce a quote

Punctuation – Semi-Colon  Join two sentences closely related in meaning  To replace words like ‘and’, ‘so’, ‘but’…  To replace words like ‘however’, ‘moreover’, ‘further’ in the middle of sentences  To separate items in a list if commas are already used  Key researchers in the field of software development are Barry Boehm, creator of the Spiral model; the main developer of the RAD methodology, James Martin; and Kent Beck, creator of the XP methodology.

Punctuation – Apostrophe  Indicate possession  Comes directly after the affected owner  David’s…  The student’s …  The students’…  It’s = ‘it is’ or ‘it has’  Its – belongs to it  Generally do not use contractions  Can’t, don’t, won’t etc

Paragraph  A collection of related sentences dealing with a single topic.  Use to decompose your narrative  Break it into chunks  Present ideas coherently  Each paragraph  Should have a clear central point  Focus on one topic  Contain only relevant information  If you feel your paragraph addresses more than one topic  Introduce another paragraph

Useful Resources  Grammar Basics   Establishing Arguments   Writing Concisely   Sound Alike Words   Useful Phrases 