Writing Tips

Writing well is a critical skill. The only thing that connects a reader and the writer is the text being read. Your only tools are the words you use and the way you present them. If a reader has difficulty understanding what you are trying to say or if you format you are using doesn’t follow their expectations, you are going to loose your reader. If your reader doesn’t care to read what you have written it doesn’t matter how brilliant your thesis.

Students come to the environmental field from a range of backgrounds and are often writing papers for a scientific audience. Readers with a science background come to the text with a set of expecations, (i.e., you don’t quote extensive sections of text, you provide in text citations). Detailed information on these stylistic conventions can be found at Scientific Writing Style. If you are writing a review paper rather than a primary research paper you will probably deviate from this form a bit, but this gives you a sense of expectation and how to site a range of sourcees.

Another valuable resource provivded by Towson University is the Writing Support Website. This site will provide information on grammer, usages, sentence structure, etc.