Many professors complain that their students do not know how to use appropriate formal diction in academic writing. Because students spend so much of the day texting and using social media, it is very easy for their informal communication style to affect the ways in which they write for their classes. However, just as the jeans that might be appropriate for dining out casually with friends would not be appropriate for a job interview, it is essential to know when to use formal versus informal writing. Informal writing is not ‘bad’ but it is not the standard professors expect in a term paper or an essay.

In general, unless your professor specifically requests you to do so, do not use the first person when writing a formal academic paper. Avoid the use of slang, contractions, and abbreviated spellings. Your tone should be objective and focus on the facts, rather than upon subjective, biased feelings. Informal writing tends to be loosely organized and often takes the form of a stream-of-consciousness; formal writing is logically coherent. Sentence structure and vocabulary also tends to be more complex in formal writing.

How do you know if your writing is formal enough? Ask yourself if you would use the diction and ideas in your paper when speaking to your professor in class, versus your friends. Could someone who did not know you well understand your argument? Ideally, academic formal writing is a conversation with other scholars in the field of your discipline: it is not just a conversation with your peers.