: Re: Is extraneous language appropriate in academic writing? I teach a course in academic writing. My students, who do not have much writing experience, add many phrases, as in What are these extra

It might help to think of these phrases as signposting.

Too much signposting will clutter the landscape and obscure the view. Whether that's the mountains, or the ideas in an essay, obscuring them is bad.

On the other hand, judicious use of signposting can help the reader parse what you're saying. (For example, the chances are that in your mind, you effortlessly arranged that sentence opposite to the one before it, because I slipped in on the other hand.)

Used well, signposting will clarify your students' writing, not clog it. My advice would be to coach them to think about it like this: if the signpost is helping the reader to navigate complex ideas, great. If it's adding nothing but wordcount, then it deserves the chop.

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: Re: Is extraneous language appropriate in academic writing? I teach a course in academic writing. My students, who do not have much writing experience, add many phrases, as in What are these extra

More posts by @Gail2416123

: Name for introductory section about the author What is an appropriate title for an introductory section where I introduce myself, the author? I'm writing a series of short educational web books

: What's the difference between a 1-, 2- or 3-dimensional character? The terms are bandied around quite often to describe fictional characters, generally in order to help describe how developed a

: Question about a plot. So guys. I have a great idea for a book. And have been working on it for quite some time. The plot is kind of surrounding some government conspiracy theories in a

: Subtleties in colon/semi-colon use There are some sentences where I am unsure whether a colon or semi-colon would be best, as they seem to lie somewhere in the middle of the colon or semi-colon

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