Handout from my undergraduate course at UTexas which focuses on assisting students to develop research and writing skills. I appended some other writing tips that I also provide for Masters/Ph.D.students, with their descriptions in the APA 6.0 Manual.

1. Common Writing Issues that Muddy Your Written Communication
1. Use of standalone quotes, especially one after another. Do not want a patchwork –
want your voice premier! Explain your quotes and why they are important to the
argument you are making.
2. Lack of support (references, quotes) for the claims made in the paper
3. Do not use “etc.” If it is worth saying, say it. “etc.” leaves it up to the reader to
guess what other items would be included. You never want your reader to be
guessing.
4. Over use of pronoun referents (this, that, it, they) that make meaning unclear.
In Cassidy (2007) and Elan (2008) participants were also able to choose
their own background music. In fact, no only did those participants do
significantly better than those in other conditions, Cassidy found that they
did well no matter if the music was arousing.
5. Informal tone “another topic that comes to mind…”; “these days we see…”
“things”
6. Improper use of commas
a. Compound sentences (requires comma; each have of the sentence has a
subject and verb)
Background music has an effect on what we see, and the combined
effect of sound and visuals together is an important research topic.
b. Noncompound sentences (should not have comma; one half of the
sentence is a phrase and not a full sentence with subject and verb)
Background music has an effect on what we see and how we feel.
c. seriation (The dog ate the bone, apple pie, and a stick of butter.)
7. Ending sentences with prepositions “…and are able to communicate their
opinions on.”
8. Subject-verb agreement (organizations like RedCross is important; is should be
are because organizations is the subject of the sentence and is plural)
9. Within-text quoted or non-quoted references must have a date per APA style,
(e.g., Jenkins (2006) introduces a set of media skills all youth should know.)
10. Difference between “that” and “which” – and which one requires the use of a
comma (which); which one is used to refer to things (that) or people (which)
11. Possessives vs. Plural vs. Plural Possessive (student’s vs. students vs. students’)
12. Do not use contractions in formal writing (e.g., don’t; instead use do not)
13. Difference between effect (noun and rarely a verb) and affect (verb and
sometimes a noun)
The effect of biking is weight reduction. (noun meaning ‘a consequence’)
Biking affects people’s mood. (verb meaning ‘to influence’)
The biker showed no affect when a motorist swore at him. (noun meaning
‘show of emotion’)
The prisoner effected his escape with knotted bedsheets. (verb meaning the
single thing that brought about the result)
14. Spelling or typos
15. Sentence fragment (missing a subject or a verb)
16. Use of passive voice
Prepared
by
Joan
E.
Hughes,
Ph.D.
joanh@austin.utexas.edu

2. 17. References – formatting in APA 6.0 format
18. Punctuation with quotes. Period goes inside the quote. Steer explained, “Web 2.0
technologies are very important to education.”
19. Than vs. Then
For
Masters/Ph.D.
Students
Important Structural Elements for Writing from the APA 6.0 Manual (that are
often incorrect in writing that I see):
p. 41 (APA Manual) – Sample Manuscript
p. 62-63 (APA Manual) – Heading Levels and How to format headings
p. 64 (APA Manual) – Seriation within a paragraph use (a), (b), etc.
p. 65 (APA Manual) – Pronoun references must “be obvious”!
p. 68 (APA Manual) – Precision and clarity are good to pay attention to – read
“pronouns” – it is the most common issue I see in writing.
p. 69 (APA Manual) – use “I” and “we” as needed – first-person is preferable when
talking about what YOU or your co-authors did.
p. 73 (APA Manual) – reducing biased language section is excellent to read
p. 77 (APA Manual) – Use active verbs vs. passive
p. 78-79 (APA Manual) – Verb usage is all good to review.
p. 82 (APA Manual) – “More importantly” is not correct. “More important,…” is
correct. This is another frequent mistake in writing.
p. 83 (APA Manual) – learn the correct usage of “that” vs. “which”. This is a common
error.
p. 93 (APA Manual) – Learn punctuation usage with quotes – Read “With other
punctuation” section on bottom of page. Periods and commas go inside the quotes.
This is a very common error as well.
Prepared
by
Joan
E.
Hughes,
Ph.D.
joanh@austin.utexas.edu