Writing in Style

The stress of data gathering and navigating your way around the substance of your argument can sometimes impact your writing style, especially when you are not a writer. Here are essential things to remember when writing research, especially one's thesis or dissertation. This is also important when writing CVs and resumes. 

If it's a school thesis or class paper, make sure to format the manuscript according to the prescribed format. What's the paper size? In Taiwan, it's customary to use A4. In the Philippines, it's Letter size. How about the font style and size? When there's no prescribed font, my go-to is Palatino Linotype 11. Should the paragraphs be aligned left or justified? 

Those are basic, but it's important to know them because it's part of the institutional signature. Now for a bit of advanced style. What's the prescribed referencing and writing style? And by that, we mean APA, Chicago, MLA, and other schools of style. Those are not just for citations. If your university or class does not have prescriptions for headings and subheadings, captioning figures, and titles on tables, those have them. So, if your references follow APA 7th, they follow the same on your headings, subheadings, captions, and table titles. 

Let's get more professional. Mastering the data means you know how to report the data. You don't just write down your qualitative and quantitative results. There are styles for reporting evidentiary data in your results and discussion depending on the data type. More often, you follow the same school as the citation, for example, on how to report different statistical data and on how to report interview quotes. A deeper difference is on block texts.  You move away from the paragraph and start a block text if the quote is more than 40 words in APA; in Chicago, you do so if the quote is more than 100 words. Any quote with less remains within the regular paragraph text.

These make your manuscript acceptable for publication in a journal at first glance. Of course, what will finally get you final approval is the content. But you need to first do the secret handshake. This is the secret handshake. The editors and writers see style, and they recognize that someone who submitted is part of the club when they see the style of the manuscript.

Lastly, if you are writing a thesis or dissertation. These all go into the section on Notes on Style. If your university has no prescription and is flexible on the parts of the manuscript, you can also add it.

The Notes on Style reports the style that you followed.

I am doing this on my dissertation as a reminder for myself and as a shortcut for panel/committee members. This helps them to easily identify the style used and be in compliance with any prescribed styles.