You might struggle to start drafting because you fear your words aren't good enough or 'academic' enough. It's true that academic writing should aspire to clarity, precision and accuracy; however, those qualities rarely come to fruition in the first draft. Instead, you achieve clarity, precision and accuracy as you edit subsequent drafts of the work.
Therefore, we recommend giving yourself permission to write in a natural voice while producing your first draft. This frees you to focus on what you want to say and why, rather than fretting over exactly how you will say it.
The table below identifies and illustrates some common qualities of writing in a natural voice. It then shows how the voice can be changed later with editing. [NOTE: Some disciplines accept the use of first-person pronouns, so the first example applies only to fields where 'I', 'my', etc. are discouraged.]
| 'Natural voice' quality | Rough draft example | Later edit |
|---|---|---|
| Use of first-person pronouns (I / my) | [...] My research unearthed many studies that explore treatment alternatives for patients with this comorbidity. I discovered that pharmaceutical interventions including drugs ABC and XYZ are more likely to be effective when [...] | [...] Several treatment alternatives exist for patients with this comorbidity. Pharmaceutical interventions including drugs ABC and XYZ are recommended when [...] (Danjuma, 2017; Huang, 2022). [...] |
| Framing critique as unsubstantiated opinion | I believe Smith's interpretation of the film doesn't make sense. I think the establishing shots point to ecological themes instead of the way Smith portrays them as [...] | Smith's interpretation of the film fails to consider the ecological motifs evidenced across the director's establishing shots. The penultimate scene, for example, opens with [...] |
| Slang or casual word choices | [Author X] says even if you have to pay someone to do nothing but social media it'll pay off in the end cause you're gonna get customers cheaper. | Using three case studies, [Author X] illustrates how hiring a social media marketing specialist can ultimately reduce customer acquisition cost (CAC) despite the upfront salary expenditure. |
| Incomplete or 'choppy' sentences | Situation parallel to 1970s feminist movement. Grassroots activism, zines, marches, etc. Social media = immediate comms though. | Certain aspects of the movement parallel feminist activism of the 1970s. For example, organisers lead grassroot efforts such as marches and voter registration drives, and contemporary feminist blogs are akin to 'zines' of prior eras. However, the advent of social media has allowed [...] |
| Repetitive words/phrasing | Continuing professional development (CPD) helps nurses in many ways. CPD helps nurses apply inclusive practices when treating diverse patient communities. CPD also helps nurses with IT skills they need on the wards. | Continuing professional development (CPD) in nursing spans several key areas, from inclusive communication practices to applied technologies. [...] |
If you tend to pick away at your sentences, struggling to make each one sound just right before you move to the next, you might find it challenging to adopt this freer method of drafting. We encourage you to give it a try, though. When you truly accept rough drafts as works-in-progress – subject to all manner of changes and edits, later – the focus can shift to ideas and content rather than superficial phrasing concerns.
Top tip: If you are multilingual, you can experiment with drafting in your additional language(s).
Anything goes in the rough draft, so you can even 'mix and match' languages within the same sentence, tackling translation when you edit, later.
Freewriting techniques help produce raw material for essays, and they can also kickstart your writing if the work has lost momentum. Most simply, freewriting refers to writing without stopping for a set period of time (often ten minutes). No pausing to think, no backspacing, no editing: you have to move forward and keep writing until the timer goes off.
– Want more? For a fuller exploration of freewriting, including patterns you can use to gamify your drafting and work through writer's block, see our dedicated Freewriting guide, here.
Freespeaking follows the same premise, but you speak aloud instead of writing silently. Check out the Your Writing Environment guide for practical advice on using dictation/voice methods if you wish to try this.
