Guides & Tutorials: Academic Writing: Academic Writing

Academic Writing

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Overview

This page will gather links to Library and online resources to support a range of academic writing needs at PolyU.

It can be adapted to address the needs of UG students preparing to write their capstone project, or Early Career Researchers (namely postgraduate students and faculty) preparing to publish.

The target audience are non-native English speakers (NNES)/L1 Cantonese or Mandarin speakers.

Online Tools for Writing

Grammar

Free Grammar Checker (Online Editor)
No software installation is required. You get your results almost immediately. Just type the words you want to check into the text field and click one of the two buttons underneath to get started.
Grammarly
Compose bold, clear, mistake-free writing with Grammarly’s new AI-powered desktop Windows app.

Concordancers

"A concordancer is a piece of software, either installed on a computer or accessed through a website, which can be used to search, access and analyse language from a corpus. They...can give us very accurate information about the way language is authentically used." [Source]

Corpus Concordance English
This tool allows you to find evidence of appropriate English usage provided by a collection of corpora. Use this tool to answer questions such as, “Which prepositions are used with this word?” and, “Is this expression commonly used in writing?” Get corpus descriptions here.
Springer Exemplar
SpringerExemplar searches more than 3,500 journals and close to 200,000 books from Springer’s collection to find authentic examples of how a word or phrase is used in published literature. Learn more here.
Just the Word
Just the Word (JTW) is another tool that helps writers identify acceptable and commonly used collocations. Uses the British National Corpus. Learn more about JTW here.

Dictionaries and Thesauri

OneLook.com
An online search box to search across thousands of free online dictionaries, both general dictionaries and subject dictionaries.
Visual Thesaurus
The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that chart meanings and branch to related words.
Collins English Thesaurus

Phrasebanks

Academic Phrasebank
This online resource developed by the University of Manchester provides an extensive collection of phrases used to perform common functions in academic writing.

Writing Exemplars

Writing Help

Academic Skills for Independent Learners
Help with writing:
- For and against (balance) essays
- One-sided (argumentative) essays
** Free online access. Requires simple sign up. **
ICOSA Writing
Help with:
- Argumentative essay writing
- Introduction to essay writing
- Thesis statement vs. topic sentence
** Free online access **
Literacy in the Disciplines (LID)
Provides help with argumentative essay writing, including:
- genre guide & genre video
- genre checklist & printable materials
- interactive activities
** Free online access **

Undergraduate Student Writing

PolyU -- Outstanding Work by Students (OWS)
A new collection of outstanding papers and projects by PolyU students.
HKBU -- Library Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Studies
A collection of award-winning undergraduate student research products from 2014.
HKU -- Student Projects
A collection of over 200 student projects, both individual and group projects.
HKU -- Undergraduate Theses
A collection of over 1000 undergraduate student theses.
LU -- Lingnan University Student Projects and Publications
A collection of some student projects and publications of the Lingnan University.

Theses and Dissertations

From Hong Kong and around the world.

PolyU Electronic Theses
To look for PolyU Master and PhD theses
PolyU Institutional Research Archive (PIRA)
To look for PolyU MPhil and PhD theses
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT)
Worldwide theses and dissertations

Essay Writing Help

Academic Skills for Independent Learners
- For and against (balanced) essays
- One-sided (argumentative) essays
** Free account sign up **
ICOSA Writing
- Argumentative essay writing
- Introduction to essay writing
- Thesis statement vs. topic sentence
Literacy in the Disciplines (LID)
- Argumentative essay genre guide
- Argumentative essay genre checklist
- Printable materials & interactive activities

PolyU -- Outstanding Work by Students (OWS)
A new collection of outstanding papers and projects by PolyU students.
HKBU -- HKBU Theses and Dissertations
HKBU Library provides access to all theses produced by research postgraduate students (i.e. MPhil and PhD) at HKBU, plus a selection of dissertations by students enrolled in taught postgraduate programs (MA, MFA, MCM, MSM, MHM, and DBA*).
HKU -- Student Projects
A collection of over 200 student projects, both individual and group projects.
HKU -- Undergraduate Theses
A collection of over 1000 undergraduate student theses.
LU -- Lingnan Theses and Dissertations
This series contains MPhil and PhD theses as approved by Lingnan University dating back to 1999. Unless otherwise stated, fulltext access is available for all theses.

Library Resources

Handbooks

How to Start Writing

How to Start Writing

English Collocation

Professional English in Use

This series combines resources and exercises to help learners improve their English writing in professional contexts. Titles cover Medicine, Engineering, Marketing, Finance, Law, and more.