Scholarly academic writing is clear, concise, focussed, structured and backed up by clear peer-review evidence. Its purpose is to aid the reader’s understanding and further research discourse. It has a formal tone and style, but it is not complex and does not require the use of long sentences and complicated vocabulary. Each subject discipline or field of research will have certain writing conventions, vocabulary and types of discourse. However, there are some general characteristics of academic writing that are relevant across all disciplines.