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Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed

• Francis J. Greene
• Christian Hopp

It’s particularly important if you plan to raise money.

When asked about an opponent’s plan for their impending fight, former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson once said: “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” It is a school of thought now fashionable in entrepreneurship circles. The truth, though, is that we just don’t know if it pays to plan. For every study that shows that it does, another study comes along and says that start-ups should just learn by doing. We wanted to study entrepreneurial planning, but with more context than previous efforts. We found that it pays to plan. Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical non-planning entrepreneurs. More than that, we were also able to see what makes people write business plans in the first place.

When asked about an opponent’s plan for their impending fight, former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson once said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

• FG Francis J. Greene is Chair in Entrepreneurship in the University of Edinburgh Business School.
• CH Christian Hopp is Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship in the TIME Research Area, the Faculty of Business and Economics, RWTH Aachen University.

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Business Plan Research: APA Style - 7th Edition

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American Psychological Association's APA Style 7th Edition is widely used by students and researchers in the social and behavioral sciences.

Citation Guide

APA Reference Examples

• APA Common Reference Examples APA's common reference examples.
• Sample APA Student and Professional papers Purdue OWL has provided both student and professional paper samples. The "track changes" features is used to make comments in the margins that explain the formatting and directions for writing an APA paper.

Research Citation Management

For more information, see the Zotero Research Guide . 

A Step-by-Step Guide for APA Style Student Papers

Academic Writer Tutorial: Basics of 7th Edition APA Style

• Academic Writer Tutorial: Basics of Seventh Edition APA Style "This tutorial is designed for writers new to APA Style. Learn the basics of seventh edition APA Style, including paper elements, format, and organization; academic writing style; grammar and usage; bias-free language; mechanics of style; tables and figures; in-text citations, paraphrasing, and quotations; and reference list format and order."

APA 7th Edition Changes

Credit: Scribbr (2019)

Intro - 0:00 ​

1. citing sources - 0:25 ​, 2. inclusive & bias-free language - 2:01 ​, 3. apa paper format - 2:52 ​, 4. mechanics of style - 3:56 ​, 5. when to start using the apa 7th edition - 4:11, formatting the reference page.

Credit: Scribbr (2020)

Intro to the reference page - 00:00 ​

Font, line spacing, margins - 00:35 ​, creating references - 1:16 ​, hanging indent - 1:59 ​, annotated bibliography - 2:43, reference list.

Arrange references alphabetically by the author's last name.

Double space the entire reference list.

Begin each entry on the left margin and indent a 1/2 inch from  the second line  onwards.

• Hanging indent in Google Docs
• Hanging indent in Microsoft Word
• Hanging indent in Word Online

See  APA  Publication Manual 7th  Edition ,  pages 39-40 .

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Updating a Classic: Writing a Great Business Plan

• A business plan can't be a tightly crafted prediction of the future but rather a depiction of how events might unfold and a road map for change.
• The people making the forecasts are more important than the numbers themselves.
• What matters is having all the required ingredients (or a road map for getting them), not the exact form of communication.
• The best money comes from customers, not external investors.

Sean Silverthorne: " How to Write a Great Business Plan " has been one of the most downloaded articles on Harvard Business Publishing since you wrote it in 1997. Why do you think you hit a nerve?

Bill Sahlman: Writing a business plan is a seminal moment in the life of a new venture. Doing so entails committing to paper a vision of the factors that will affect the success or failure of the enterprise. People take the exercise very seriously and get emotionally invested in what they produce.

In that context, the article was written to give insights into how to think about the role of a business plan and its relation to new venture formation. I tried to explain that a business plan can't be a tightly crafted prediction of the future but rather a depiction of how events might unfold and a road map for change. I emphasized the notion that successful entrepreneurs constantly seek the right mixture of people, opportunity, context, and deal. They anticipate what can go wrong, what can go right, and they try to balance risk and reward.

Over the years, I have received many e-mails from folks trying to craft a business plan. They want feedback. Actually, they really want me to say that they are on the right track. I explain that I would need to get to know them and their opportunity much better than what is possible in an e-mail and that the written document is not as important as the people writing it. It's not science—it's art and craft.

Q: In the decade since the original article came out, business conditions have changed. If you were writing this piece today, would you change it much?

A: I don't think the world has changed materially. Successful ventures still have competent people pursuing sensible opportunities, using resources that help, in a favorable context. Yes, the context is very challenging today. But challenges create opportunities.

If gaining access to capital is hard, sometimes that means there will be fewer competitors. This period is almost the antithesis of the Internet bubble when everyone could raise money and start a company regardless of how lamebrained the idea. Also, we have difficult factor markets like energy, but that simply means that there are great opportunities for people with ideas for alternative energy.

Were I rewriting the article today, I might emphasize the importance of controlling your destiny by being conservative about access to capital. Many great ventures in the Internet era (pre-1999) ended up failing because they assumed they would have continued access to cheap capital. Many of those businesses failed, though the underlying idea was sensible. Similarly, we have seen a period when capital markets got ugly, which has a negative effect on all ventures, sensible and nonsensical.

I would also reinforce the idea that entrepreneurship is critical around the world. We are confronted with many crises from health care to the environment to global poverty. Solutions are likely to come from talented private sector and social entrepreneurs.

Q: You wrote in the original article that most business plans "waste too much ink on numbers and devote too little to the information that really matters to intelligent investors." Still true today? What really matters to investors?

A: When there is great uncertainty in the market, investors become quite risk averse. They will only back proven entrepreneurs with truly compelling ideas. People make the numbers, not conversely. So, I still think the people making the forecasts are more important than the numbers themselves.

Q: More and more entrepreneurial ventures are "born global": They seek to address a global market and attract funding from global investors. Should a business plan be tailored in some way for a global audience?

A: We live in a world of democratized access to ideas, human capital, and money. There are fabulous global ventures being started in every corner of the globe. These ventures can raise money locally or globally. They can disperse talent in many countries.

Take a company like Skype. When I visited Skype several years ago, it had 125 employees from 23 countries. The development team was in Estonia, and its headquarters in Europe. Skype had raised seed capital in Europe and in the United States. That's the new model.

Q: On the technology front, software applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have added many charting, graphing, and visualizing capabilities. Some business plans are even written as Web pages. Should entrepreneurs avail themselves of these tools for business plans, or do they clutter the message too much?

A: On the first floor of the Rock Center at HBS there is a copy of the original business plan that Arthur Rock wrote for Intel some 40 years ago. It's only a few pages long, but it describes an outstanding team pursuing a new technology. I have seen compelling business plans in the form of a few PowerPoint slides, a couple of scribbled pages, and a brief video. What matters is having all the required ingredients (or a road map for getting them), not the exact form of communication.

Q: If you were to update your "Glossary of Business Plan Terms" and what they really mean ("We seek a value-added investor" really means "We are looking for a passive, dumb-as-rocks investor"), what current terms would you include?

A: The glossary holds today. I think entrepreneurs, investors, and employees need to be suitably skeptical about what they read in business plans. I have read perhaps 5,000 plans and have only seen three companies really meet their plan. That sounds like a pattern to me. If anyone makes a bet based on the company doing exactly as written, he or she will be sadly disappointed.

At the same time, every player has to be somewhat optimistic about the possibility of overcoming inevitable setbacks. I think of ventures as roller coasters, not rocket ships.

Q: Any general advice to entrepreneurs seeking funding in the uncertain capital markets of today?

A: The best money comes from customers, not external investors. I think entrepreneurs need ideas that are so compelling they can get early money from customers. I also believe that great teams with great ideas can continue to access capital on quite attractive terms from outstanding investors. If the short term looks unsettled, that often means that focusing on the long term has a big potential payoff.

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The Complete Beginner's Guide to Academic Writing

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Written by  Scribendi

What Is Academic Writing?

Academic writing is a specialized form of writing that suits the particular needs of academic writers. Used effectively, it helps scholars express complex concepts, research, and theories clearly to their peers. Learning to embrace this style of writing is essential in academia. However, we all need to start somewhere.

Welcome, friend, to the beginner's guide to academic writing.

In this post, we'll cover the following topics:

Characteristics of Academic Writing

Major types of academic writing.

Finding Your Research Question & Thesis Statement

The Importance of a Strong Structure 

Good Academic Writing Requires an Outline

Always Keep Your Writing Concise 

Style Guides: Don't Wait until the Last Minute

Always edit and proofread your academic writing, parting advice, elevate your writing with professional editing.

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Throughout this guide, you'll see the words "academic writing" and "scholarly writing" being used interchangeably. Both of these terms refer to the same form of writing, and both adhere to the same set of characteristics.

Let's take a closer look at three of the major characteristics of academic writing.

1. Evidence Based

Unlike other forms of writing, academic writing prioritizes logical, evidence-based reasoning. Every conclusion or point that you make should be supported by evidence.

Furthermore, all of these points should work together to support your thesis. Your thesis is the topic or research question that your writing aims to investigate, discuss, prove, or disprove.

Scholarly writing should be formal in tone. This means no contractions, colloquialisms, or slang. It also means that your writing should avoid personal pronouns such as "I." In this style of writing, you should write in the third person.

Furthermore, while you're certainly encouraged to feel passionately about your topic, you should also aim to write in a neutral tone. This means that your writing should avoid inflammatory, judgment-call statements.

Instead, your writing should sound like a rational exploration of the facts and evidence that support your conclusions. Seek to eliminate bias from your writing and remember to thoughtfully engage with your opposition's viewpoints. Don't just dismiss them as "wrong."

3. Properly cited

Proper citations are one of the most important characteristics of academic writing. You should always support any evidence that you call on with clear, orderly citations and references. This not only lends authority to your writing but also helps others locate your sources and further expand on your topic.

Your citations and the overall formatting of your paper may change depending on your assigned style guide ( APA , the Chicago Manual of Style , or MLA , to name a few). Make sure to adhere to the specifications of your specific style guide.

Next, let's take a look at the major types of academic writing that you'll encounter. Unfortunately, part of the reason that the answer to "What is academic writing?" is so long is that the subject is littered with subcategories.

Below, we've listed some of the most common types of scholarly writing and linked them to articles detailing each one. 

• Lab reports
• Book reports
• Theses and dissertations
• Grant proposals
• Literature reviews

These types of scholarly writing can be split into further subcategories. For example, an academic essay might fall into the descriptive, analytical, persuasive, or critical category—each of which might ask you to take a different approach in your writing.

Finding Your Research Question and Thesis Statement

Now that you have a grasp on what academic writing is, let's take a closer look at its elements. We'll begin with the star of the show, the thesis statement. However, in order to create your thesis statement, you'll first need a research question.

Select a topic that interests you and draft an intriguing question about it. That question is your research question. Make it as specific as possible, and as you dig into your research, continue to narrow its scope.

More often than not, the answers you find will become your thesis, which is the statement or question that your writing will investigate, prove, or disprove.

A good thesis statement should demonstrate the following characteristics:

• Evidence based

If you want to learn more about thesis statements, check out our article on  how to write a great thesis statement .

The Importance of a Strong Structure

A good structure is vital in academic writing, and a clear, logical structure will help you present your ideas. Moreover, many forms of academic writing obey an established structure, which the reader will expect you to follow.

For example, many academic essays follow a five-part structure. It's okay to experiment with other structures from time to time, but it is a good one to start with.

A five-part structure involves an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Your introduction introduces your topic and situates its importance within your field. It establishes your methodology and introduces your thesis statement.

Your body paragraphs support your thesis in more detail. Each body paragraph begins with a topic sentence, after which a cycle of introducing subtopics, providing evidence, and reflecting on the impact of that evidence ensues.

Your conclusion should summarize your body paragraphs and reaffirm your thesis. It shouldn't contain any new information. Instead, think of it as an opportunity to finish strong and hammer in your points one last time.

Check out our Ultimate Essay Checklist for additional essay writing advice.

In order to have a strong structure, it's best to create an outline before you start writing. It'll help you keep yourself motivated and on track. It's much easier to write with a plan in mind than to write into a shapeless void.

If you can, leave time for multiple drafts. It may sound unnecessary; however, each draft will give you the time and mental space you need to drastically improve the quality of your writing.

Always Keep Your Writing Concise

Verbose writing is one of the most common issues in academic writing.

Whenever you can, keep things concise . Complex vocabulary and sentences are common in academic writing. However, they aren't everything. Learning to write concisely is a difficult skill to master. However, it has great benefits, including the ability to express yourself clearly.

To begin writing concisely, challenge yourself to first avoid the passive voice. It won't always be possible to use the active voice. However, favor the active voice whenever you can. It shakes up your writing, making it more dynamic and helping to propel the reader forward.

Style guides are intended to make your life easier, not complicate it. Think of them as friendly guides who will help you cite and format your work correctly. Don't wait until the last moment to crack yours open!

Here are three of the most common style guides and the fields they're commonly used in:

• The Chicago Manual of Style (Chicago), which is used in history, criminology, and business
• Modern Language Association (MLA) style, which is used in the humanities and liberal arts
• American Psychological Association (APA) style, which is used in the social sciences, psychology, business, and economics

Never underestimate the value of editing and proofreading your work. You wouldn't believe the number of errors that can be caught simply by taking a break, refreshing your mind, and settling in to complete an editing or proofreading pass.

In turn, professional editing and proofreading can give you an even stronger boost. When you work closely with a text, it's easy to skim over errors and confusing language. You already know how your writing should go, so it's easy for your brain to fill in the gaps.

You should now have all that you need to step out into the world of academic writing. It's time to take all that you've learned and put it into practice. Make your mark on the world. We'll be rooting for you.

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About the author.

Scribendi's in-house editors work with writers from all over the globe to perfect their writing. They know that no piece of writing is complete without a professional edit, and they love to see a good piece of writing transformed into a great one. Scribendi's in-house editors are unrivaled in both experience and education, having collectively edited millions of words and obtained numerous degrees. They love consuming caffeinated beverages, reading books of various genres, and relaxing in quiet, dimly lit spaces.

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Home / News / How to Improve your Academic English and Business English Writing Skills

How to Improve your Academic English and Business English Writing Skills

Writing is a key skill for success in any career. From emails to essays, different forms of writing require specialized vocabulary, varied sentence structure, and appropriate formatting.

An even better way to improve your writing is to get feedback from an instructor and classmates. That way you can revise, correct, and improve your sentences and paragraphs. Self-reflection leads to progress.

The best way to  improve your writing is to combine both practice and feedback in an immersive setting. That means living in an English-speaking country and joining an intensive English program .

In this article, we’ll talk about the importance of building English writing skills, compare academic English and business English, and discuss the writing process.

How hard is it for ESL students to learn business and academic English skills?

Learning English isn’t easy. For many people, it’s especially hard to learn formal English because it includes strict grammar rules, specialized vocabulary, and cultural knowledge. 

But through self-study and study in an intensive English program , it’s not impossible to learn academic English to attend a US university or improve business English writing skills to work at an international company.  

The benchmark of English proficiency for academic and business purposes is B2 on the CEFR scale. A beginner will likely need two years of immersive study to develop B2-level academic and business English skills.

Difficult but doable.

First, let’s get a grip on the similarities and differences between business English and academic English writing skills. They’re similar but not the same.

How does academic writing compare to business writing?

Both academic and business English require precisely chosen vocabulary, purposeful organization, and grammatical accuracy. You can’t skate by on the loose English of daily interactions, social media, or popular entertainment. 

Both academic English writing and business English writing share a seriousness of tone and intent, whether you’re producing a research paper or a project proposal. No street slang or colorful idioms. No tangents where you lose focus or toss out irrelevant opinions.

Both forms of English maintain a zero-tolerance policy for typos, factual goofs, and plagiarism. The little stuff must be accurate, from the capitalization of names to the citing of sources.

In both cases, you may employ vocabulary specific to your major or field–that is, language not normally used in everyday speech. 

For example, you may learn a language connected to your career in banking, oil and gas, or law in order to improve your business English skills. Your job may require you to create executive summaries, sales pitches, or user manuals. 

Along the same lines, to improve academic English writing you may need terms specific to a journal article on child psychology or a dissertation or 18th century French poetry.

However, there are differences. On the one hand, you have the academic English you use as a university student in the USA and, on the other hand, you have the business English you use as an employee at an English-speaking company.

Let’s check out 5 differences between academic English versus business English.

• The purpose of academic writing is to show learning. This demonstration of knowledge may include summarizing research, applying theories, defending a thesis, comparing/contrasting concepts, explaining historical causes/effects, and so on.  Academic English is more “scientific,” with writers presenting evidence, analysis, and logical reasoning.
• The purpose of business writing, in contrast, is to get stuff done. The tasks at hand may include implementing plans, negotiating deals, recommending strategies, gaining employment, selling products, and collaborating on projects. Business English is more practical, with writers giving instructions, making decisions, and solving problems.
• Academic English writing may include longer sentences i n order to explain complicated concepts. While sentences should never be unnecessarily long, academic writing may elaborate on ideas, include small details, and explore subtle implications. You may create one sentence with multiple relative clauses carefully arranged to convey nuances and fine details.
• Business English writing, on the other hand, tends to use shorter sentences to make it easy to read and conversational. Business writing avoids unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, and complex sentence structures. Instead, you focus on the best nouns and verbs that convey a concrete meaning in a straightforward manner. Time is money.
• Academic English more often employs verbs in the passive voice . In academic writing it often doesn’t matter who does things. but what is done. Academic writing gives objective analysis. For example, you may write passive sentences like “The conflict has been triggered by…” and “Symptoms can be divided into three categories…” A lab report will say, “The liquid was heated,” not “I heated the liquid.” 
• Business English, since it focuses on doing things, often prefers the active voice. Less objective than academic writing, business English presents facts and opinions energetically and directly. For example, you may write active sentences like, “We urge the company to… “ and “profits plunged in the third quarter.” 
• Academic English speaks to scholars, professors, experts, and peers in the field.  The level of formality tends to be high, staying precise and objective. Moreover, academic writing may include specialized terms known only by the experts in the audience. However, it is also true that some academic writing minimizes jargon in order to reach a general audience. A TED talk lecture will be more conversational and less formal than a conference paper or a journal article.
• Business English speaks to a variety of audiences: clients, colleagues, supervisors, vendors, stakeholders, employers –pretty much everyone connected with the job. The level of formality, therefore, varies depending on who, why, and when. Are you writing an email to a customer? An FAQ for a web site? A cover letter to a job application? In all cases, your tone must be courteous and tactful, but adapted to the reader’s specific interests and needs.
• Academic writing takes many forms: book report, abstract, conference paper, textbook, dissertation, etc. Depending on the form, you must conform to specific style guides, such as APA style, MLA style, and Chicago Style, which dictate precisely how you cite sources and format the text. There is no room for error!
• Furthermore, when organizing ideas, you may use heavy-handed connection language like therefore, thus, nevertheless, or as a consequence, which may sound awkward or pretentious in business English.
• Academic English avoids emotive vocabulary ( terrible! terrific! ) and hyperbole (the greatest product in human history ), instead using hedging language ( may be, is possibly ) and objective reporting verbs in the third person (“ It has been claimed that…,” “Sources verify that…,” or “The data indicates that…” ).
• Business writing also takes many forms: memo, press release, email, resume, cover letter, proposal, business plan, marketing materials, technical document, etc. Appropriate formatting and style vary depending on the audience, company culture, and purpose. Business writing must take extra care to be friendly and nondiscriminatory to the reader in order to cultivate partnerships. There are fewer absolute rules and greater personal flexibility to adapt to the reader and purpose.
• In contrast to academic English, business English may include abbreviations like FYI or ASAP, contractions ( I’m interested in… ) and phrasal verbs like draw up a contract  or zero in on a target.
• How can I improve my English academic and business writing skills?

First, it’s important to immerse yourself in the English language . You can’t just memorize rules and words. And you can’t cram years of English learning into a few weeks or months.

If you want to know how to improve business English writing skills, first take note that no language skill exists in isolation. Besides learning writing skills, you need to speak, listen, and read English, too. 

That’s why intensive English programs are so valuable. You learn English faster in a community engaged in a variety of interesting student-centered activities. Business English writing skills are connected to everyday English communication skills like collaborating, debating, and communicating in a classroom.

In other words, you can’t improve academic English writing skills or business writing skills in English just by WRITING. You need to read authentic texts, listen to natural speech, and discuss topics with fellow learners. This way you build knowledge of both language and culture, which leads to a well-rounded English communicator. 

Reading is also key to improving your writing. To improve your business English writing skills, you need to expose yourself to a wide range of formal and informal writing modes. By reading newspapers, magazines, reviews, brochures, movie subtitles, novels, textbooks, interview transcripts, you get a wider view of English than just ESL books.  

Reading shows you how  writers address their audience, organize information, and use specific vocabulary words, phrases, and idioms. Variety is the spice of reading. 

To improve academic and business English skills, keep in mind that writing is a process. The writing process is a series of steps taken over the course hours, days, and weeks, from the initial brainstorm to the final spellcheck.

Whether you’re writing English for academic purposes or business purpose, it matters what you do before, during, and after you write:

• During the writing process, develop not only the sentences themselves but the evidence and reasoning. That’s not one right way to write. Each writer’s creative process is different. You might not necessarily begin by drafting the beginning of the essay, proposal, or email. You might compose the middle first and the introduction last. 
• After you finish, you’re not really finished. Walk away for a couple hours (or days) and return with a clear head. Revisit and revise arguments, word choice, and supporting details. You may even delete blocks of text and add totally new sections. You edit, polish, and proofread. 

Why is it important to master English writing?

Simply put: writing is the most common form of communication in the business world.  Since the dawn of the Information Age, employees, managers, and owners alike must constantly communicate in writing.

The same goes for the academic world: the bulk of a student’s work consists of written homework, short answer exams, essays, papers, and dissertations, not to mention cover letters, emails, grant applications, and resumes that go along with building a career.

There are advantages to written communication. As opposed to spoken communication, writing can be edited, improved, and perfected over time. Revising an email can make it more concise, concrete, and courteous. Revising an essay can make it more clear,  compelling, and convincing. 

Other advantages of written communication are that it allows visual aids, creates a permanent record of interactions, and invites thoughtful feedback from recipients. 

Successful companies use written communication to boost their image in the community,  improve internal efficiency, and cultivate customer satisfaction.

As a professional, you come across as more hirable and desirable if your written English is concise, clear, and correct. If your writing contains clumsy grammar, misspellings, and confusing organization, you appear less credible and reliable in the eyes of academic readers.

Besides benefits at school and work, research shows that regularly writing in English helps learners retain information. Knowledge enters long term memory. New words, phrases, and grammar structure stick in your memory. The writing process hones critical thinking abilities. In short, writing tools sharpen through use.

Yet, writing skills don’t grow in isolation. Improving academic and business English skills goes hand in hand with overall English language acquisition. 

Learning English encompasses all four language skills: listening, reading, speaking, and writing. Even if your main goal is to speak English fluently, rather than to write English professionally, it is essential to develop writing skills in order to become proficient in the language.

Listening and reading are different in that they don’t require you to produce English. Instead, you simply receive and understand it. 

Speaking and writing, however, require language production. Coming up with your own words and sentences on the spot is harder, right? 

That’s another reason why writing is important–it can also develop speaking skills. In fact the skills are transferable–they support one another.

The steps of the writing process helps you brainstorm ideas and organize your thoughts before trying to create sentences. As you write, you can use grammar structures, new vocabulary, and cultural knowledge which later becomes useful in speech. 

Slower and stress-free, the writing process allows you to explore synonyms, correct mistakes, and practice pronunciation. In the end, you have a visual document of your own English to revise and analyze.

Over time, writing skills related to argumentation, storytelling, and analysis transfer to speaking skills. You end up speaking more persuasively. You tell stories with better verb accuracy. You speak with more connectors and conjunctions that help listeners follow your train of thought. You incorporate new vocabulary and phrases into speech more confidently since you’ve already practiced them in writing. 

Final Thoughts on Academic and Business Writing Skills

English writing skills have never been more important. Many companies offer their employees training in business English writing skills, and many universities include ac ademic English writing courses in their curriculum.

The first impression you make with a potential client, hiring committee, or admissions officer will most likely be through a piece of written communication. 

Since writing skills are in such high demand, it makes sense to join an Intensive English program, enroll in online English classes, or hire a private writing tutor. 

As the world becomes increasingly digitally interconnected, the importance of writing skills will only grow.

Related articles about how to learn English

While you book your Intensive English course  improve your language skills by reading our free English articles or watching our free English lesson videos.  

• Understand the differences between and the importance of Academic English vs General English .
• Study how to improve English for academic purposes.  
• Learn how business and academic English lessons can broaden your mind and open up a world of opportunities .  
• Learn techniques for brainstorming essay ideas for typical assignments in Academic English lessons or business English courses. 
• Learn techniques for outlining essay ideas for typical assignments in Academic English lessons or business English courses. 
• Watch fun and informative videos with English tips useful for work, school, and creative writing. We continuously update our free English playlists of easy-to-understand videos . 
• Why 2021 has skyrocketed the importance of improving your English communication skills for the workplace?
• What Is the Difference Between Social and Academic English? (Part 1 of 2) and Social vs Academic English: What is the difference? Part 2
• Business English Guide to Improve Your Communication Skills

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Enjoy tips on academic writing and free sample research papers, essays, speeches, book reviews and much more than that. All tips are prepared by the seasoned academic writers, and you can always count on their reliability and practical efficiency. Our well-thought-out sample papers can be used as illustrative examples for your own academic writing. No matter which type of academic assistance you need right now, you can always rely on our professionalism and experience.

How to Write an Academic Business Plan

Every student who studies business and accounting should be able to compose a successful business plan professionally.

Obviously, many students face problems with the development of this type of document because they do not know the fundamentals used to prepare a good business plan. To help students develop a strong and effective business plan, we have some helpful advice for writing them, and we hope you can take advantage of our high-quality writing tips to improve your business plan writing skills.

Overview and Context of Your Business Plan

First, you need to inform your reader about the subject of your business plan. You need to brainstorm a program for a project of your imagined firm and prepare a business plan for it. You will need to understand the proper style and format of writing needed to meet your school or course’s requirements. It is wise to imagine that you are writing a real business plan; consequently, your paper will be stronger because it will effectively mirror real-world conditions. You should describe the type of business and illustrate its main components. You will need to think about the kind of product or service offered and the methods and techniques used for its promotion and sale.

Benefits Statement and Cost Statement

When you write your business plan, you should inform your reader how the plan will lead to the growth and development of the firm over time. You ought to work carefully to develop a sensible and relevant plan. Moreover, you need to write about how your ideas and solutions will be beneficial for your company. If you propose the right methods and approaches for production and marketing, you can say that your business plan is beneficial to you and your firm. Then, you need to focus on expenditures that will need to occur in the process of production. Benefits and costs are two essential elements of every business plan because one can evaluate the actual potential and profit of a company with the help of these estimates.

Operating and Financial Plans

When you have designated the probable costs and revenues for your business, you should think about the smaller details of the process of production, promotion, and sale. It is important to reflect on the staff, professionalism, and intelligence of the firm’s employees, the number of working hours, the type and quality of equipment, etc. One should know how, when and who fulfills various duties. While the operational plan focuses on operations, the financial plan is related to money. You ought to think about investment, shareholders, the cost of production, salaries and other essential elements of accounting.

Marketing and Communication Plans

All of your business plans will come to naught if you don’t have a solid plan for advertising, marketing and communicating information about your business and its products and services to your potential customer send clients. A marketing plan should lay out your plans for reaching your audience through various methods and budgeting for your marketing needs. A communication plan should lay out how you intend to communicate with internal and external stakeholders to deliver your message and promote clear and responsible communication with all necessary parties.

Business Plan Summary

When you are through with all the main components of your business plan, its time to enter into the revision process. You’ll need to polish its style and proofread it to ensure its quality. Read it from beginning to end and make the changes that you need to improve each section. Keep the reader in mind and focus on clarity and effectiveness. Think about the actual usefulness and relevance of your project and ensure that each part of your business plan will contribute to the reader’s understanding of your plans for your business. Consider whether your plan can be effective in practice by imagining yourself as a real-world evaluator of an actual business plan. By considering your work from an outsider’s perspective, you can better judge how well you have done in developing your plan.

Writing a business plan can be a challenge, but following the simple tips we’ve offered and keeping in mind how your reader will perceive your work, you are likely to have a much stronger business plan and one that’s sure to impress your readers.

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Writing a Business Plan

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Resourcing new ventures is-all important for entrepreneurs, and creating a successful business plan can be make or break when it comes to attracting investment. Written by an experienced academic and consultant, this book provides a concise guide for producing the optimal business plan.

Business plans are vital when it comes to making strategic decisions and monitoring progress. Writing a Business Plan is designed to teach you how to write your business plan without relying on someone else or internet templates. It will take you through each stage of business-plan writing, with chapters on generating ideas; describing business opportunities; drawing a business road map; and considering marketing, financial, operations, HR, legal and risk. The book includes a range of features to assist you, including worked-through examples.

This unique book provides a one-stop shop for entrepreneurs and students of entrepreneurship to hone their skills in writing a useful and comprehensive business plan.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1 | 5  pages, introduction to this book, chapter 2 | 3  pages, the contents of a business plan, chapter 3 | 2  pages, introduction to the business plan, chapter 4 | 6  pages, idea generation, chapter 5 | 7  pages, business strategy, chapter 6 | 7  pages, market research and marketing, chapter 7 | 21  pages, financing the business, chapter 8 | 4  pages, operations management, chapter 9 | 6  pages, hr-related tasks and legal compliance, chapter 10 | 3  pages, risk analysis, growth and exit planning, chapter 11 | 2  pages.

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What Is Academic Writing? | Dos and Don’ts for Students

Academic writing is a formal style of writing used in universities and scholarly publications. You’ll encounter it in journal articles and books on academic topics, and you’ll be expected to write your essays , research papers , and dissertation in academic style.

Academic writing follows the same writing process as other types of texts, but it has specific conventions in terms of content, structure and style.

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Table of contents

Types of academic writing, academic writing is…, academic writing is not…, useful tools for academic writing, academic writing checklist.

Academics mostly write texts intended for publication, such as journal articles, reports, books, and chapters in edited collections. For students, the most common types of academic writing assignments are listed below.

Different fields of study have different priorities in terms of the writing they produce. For example, in scientific writing it’s crucial to clearly and accurately report methods and results; in the humanities, the focus is on constructing convincing arguments through the use of textual evidence. However, most academic writing shares certain key principles intended to help convey information as effectively as possible.

Whether your goal is to pass your degree, apply to graduate school , or build an academic career, effective writing is an essential skill.

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Formal and unbiased

Academic writing aims to convey information in an impartial way. The goal is to base arguments on the evidence under consideration, not the author’s preconceptions. All claims should be supported with relevant evidence, not just asserted.

To avoid bias, it’s important to represent the work of other researchers and the results of your own research fairly and accurately. This means clearly outlining your methodology  and being honest about the limitations of your research.

The formal style used in academic writing ensures that research is presented consistently across different texts, so that studies can be objectively assessed and compared with other research.

Because of this, it’s important to strike the right tone with your language choices. Avoid informal language , including slang, contractions , clichés, and conversational phrases:

• Also , a lot of the findings are a little unreliable.
• Moreover , many of the findings are somewhat unreliable.

Clear and precise

It’s important to use clear and precise language to ensure that your reader knows exactly what you mean. This means being as specific as possible and avoiding vague language :

• People have been interested in this thing for a long time .
• Researchers have been interested in this phenomenon for at least 10 years .

Avoid hedging your claims with words like “perhaps,” as this can give the impression that you lack confidence in your arguments. Reflect on your word choice to ensure it accurately and directly conveys your meaning:

• This could perhaps suggest that…
• This suggests that…

Specialist language or jargon is common and often necessary in academic writing, which generally targets an audience of other academics in related fields.

However, jargon should be used to make your writing more concise and accurate, not to make it more complicated. A specialist term should be used when:

• It conveys information more precisely than a comparable non-specialist term.
• Your reader is likely to be familiar with the term.
• The term is commonly used by other researchers in your field.

The best way to familiarize yourself with the kind of jargon used in your field is to read papers by other researchers and pay attention to their language.

Focused and well structured

An academic text is not just a collection of ideas about a topic—it needs to have a clear purpose. Start with a relevant research question or thesis statement , and use it to develop a focused argument. Only include information that is relevant to your overall purpose.

A coherent structure is crucial to organize your ideas. Pay attention to structure at three levels: the structure of the whole text, paragraph structure, and sentence structure.

Well sourced

Academic writing uses sources to support its claims. Sources are other texts (or media objects like photographs or films) that the author analyzes or uses as evidence. Many of your sources will be written by other academics; academic writing is collaborative and builds on previous research.

It’s important to consider which sources are credible and appropriate to use in academic writing. For example, citing Wikipedia is typically discouraged. Don’t rely on websites for information; instead, use academic databases and your university library to find credible sources.

You must always cite your sources in academic writing. This means acknowledging whenever you quote or paraphrase someone else’s work by including a citation in the text and a reference list at the end.

There are many different citation styles with different rules. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago . Make sure to consistently follow whatever style your institution requires. If you don’t cite correctly, you may get in trouble for plagiarism . A good plagiarism checker can help you catch any issues before it’s too late.

You can easily create accurate citations in APA or MLA style using our Citation Generators.

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Correct and consistent

As well as following the rules of grammar, punctuation, and citation, it’s important to consistently apply stylistic conventions regarding:

• How to write numbers
• Introducing abbreviations
• Using verb tenses in different sections
• Capitalization of terms and headings
• Spelling and punctuation differences between UK and US English

In some cases there are several acceptable approaches that you can choose between—the most important thing is to apply the same rules consistently and to carefully proofread your text before you submit. If you don’t feel confident in your own proofreading abilities, you can get help from Scribbr’s professional proofreading services or Grammar Checker .

Academic writing generally tries to avoid being too personal. Information about the author may come in at some points—for example in the acknowledgements or in a personal reflection—but for the most part the text should focus on the research itself.

Always avoid addressing the reader directly with the second-person pronoun “you.” Use the impersonal pronoun “one” or an alternate phrasing instead for generalizations:

• As a teacher, you must treat your students fairly.
• As a teacher, one must treat one’s students fairly.
• Teachers must treat their students fairly.

The use of the first-person pronoun “I” used to be similarly discouraged in academic writing, but it is increasingly accepted in many fields. If you’re unsure whether to use the first person, pay attention to conventions in your field or ask your instructor.

When you refer to yourself, it should be for good reason. You can position yourself and describe what you did during the research, but avoid arbitrarily inserting your personal thoughts and feelings:

• In my opinion…
• I think that…
• I like/dislike…
• I conducted interviews with…
• I argue that…
• I hope to achieve…

Long-winded

Many students think their writing isn’t academic unless it’s over-complicated and long-winded. This isn’t a good approach—instead, aim to be as concise and direct as possible.

If a term can be cut or replaced with a more straightforward one without affecting your meaning, it should be. Avoid redundant phrasings in your text, and try replacing phrasal verbs with their one-word equivalents where possible:

• Interest in this phenomenon carried on in the year 2018 .
• Interest in this phenomenon continued in 2018 .

Repetition is a part of academic writing—for example, summarizing earlier information in the conclusion—but it’s important to avoid unnecessary repetition. Make sure that none of your sentences are repeating a point you’ve already made in different words.

Emotive and grandiose

An academic text is not the same thing as a literary, journalistic, or marketing text. Though you’re still trying to be persuasive, a lot of techniques from these styles are not appropriate in an academic context. Specifically, you should avoid appeals to emotion and inflated claims.

Though you may be writing about a topic that’s sensitive or important to you, the point of academic writing is to clearly communicate ideas, information, and arguments, not to inspire an emotional response. Avoid using emotive or subjective language :

• This horrible tragedy was obviously one of the worst catastrophes in construction history.
• The injury and mortality rates of this accident were among the highest in construction history.

Students are sometimes tempted to make the case for their topic with exaggerated , unsupported claims and flowery language. Stick to specific, grounded arguments that you can support with evidence, and don’t overstate your point:

• Charles Dickens is the greatest writer of the Victorian period, and his influence on all subsequent literature is enormous.
• Charles Dickens is one of the best-known writers of the Victorian period and has had a significant influence on the development of the English novel.

There are a a lot of writing tools that will make your writing process faster and easier. We’ll highlight three of them below.

Paraphrasing tool

AI writing tools like ChatGPT and a paraphrasing tool can help you rewrite text so that your ideas are clearer, you don’t repeat yourself, and your writing has a consistent tone.

They can also help you write more clearly about sources without having to quote them directly. Be warned, though: it’s still crucial to give credit to all sources in the right way to prevent plagiarism .

Grammar checker

Writing tools that scan your text for punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. When it detects a mistake the grammar checke r will give instant feedback and suggest corrections. Helping you write clearly and avoid common mistakes .

You can use a summarizer if you want to condense text into its most important and useful ideas. With a summarizer tool, you can make it easier to understand complicated sources. You can also use the tool to make your research question clearer and summarize your main argument.

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Professional editors proofread and edit your paper by focusing on:

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Use the checklist below to assess whether you have followed the rules of effective academic writing.

• Checklist: Academic writing

I avoid informal terms and contractions .

I avoid second-person pronouns (“you”).

I avoid emotive or exaggerated language.

I avoid redundant words and phrases.

I avoid unnecessary jargon and define terms where needed.

I present information as precisely and accurately as possible.

I use appropriate transitions to show the connections between my ideas.

My text is logically organized using paragraphs .

Each paragraph is focused on a single idea, expressed in a clear topic sentence .

Every part of the text relates to my central thesis or research question .

I support my claims with evidence.

I use the appropriate verb tenses in each section.

I consistently use either UK or US English .

I format numbers consistently.

I cite my sources using a consistent citation style .

Your text follows the most important rules of academic style. Make sure it's perfect with the help of a Scribbr editor!

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