Have any questions? Live chat

Writing Blog

Avoiding Bias in Writing: Essentials

November 30, 2020| Category: Writing Tips

It may be extremely complicated to avoid being biased while writing. It is worth noting that bias is defined as an inclination or tendency for a person to hold a specific outlook or take peculiar judgments concerning any topic. Thus, how are you capable of recognizing bias and what should be done to avoid it in your own writing? We would like to focus on the general principles on composing about different people as well as their personal traits without bias.

Specific Emphasis on Relevant and Important Characteristics

It is recommended to be mindful and reasonable in describing or presenting only relevant and specific characteristics. Though it is possible to indicate or dwell on a person’s disability, age, gender identity, racial, ethnic, cultural or religious identity, participation in research, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or other features or traits without bias, it is not always needed to include all this info in your work or project. For a more thorough discussion of participants’ characteristics to dwell on in your works, refer to the journal article reporting standards for qualitative or quantitative studies. For instance, you would be unlikely to indicate sexual orientation of the participants in the study devoted to cognition as this aspect is irrelevant to cognition. However, you would prefer to state gender of the participants in the study on stereotype threats as gender is closely relegated to the examination and explication of stereotype threats. Furthermore, there can be multiple relevant features to discuss or focus on in your research; whenever this is the case, you should try to address all the ways in which these characteristics under analysis intersect, as needed.

Indicate Relevant and Key Differences that Are Evident

Writing without bias implies not only recognizing essential differences that ought to be mentioned only whenever relevant but also making specific emphasis on relevant and significant differences in case they are obvious. Try evaluating the meaning of the terms “difference” in reference to the target group, not the dominant one. For instance, the researcher who aims to generalize the research results to people or students in general is to assess and report on whether the sample under study differs from the target group and, if so, indicate how it is different.

Try to Be Specific, Clear and Precise

After you have established which essential characteristics you are going to highlight, choose scientific terms. Consider that the choice of the terms depends on the research question(s) and the current state of knowledge in a specific field. Avoid mentioning characteristics or traits gratuitously. However, whenever in doubt, try to be more specific and reasonable rather than less, as it is simpler to aggregate the data available than to disaggregate it. Take into consideration the appropriate and sound level of specificity in the research process in advance – such as while designing the research – as it may be impossible to collect more data once the research is underway or completed. Utilizing specific terms can improve the readers’ ability to comprehend the generalizability of the research findings indicated by you and other researchers’ ability to apply your data in the future meta-analysis or further replication.

Vivid Examples of Specificity Based on Topics

We provide examples of the specific language use for the topics presented in the following bias-free language guideline; as indicated earlier, the proper choice usually depends on the situation, and our examples illustrate just some of the options possible.

Whenever composing on age, age ranges or ages (e.g. 20–25 years old, 60–85 years old) are considered more specific and clear than broad ones (e.g. over 20 years old, over 60 years old). Moreover, indicate the age mean and median besides mentioning the range of ages so as to increase the specificity of your project.

Whenever writing about disability, the names of specific conditions or syndromes (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease or Lucey–Driscoll syndrome) are considered more specific than other categories of conditions or states (e.g. types of dementia) or generally applied references, including  such as “disabled people”.

Whenever writing on gender identity, it is recommended to use descriptors with modifiers (e.g. trans-gender woman or cisgender woman), which are considered more specific than average descriptors without any modifiers (e.g. woman) or general non-gendered terms (e.g. people, person, individual, individuals, population, etc.). Refer to the bias-free language for gender as well as for how to differentiate between sex and gender).

Whenever writing on people that participated in research, the terms indicating the context of the study (e.g. patients, customer, clients, participants, respondents, etc.) are more specific than generally used terms (e.g. children, people, women, men, or human).

Whenever writing on racial, ethnic or minority groups, the region or nation of origin (e.g. Mexican Americans, Chinese Americans, African Americans, Japanese Americans) is more specific than the generalized name or origin (e.g. Latin Americans, Asian Americans).

Whenever writing on socioeconomic status, the income ranges or certain designations (e.g. below the state poverty threshold for the family of five) are more specific than the generalized labels (e.g. low or high income).

Tags
"sandwich" approach A+ essay abstract abstract writing academic paper academic paper outline academic papers academic paper writing academic requirements academic sources academic writer academic writing academic writing issues academic writing rules academic writing tips active and passive voice in research writing active voice additive transitions adversative transitions a good book report a good summary AI-generated content AI-generated writing Alternative hypothesis an introduction to academic writing annotated bibliography annotation APA style appeals to trust and connection argument argument analysis argument analysis assignment argument analysis essay argumentative essay argumentative writing argument paragraph arguments article articles a thesis statement become a better writer become a writing guru bias bias-free writing blogs Bloom’s Taxonomy body paragraph body sentences boost academic vocabulary brainstorming business capitalization capitalization rule capitalize capstone paper capstone project career career in writing causal transitions challenges a new freelance writer may face with characteristics of academic writing chronological order citation cite the source clarity in writing clients closing sentences coherent academic writing college essays college writing common mistakes comparative essay compare and contrast paragraph complex assignment Complex hypothesis concept map concluding paragraph concluding sentence conclusion conclusion in academic writing conclusion in an essay conclusion writing conduct a search content content writing coordination counterargument Covid-19 creating concluding sentences creating PowerPoint presentations credible resources credible sources customer feedback decode instructions decoding professors’ instructions definition of proofreading descriptive headings descriptive paragraph diagrams difference between a literature review and an annotated bibliography division double quotation marks edit your writing effective conclusion effective headings effective paragraph elements of academic language elements of paper writing emotional appeals Empirical hypothesis essay's conclusion essay mistakes essay paragraph essay pitfalls essays essay structure essays writing essays writing tips essays writitng tips essay writing ethos explain complex concepts expository essay features of academic writing figure figures and tables first-person pronouns flow of ideas free freelance freelance jobs freelancer freelance writer freelance writers freelance writing freelance writing business Google in academic writing graphs handling difficult tasks headings heuristics high-quality papers higher-level headings high grades high school-level composition high school assignments how reading helps you become a better writer how to avoid plagiarism how to write how to write a good film review how to write capstone paper how to write phd hypothesis hypothesis writing important improve writing skills in-text citations incorporation of visuals intellectual property interpret instructions intransitive verb introduction introduction paragraph introductory paragraph italics italics for titles job journal judgmental language language and style literature review Logical hypothesis logos lower-level headings main point of the paragraph make the article engaging meeting deadlines meeting the requirements meet the deadlines methodology methodology chapter methodology section MLA style narrative paragraph non-descriptive heading note taking Null hypothesis objective tone objective writing objectivity online online writers opening paragraph opinion essay order of importance outline outline writing paper outline papers parallelism paraphrase paraphrasing passive voice past simple pathos peer response peer review personal pronouns personal response personal response essay personal response paper persuasion persuasive essay persuasive writing PhD research proposal plagiarism plan for writing planning popular and scholarly sources popular sources positive feedback PowerPoint presentation PowerPoint Presentation tips PPT PPTs presenting data in figures and tables present perfect present simple primary research problems writers face procrastination profession professional freelance writer pronouns proofreading tips qualitative methods quality quantitative methods quotation marks quotation marks for titles quote quoting racist and sexist biases in AI papers reduce word count redundancy redundant reliable sources repetition repetitive sentences repetitive writing reputable sources research research paper research paper in college research paper in high school research paper writing revising an essay rhetoric rhetorical devices rules of academic writing satisfy your customers scholarly archives scholarly materials scholarly sources second-person pronouns secondary research sentence structure sequential transitions Simple hypothesis simplifying complex assignments single quotation marks skills sources spatial order specificity spell checker spelling spelling error spelling rules start writing statistical data in academic papers Statistical hypothesis statistics statistics in academic writing stop procrastinating strong topic sentences structure of an expository essay subheadings subordination success successful academic writing successful papers successful paraphrasing suitable concluding sentences summary summary writing supporting evidence synthesis paper synthesize information synthesize sources table tables tables/graphs/charts task list as a guide techniques for writing summaries techniques to explain a difficult subject tenses in academic writing text structure the contents of the paper the main intention of the assignment thesis statement the structure of body paragraphs thinking levels third-person pronouns time management tips on revising an essay tips to writing a PhD research proposal tips to writing a social science paper token sentences topic of the paragraph topic sentence transitional words transitions transition terms transitive and intransitive verbs transitive verb types of academic texts typical writing problems unique idea use Google for research utilizing AI tools in academic papers vocabulary vocabulary building well-structured essay what writers can learn from reading novels word choice word count work wrap sentences write a conclusion writer writer job write unique texts writing writing a book report writing a film review writing a good PhD research proposal writing an A+ film review writing an essay writing an outline writing a paragraph writing as profession writing a statement writing a summary writing burnout writing clear writing errors writing essays writing fast writing hacks writing job writing mistakes writing papers writing pitfalls writing process writing skills writing style writing tips