One consistent problem I find in undergraduate writing is a tendency towards flowery prose. I think it is one of the reasons that APA style can be so difficult to teach: The less-is-more approach to concise writing is not a lesson that they are necessarily getting from other classes. To further muddy the waters, students really don't have any experience writing about numbers/data/statistics/results in a way that a) doesn't convey too much certainty in data or b) imply causality when not appropriate. That is why I love the Academic Phrasebank . It provides lists and lists and lists of concise, accurate ways to describe research findings. For example, how to write up statistical results: http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/reporting-results/ In addition to providing examples for wording in a results section, they also clarify the type of  guarded language that should be used in a discussion: http://www.phrasebank.manchester.ac.uk/using-cautious-language/ Another ...