Students must first have good general writing skills in a language before than can do academic writing. Academic writing requires a higher-than-average vocabulary and use of language. But the next most valuable thing is to give them a clear format to follow. In many ways, academic writing follows a fairly strict format.
b. When two independent clauses are closely related to each other and are joined by a conjunctive adverb of two syllables or more, place a semicolon before the conjunctive adverb and a comma after it.
