How compelled should I feel to use non-contracted forms (do not rather than don't and so on) when writing in a rather formal text, say an academic paper? In one case I am afraid to seem too stilted, in the other, too casual. Are there good guidelines? And are there differences in this regard between British and American English? (In this previous question there was not much more than "Contractions are more frequent in informal than formal contexts".)
@jgbelacqua: Are you aware that you are telling me, more or less: “Why are you asking this here? Ask someone else”? What makes you think I have a supervisor, rather than being one, for instance? Or that I work with English-speaking people?
Commented Mar 18, 2011 at 9:39No offense intended ; that is not at what I was trying to convey. I saw that several reasonable answers had already been given, and expected that you would regard them as more authoritative than a comment. Use of a formal writing style implies an arbiter of form and style, however, even if it a loose set of guidelines. Me saying, in effect, follow the preference of whoever you are trying to impress was intended to be jocular. If it's not apparent, to me, prescriptivism in this area is best left to the arbiters of style in that area. If you need more guidance, please add more detail.
Commented Mar 18, 2011 at 14:56For what it's worth, I also consider it unlikely that the use of non-contracted forms will make the writing sound stilted. (And I probably should have added a 'smiley' to my original comment, in retrospect.)
Commented Mar 18, 2011 at 15:00Contractions generally sound a little more informal than their non-contracted equivalents. However, they also sound more natural, as non-contracted forms are practically never used in speech (except e.g. for emphasis or in cases where contractions are not grammatical).
Whether a particular piece of writing is "formal" enough to warrant avoiding contractions is really quite subjective. If you look at many scholarly books and even journal articles, you will find that many (native speaking) authors actually do use contractions and their respective editors have decided that they're happy with them. I would argue that contractions are almost always possible in e-mails: if the context was that formal, you probably wouldn't be communicating by e-mail in the first place. But as I say, it is a subjective decision.
On the other hand, if you are writing in a formal context such as a journal article or a formal letter to a company and can't decide whether or not to use contractions, then I think that avoiding contractions will always be a "safe" decision in such formal contexts.