More precise and academic synonyms

Make your writing sophisticated by developing sophisticated academic arguments, not using flowery prose.

This spurred me to look at my PhD thesis to see how many times I used 'therefore'. Only 20 times in 90,000 words!

That's interesting! Impressive. I feel you will understand that I feel like I'm unnecessarily repeating myself, regardless of these words being used to connect ideas and arguments.

That is what I'm thinking; finding more precise ways of saying things will allow me to create more precise arguments. Aside from the knowledge itself, obviously.

No, my point was you need to focus on the knowledge itself to start with. It's entirely possible to make sophisticated academic arguments using plain English plus technical terms from your field. Develop the knowledge and ability to construct the sophisticated arguments first - prose style will develop in the process of that naturally (as you read more and get used to the style of your field). The reverse is not necessarily true though and the latter certainly will not substitute for the former either.

There is also something to be said for brevity when writing for assessment. It's ok to be inelegant and even dull in terms of word choices provided that you get the point across succinctly - few words do better than 'therefore', 'thus', 'consequently' for that.

As an aside, a quick way to write more elegantly is to read more journal papers and instead of their content, pay attention to their sentential construction and style.

Oh okay, so you're saying that as well as developing my writing, I need to focus on the development of my knowledge — and how those converge? That makes complete sense! If I focus on the knowledge, then my writing should develop from there, to be honest; the more that I know what I'm talking about, the more I have to say, and the more concisely I can say it.