ACADEMIC WRITING

What is meant by academic writing?

Academic writing is clear, concise, focussed, structured and backed up by evidence. Its purpose is to aid the reader's understanding. It has a formal tone and style, but it is not complex and does not require the use of long sentences and complicated vocabulary.

What Is Academic Writing?

Academic writing is the formal writing style used in colleges and universities. It’s what students are expected to produce for classes and what professors and academic researchers use to write scholarly materials. High schools sometimes require academic writing style in certain classes.

Definition of Academic Writing With Examples

It’s important for students to know what academic writing is and be able to write in this style. Discover key characteristics of academic writing and review some original academic writing examples.

Types of academic writing

The four main types of academic writing are descriptive, analytical, persuasive and critical. Each of these types of writing has specific language features and purposes. In many academic texts you will need to use more than one type.

Writing for Higher Education

A simple academic writing definition is hard to come by because there are many types and forms of academic writing, produced for a variety of reasons.

Different types of academic writing include:

• abstract
• annotated bibliography
• academic journal article
• book report
• conference paper
• dissertation
• essay
• explication
• literary criticism
• research paper
• research proposal
• textbook
• thesis

While this is not an exhaustive list of every possible form academic writing can take, it does contain the most common types.

Features of academic writing

Introduction

Try this exercise.

Academic writing in English is linear, which means it has one central point or theme with every part contributing to the main line of argument, without digressions or repetitions. Its objective is to inform rather than entertain. As well as this it is in the standard written form of the language.There are ten main features of academic writing that are often discussed. Academic writing is to some extent: complex, formal, objective, explicit, hedged, and responsible. It uses language precisely and accurately. It is also well organised and planned.

Complexity

Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically more dense and it has a more varied vocabulary. It uses more noun-based phrases than verb-based phrases. Written texts are shorter and the language has more grammatical complexity, including more subordinate clauses and more passives.

Formality

Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions.

Precision

In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely.

Objectivity

Written language is in general objective rather than personal. It therefore has fewer words that refer to the writer or the reader. This means that the main emphasis should be on the information that you want to give and the arguments you want to make, rather than you. For that reason,  academic writing tends to use nouns (and adjectives), rather than verbs (and adverbs).

Explicitness

Academic writing is explicit about the relationships int he text. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the writer in English to make it clear to the reader how the various parts of the text are related. These connections can be made explicit by the use of different signalling words.

Accuracy

Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words with narrow specific meanings. Linguistics distinguishes clearly between "phonetics" and "phonemics"; general English does not.

Hedging

In any kind of academic writing you do, it is necessary to make decisions about your stance on a particular subject, or the strength of the claims you are making. Different subjects prefer to do this in different ways.

A technique common in certain kinds of academic writing is known by linguists as a ‘hedge’.

Responsibility

In academic writing you must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and justification for, any claims you make. You are also responsible for demonstrating an understanding of any source texts you use.

Organisation

Academic writing is well organised. It flows easily from one section to the next in a logical fashion. A good place to start is the genre of your text. Once you have decided on the genre, the structure is easily determined..

Planning

Academic writing is well planned. It usually takes place after research and evaluation, according to a specific purpose and plan.

Gordon Harvey’s Elements of the Academic Essay

The “Elements of the Academic Essay” is a taxonomy of academic writing by Gordon Harvey. It identifies the key components of academic writing across the disciplines and has been widely influential. Below is a complete list (with descriptions). 

• THESIS
• MOTIVE
• EVIDENCE
• ANALYSIS
• KEYTERMS
• STRUCTURE
• STITCHING
• SOURCES
• REFLECTING
• ORIENTING
• STANCE
• STYLE
• TITLE
• ARGUMENT
• AUDIENCE

CENTRAL IDEA. This element of good writing involves focusing on a clear, manageable idea, argument, or thesis around which to organize your material. ...

ORGANIZATION. ...

SUPPORTING MATERIAL. ...

EXPRESSION, WORD CHOICE, AND POINT OF VIEW. ...

SPELLING, GRAMMAR, AND PUNCTUATION.

Academic writing serves as a tool of communication that conveys acquired knowledge in a specific field of study. Writing academically will help students analyse, convey understanding, think critically and focus on technique and style.

Have you ever stopped and thought about the quality of your writing? Are you sure it’s considered to be good writing? Are you getting the right message across, or are your readers confused as to what you’re trying to accomplish?

Worry no more, dear writer. We have just the solution for you! Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, the rules for good writing are fundamentally the same.

1. Express, not impress.

Good writing is not about the number of words you’ve produced, the quality of the adjectives you’ve written or the size of your font–it’s about the number of lives you’ve touched! It’s whether or not your reader understands you. It’s about expression, not impression.

2. Simple sentences work best.

– The only possible option in order to accelerate the growth of the food industry is to focus on the fact that the target market of this business demands convenience, competence and cost-effectiveness.

Better: The food industry can grow faster if food trucks focus on convenience, competence and cost-effectiveness.

3. Active, rather than passive.

– The offering price was established by the real estate vendor and the negotiation process was initiated by the real estate buyer.

– Better: The real estate vendor set the offering price, and the real estate buyer started negotiating.

4. Know who your target audience is.

Who are you writing for? Who do you expect to read your article, your book, or your blog post? Will they care about what you’re talking about? Will they understand the message that you’re trying to get across? Good writing isn’t generic; it’s specific because it’s targeted towards a group of people with something common binding them.

5. Read it aloud.

Reading your works out loud allows you to notice something that you might not have noticed if you were just reading it silently. Go on, read them out loud now. Also, try to listen to your work objectively as you read it. Are you making sense? Or are you simply stringing a couple of words together just to fill a gap?

6. Avoid using jargon as much as possible.

Not everyone in your audience will know what a “bull market” is. Not everyone knows that “pyrexia” is basically the same thing as “a fever”. And surely you can come up with a better term for high blood pressure than “hypertension”?

7. In terms of words, size matters.

Please, don’t strain yourself by browsing the Internet, looking for complicated and fancy-sounding words. Less is always more.

– The man gave a me look so sharp that I sincerely believed it could pierce my heart and see my innermost fears.

8. Being positive is better than being negative–even in writing!

– I did not think that the unbelievable would not occur.

– Better: I thought the unbelievable would happen.

9. Set aside time for revising and rewriting–after you’ve written the whole content.

I’m not suggesting that you should edit each time you’ve finished a paragraph–that would just be tedious. What I’m telling is that you should first give yourself some time to finish the content prior to editing. Write away. Don’t edit yet. Don’t focus on the grammar yet. Don’t worry about the syntax, the synonym, the antonym or the order that you’re using.

Write for yourself, but mostly, write for your target audience. Write the message clearly and don’t be afraid to express your thoughts. Don’t censor yourself yet. Let the words flow. Don’t erase what you’ve written yet.

Right now, it’s all about expression, about art and about your imagination.

All the editing and the fixing will come later.

10. Write. All the time.

Good writing is simply always writing. Write when you’re sad. Write when you’re scared. Write when you don’t feel like writing.

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