Overview of an Academic Writing

Academic Writing for a student is said to be the best way to communicate their ideas, views and thoughts about a subject in particular to a faculty or to anaudience if it’s a researcher who is presenting his paperwork. Academic Writing consists of certain features that gives us clear idea regarding how we are supposed to present our writings. There are certain skills and methodologies that we can adopt to improve our Academic Writing.

The act of writing is an act of creation and writing inour own words often clarifies our thoughts. Accordingto psychology, originality lies in devising new theories or designing new studies. We do display small-scale originality whenever we describe something in our ownwords using our thoughts and by implementing new ideas. Even when we describe someone else’s work, we interpret it and we do select a combination of words which helps in conveying its meaning to us.

Introduction

Academic Writing in a way reflects how the knowledge in the academy is being distributed according to certain kind of domains as there are people who think about Lifestyle, people who think about Humanity, people who think about Natural Sciences, people who think about Social Sciences, Education, Law, Medicine, and other different kinds of domains. Academic Writing thus considers the importance andrelevance of various domains in creating knowledge.

Academic Writing is usually found to circulate within the Academic world, but an academic writer can also find an audience outside through speeches, journalismetc.

Importance

Academic Writing is so important even if you are not pursuing an Academic Career or a Degree, as the work that you do is higly transferable. And I also believe that it has the potential to make a strong impact particularly in a class where you have other writers, you are sharing ideas, and thinking about things and responding to you, the impact is really ofhigh potential. So I believe that Academic Writing does shape knowledge and it can make things happen, it can make change happen, hence I find it to be a very purposeful and important kind of writing.

Academic Writing is said to be:

• Planned and Focused as it provides answers to all questions and also gives us an understanding of the subject.
• Structured as it is written in a well organized order which helps bring together related points and material.
• Evidenced as it supports opinions and arguments with valid evidences.
• Formal in tone and style as it provides a clear, consise and balanced presentation of the language and tenses.

Types of Academic Writing

There are four major types of Academic Writing and they are Descriptive, Persuasive, Analytical and Critical. Each of these types of writing are said to have specific features and purposes.

Descriptive Writing: Descriptive writing is known to be one of the most simplest forms of Academic Writing. The only purpose of Decriptive Writing is to provide facts and Information. Descriptive Writing has to be expressive, explanatory, and should be written in a non-judgemental way. An example for descriptive writing would be a report of the results of a lab experiment or assignment.

Analytical: Most academic writing is also said to be analytical writing. Analytical writing includes descriptive writingas we re-organizing the facts and information collected via descriptive writing into categories, groups, parts or types. Analytical Writing has to be systematic, logical, well-organized and accurate as you have to make the reader understand your paper by giving clear introduction and by using topic sentences.

To make your writing more analytical:

• Brainstorming your ideas and facts is important.
• Spend plenty of time in planning, and try different ways of grouping your ideas, according to parts, patterns, similarities and differences. You can also use colour-coding, flow charts, tree diagrams or tables.
• Try creating a name for the categories you find. For example, advantages and disadvantages.
• Try building each section and paragraph aroundthe analytical categories you have created.

Persuasive: Persuasive Writing has to be valid, strong, powerful, influential and convincing as Persuasive Writing is aimed at changing a person’s attitude towards someidea, object, by using information and by re-organizingthe information. It also has some features similar to Analytical Writing (that is, collecting information and re-organizing the information).

Critical: Critical writing is most common form of writing if you are pursuing an Academic Career or a Degree. Itis said to have all the features of Persuasive Writing. Critical Writing considers evidence to make your writing reasonable, thus it is necessary that you present your ideas with evidences.

Features of Academic Writing

• Complexity: Written language is more intricate and complex, aswe use longer words, and a more varied vocabulary. It has more of grammatical complexity as well.
• Formality: Academic writing should be done in aformal way, a protocol must be followed while writing, and it should be in a conventionally recognized form.
• Precision: In Academic Writing precision has to be maintained, facts and figures given should be errorfree and accurate.
• Objectivity: Content has to be objective and not being influenced by personal feelings. This is the reason, Academic Writing uses more of nouns andadjectives. If the content is objective, the main focus will be on the information provided by the writer rather than about the writer.
• Explicitness: The information that you provide asa writer has to be clear and straightforward so that the reader does not face difficulty in understanding the content of your paper.
• Accuracy: Use precise, error free and accurate vocabularyfor Academic Writing.
• Hedging: In the Academic writing we do, avoidmaking a definite statement, and provide evidences for the facts and figures that we produce.
• Responsibility: In Academic Writing you shouldbe responsible for the statements that you make, try providing evidence for all the claims that you make. And citing the source you have used for reference is also mandatory.
• Organisation: Academic Writing has to be done inan organized way, and should have a sequential flow through the logic.
• Planning: Planning is also one of the important features of Academic Writing.