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What is academic writing, what does it involve, and how should one go about it?
This article aims at introducing you to the ABC of what is academic writing. Academic writing is
writing intended for academic purpose. It is a requirement by academic institutions for students to
produce academic papers.
Academic writing is purely built on
analysis. Analysis is critically looking at
ideas and thoughts presented by authors
and carefully selecting the ones that suit
your paper. It can also be defined as a
process of breaking down complex ideas
with an aim of boosting ones level of
comprehension.
Academic writing utilizes deductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning revolves around representing the
main idea of your essay in the first lines. This should be followed by relevant examples that are
geared towards breaking down complex sentences to easy ones. Academic writing utilizes semiformal
voice. One should avoid slang and poor grammar when writing an academic paper.
In academic writing, the use of first person narration is prohibited. This means that one is not at
liberty to use ‘I, we or you’ when writing an academic paper. However, there are some instances when
one is allowed to use first person narration.
It should only be used when stated in the
academic paper instructions. Third person
narration is allowed in academic writing.
These include ‘they, them, she, he’, and it
amongst other appropriate words.
Academic writing sticks to a specific style
that will be utilized in the university.
Initially, academic writing can be a
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challenge especially with new students. However, as time goes by it becomes easy as one familiarizes
themselves with the vocabulary their field of specialization.
References must be included in academic writing. There are many types of references. They include in
text references. These are contained within the body of the essay having either the name of the author
or year of publication or both. Some formats require one to enter footnotes in their work.
Foot note references are generally a list of references at the end of a page that contains the references
used in that specific page. At the end of every academic paper, a list of references used in the whole
work should be compiled. References in academic writing acknowledge the source of your work. It
reduces plagiarism in an academic paper immensely.
Features and Objectives of Academic Writing
Academic writing has quite a number of features and objectives that are covered in this section
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Academic writing should be persuasive in a manner. This is intended to convince the lecturer
to acknowledge the opinion presented by the writer.
Aimed at bringing out information in a crystal clear way that exhibits the mastery of a
specific subject by an individual.
Grammar should be good if not perfect. Most students lose a lot of marks as a result of poor
grammar. This can be avoided by reading a lot of literature and getting familiar with the
various technologies in existence that are assistive in checking grammar.
Any student given an assignment should strive to ensure that they score highest. Several websites
offer academic writing services to students. Some
guarantee you with good grades.
Academic writing has many variations across the
diverse disciplines. Academic writing to students
displays their level of understanding of the subject
thus getting good grade.
When writing academic essays, one should make sure that their sources of information have some
features which include
Credibility- This means that the sources should be trustworthy for example the use of peer
reviewed journals and books from specific publishers is encouraged. Sources like Wikipedia
are not to be used in academic writing but can be used for general knowledge. This is
attributed to the fact that any one can post information in this site.
Authority - Cited sources should be authoritative. This means that they should be written or
published by renowned writers in a specific field of study.
Timeliness- sources cited from should be timely in relation to the field of study. For instance,
when writing a paper on technological trends, sources from the 1980’s are not the best. This is
because of the time difference.
I hope this article has given you insights on what is academic writing.