2. ACADEMIC
WRITING
• What is academic writing?
• Academic writing is writing
which communicates ideas,
information and research to the
wider academic community.
• It’s what students are expected
to produce for classes and what
professors and academic
researchers use to write
scholarly materials.
3. • Academic writing is a formal style
of writing used in universities and
scholarly publications.
• You’ll encounter it in journal
articles and books on academic
topics, and you’ll be expected to
write your essays, research
papers and dissertation in
academic style.
4. Differences between Academic Writing and
other writing
• Writing is a skill that is required in many contexts throughout life. For
instance, you can write an email to a friend or reflect on what happened
during the day in your personal diary.
• In these kinds of interpersonal settings, the aim may be to communicate the
events that have happened in your life to someone close to you, or to
• It is expected that in writing about these life events, you will include your
personal judgements and evaluations, which may be measured by your
feelings and thoughts.
5. • There is no need to follow a structure, as prose on the page or
the computer screen appears through freely associated ideas.
• Similarly, another quality of writing in personal contexts is that it
is typically informal, so there is no need to adhere to structures
of punctuation or grammar (although your reader may be quite
appreciative if you do so).
• In these settings, it is perfectly acceptable to deploy
colloquialisms, casual expressions, and abbreviations, like
cool”, “by the way…”, “b4”, and “thru”.
6. In contrast, academic writing does many of the things that personal writing does
not.
• Firstly, some kind of structure is required, such as a beginning, middle, and
end. This simple structure is typical of an essay format, as well as other
assignment writing tasks, which may not have a clearly articulated structure.
• A second difference between academic writing and other writing genres is
based on the citation of published authors.
• If you make judgements about something in academic writing, there is an
expectation that you will support your opinion by linking it to what a
published author has previously written about the issue.
• Indeed, citing the work of other authors is central to academic writing because
it shows you have read the literature, understood the ideas, and have
integrated these issues and varying perspectives into the assignment task.
7. • Thirdly, in academic writing you should always
follow rules of punctuation and grammar.
Punctuation as well as the conventions of
grammar are universally known systems that
maintain clarity and avoid ambiguity in
expression.
8. ACADEMIC WRITING
• Academic writing is generally quite formal, objective, impersonal,
and technical.
• It is formal by avoiding casual or conversational language, such as
contractions or informal vocabulary.
• It is impersonal and objective by avoiding direct reference to people or
feelings, and instead emphasizing objects, facts and ideas.
• It is technical by using vocabulary specific to the discipline.
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10. 10
• formal tone - A formal tone is always used in academic
writing. It is not lighthearted or conversational in tone.
Slang and clichés do not belong in this type of writing.
• precise language - In keeping with the formal tone, it’s
important to choose precise language that very clearly
conveys the author’s meaning.
• point-of-view (POV) - Academic writing is usually
written in third person point of view because its focus is
to educate on the facts rather than to support an opinion
or give advice.
11. • research focus - Because most academic writing
involves reporting research results, it tends to focus on
the specific research question(s) being studied.
• organization - Academic writing should be organized
logically. Use headings to delineate each major section.
• source citations - Most academic writing includes at
least some secondary research sources. Be sure to
properly cite all sources and include a bibliography.
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12. FORMAL LANGUAGE
You can make your writing more formal through the vocabulary that you
use. For academic writing:
• choose formal instead of informal vocabulary. For example, ‘somewhat’
is more formal than ‘a bit’, ‘insufficient’ is more formal than ‘not
enough’.
• avoid contractions. For example, use ‘did not’ rather than ‘didn’t’.
• avoid emotional language. For example, instead of strong words such as
‘wonderful’ or ‘terrible’, use more moderate words such as ‘helpful’ or
‘problematic’.
• instead of using absolute positives and negatives, such as ‘proof’ or
‘wrong’, use more cautious evaluations, such as ‘strong evidence’ or ‘less
convincing’.
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14. Descriptive writing
• Descriptive writing is one of the simplest and most used
academic writing types.
• The main purpose of descriptive writing is to state facts and
inform the audience.
• Therefore, when you hear these terms in any academic piece
— report, summarize, identify, record, define — know that it
is descriptive academic writing, which is mostly used for
school-level writing and completely theory-based projects.
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15. • A lab report that informs the reader about the results of
an experiment is an example of descriptive writing.
• Descriptive writing is also used for describing people,
places, situations, events, etc.
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16. Analytical writing
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• When you are working on an academic study, you usually do not
only use descriptive writing.
• You must mix and match different types of writing to convey your
message to your target group.
• Therefore, aside from simply informing, you need to also organize
your information in a way that allows your readers to understand
content better.
• Analytical writing includes descriptive writing, but also requires you
to re-organize the facts and information you describe into
categories, groups, parts, types or relationships.
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• If you’re comparing two theories, you might break your comparison into
several parts.
e.g. how each theory deals with social context, how each theory deals
with language learning, and how each theory can be used in practice.
• Phrases such as ‘’examine,’’ ‘’compare,’’ ‘’relate,’’ ‘’contrast,’’ and ‘’analyze’’ are
the most common words used in analytical writing.
How to get better at analytical writing:
• Spend plenty of time planning. Brainstorm the facts and ideas, and try
different ways of grouping them, according to patterns, parts, similarities
and differences.
• Create a name for the relationships and categories you find. For example,
advantages and disadvantages.
• Build each section and paragraph around one of the analytical categories.
• Make the structure of your paper clear to your reader, by using topic
sentences and a clear introduction.
18. Persuasive
o Persuasive writing has all the features of analytical writing (that is, information
plus re-organising the information), with the addition of your own point of view.
o Most essays are persuasive, and there is a persuasive element in at least the
discussion and conclusion of a research article.
o Points of view in academic writing can include an argument, a recommendation,
interpretation of findings or evaluation of the work of others. In persuasive
writing, each claim you make needs to be supported by some evidence, for
example a reference to research findings or published sources.
o The kinds of instructions for a persuasive assignment include: argue, evaluate,
discuss, take a position.
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19. To help reach your own point of view on the facts or ideas:
• Read some other researchers' points of view on the topic. Who do you feel is the most
convincing?
• Look for patterns in the data or references. Where is the evidence strongest?
• List several different interpretations. What are the real-life implications of each one? Which ones
are likely to be most useful or beneficial? Which ones have some problems?
• Discuss the facts and ideas with someone else. Do you agree with their point of view?
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20. Critical Writing
• Critical writing is common for research, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate writing.
• It has all the features of persuasive writing, with the added feature of at least one other
point of view. While persuasive writing requires you to have your own point of view on an
issue or topic, critical writing requires you to consider at least two points of view,
including your own.
• For example, you may explain a researcher's interpretation or argument and then evaluate
the merits of the argument, or give your own alternative interpretation.
• Examples of critical writing assignments include a critique of a journal article, or a literature
review that identifies the strengths and weaknesses of existing research. The kinds of
instructions for critical writing include: 'critique', 'debate', 'disagree' and 'evaluate'.
21. You need to:
• Accurately summarise all or part of the work. This could include identifying the main
interpretations, assumptions or methodology.
• Have an opinion about the work. Appropriate types of opinion could include pointing out
some problems with it, proposing an alternative approach that would be better, and/or
defending the work against the critiques of others.
• Provide evidence for your point of view. Depending on the specific assignment and the
discipline, different types of evidence may be appropriate, such as logical reasoning,
reference to authoritative sources and/or research data.
23. In many academic texts you will need to use more than one type. For example, in a thesis:
• You will use critical writing in the literature review to show where there is a gap or
opportunity in the existing research
• The methods section will be mostly descriptive to summarise the methods used to
collect and analyse information
• The results section will be mostly descriptive and analytical as you report on the data
you collected
• The discussion section is more analytical, as you relate your findings back to your
research questions, and also persuasive, as you propose your interpretations of the
findings.
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