What Is Academic Writing?

L. Lennie Irvin

Miths about writing

Myth #1: The Paint by Numbers myth
Rather than being a lock-step linear process, writing is recursive. Myth #2: Writers only start writing when they have everything figured out Writers figure out much of what they want to write as they write it.

Myth #3: Perfect first drafts

Nobody writes perfect first drafts; polished writing takes lots of revision.

Myth #4: Some got it; I dont the genius fallacy When you see your writing ability as something fixed (as if it were in your genetic code), you wont believe you can improve as a writer.

Myth #5: Good grammar is good writing More than just grammatical correctness, good writing is a matter of achieving your desired effect upon an intended audience.

Myth #6: The Five Paragraph Essay The five paragraph essay is a format you should know, but one which you will outgrow.

Myth #7: Never use I

Although some writing situations will call on you to avoid using I (for example, a lab report), much college writing can be done in a middle, semiformal style where it is ok to use I.

The Academic Writing Situation

Freshman writers: a poor sense of the writing situation.

speaking X writing

Developing your writers sense about communicating within the writing situation it is important to learn.

The Writing Situation

Academic writing => Literacy tasks:

knowledge of research skills; the ability to read complex texts;

the understanding of key disciplinary concepts;

strategies for synthesizing, analyzing, and responding critically to new information.

In college, everything is an argument

Argument
In an essay you will need to present an argument where you make a thesis and support that with good reasons.

Organize your reasons and have strong arguments like: facts, examples, data etc.

The purpose is not so much to win the argument as to earn your audiences approval of your perspective.

Analysis involves doing three things:

Engage in an open inquiry where the subject is not known at first and where you have multiple suggestions.

Identify meaningful parts of the subject and study it closely.

Examine these separate parts and determine how they relate to each other to create some larger effect or meaning.

Example: parts of an ad or short stories.

THE CLOSED WRITING ASSIGMENT

These kinds of writing present two counter claims (opposite ideas) and ask you to determine from your own analysis the more valid claim. They resemble yes-no questions.

Example: In your opinion, do you believe Hamlet was truly mad? The major task of the writing is working out the support for your claim.

Be careful, because a close analysis of the subject matter can reveals some ambiguities within the question that your thesis should reflect.

The Semi-Open Writing Assignment

Discuss Explain

Compare and contrast

Demonstrate

The Open Writing Assignment

Analyze the character

Find out the meaning

Analyze the causes and influences

Compare and contrast

Picking and Limiting a Writing Topic

Look for gaps, puzzling items, things that confuse you, or connections you see. Something in this pile of rocks should stand out as a jewel: as being do-able and interesting.

Three Characteristics of Academic Writing

Clear evidence in writing that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded, and disciplined in study. (5) The dominance of reason over emotions or sensual perception. (5)
An imagined reader who is coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response. (7)

The format of academic essay

The characteristcs of the critical essay

In the broadsense, an essay presents a point and supports it.

The point/thesis is naturally debatable. If your thesis is not open to interpretations that means you are stating the obvious. A successful thesis is usually better presented at the end of the introduction.

Structure is really important. An organized essay should have clear introduction, body and conclusion.

The characteristcs of the critical essay

Choose your sources and use them to convince your reader. Logical structures might help you convince your reader: present your argument (assertion) and the prove it. For each argument, try to find three different supports.

When moving from one argument to another, the author needs to make clear that he/she is moving on and transitions sentences are the way to succeed on it.

Tips
Revise you essay. Try to revise your essay so that you have the least number of grammatical problems as possible. Also, formatting your essay and sources according to standards such as ABNT, APA, MLA etc, is important.

Researching is important. Know as much as you can from the topic you chose to write.

Support is everything. If you state the facts/data, your reader will be easily convinced.

And remember, practice makes perfect. An essay takes a lot of time, a lot of thinking, hard work and practice!

Good luck!

References
ZEMLIANSKY, Pavel, LOWE, Charles (ed.). Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Indiana: Parlour Press, 2010. v.1