Academic and Non-Academic Writing Guide

Non-Academic vs. Academic Texts

  • Non-Academic Texts: Informal writing for a lay audience that is personal, emotional, and subjective (e.g., e-mails, text messages, newspaper articles, journal writing, and letters). They are free of rigid structures and use casual language, slang, and contractions.

  • Academic Texts: Critical, objective, and specialized texts written by professionals or experts in a specific discipline. They are based on facts, use formal language, and aim to enhance understanding of a particular field. They are always written in the third person point of view.

Features and Style of Academic Writing

  • Attributes: Well-focused, concise, clear, accurate, and free from repetition, exaggeration, or rhetorical questions.

  • Structure: Typically includes an introduction, body, conclusion, and a list of references with information from credible sources.

  • Core Models:

    • Three-part essay structure.

    • IMRAD: Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion.

  • Writing Style: Observe critical questions, use precise words, and employ hedging or cautious language to tone down claims.

Structures of Paragraphs

  • Paragraph: A collection of sentences dealing with one topic or idea.

  • Topic Sentence: Presents the main point of the paragraph.

  • Supporting Sentences: Support the main idea of the paragraph.

  • Transitional Sentences: Pave the way to the next idea in the following paragraph.

  • Concluding Sentences: Sum up and close out the main idea.

Specific Types of Academic Texts

  • Literary Analysis: Evaluates and makes an argument about a literary work (e.g., analyzing William Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet" (1594) through sociological or feminist lenses).

  • Research Paper: Synthesizes external information to support a thesis or argument.

  • Dissertation or Thesis: Personal research document submitted for a college degree or PhD program.

  • Articles: Published in scholarly journals to offer research results relevant to the academic community or nation-building.

  • Conference Papers: Papers presented at scholastic conferences, often revised for journal publication.

  • Reviews: Evaluations of works published in scholarly journals.

  • Position Paper: An essay presenting an arguable opinion about an issue.

  • Concept Paper: Summarizes a project's purpose, importance, hypothesis, and methodology.

  • Reaction Paper: Written assignment requiring personal opinions and conclusions on a given article or abstract.