Academic Writing Academic writing is a clear, concise, focused, structured, and backed up by evidence. Its purpose is to aid the reader's understanding. It has formal tone and style, but it is not complex and does not require the use of long sentences and complicated vocabulary.

Academic Writing

This type of writing include essay, themes, and research studies. Academic writing includes an introduction, an overview of the topics discussed within the writing piece and a conclusion which wraps up any final thoughts.

A process that starts with posing a question, problematizing a concept, evaluating and opinion, and ends in answering the questions.

NATURE OF ACADEMIC WRITING

Academic Text - a kind of text that is commonly characterized with being formal, studied, researched, exact, direct and has the ability to influence its readers.

Moreover, an academic text is written with precise organization in order to help its reader to have a basic understanding of what the authors arguments are that include the writer's insights.

CHARACTERISTICS OF ACADEMIC WRITING

Planned and Focus - answer the questions and demonstrate an understanding of the subject

Evidenced - demonstrates knowledge of the subject area, supports opinions and arguments with evidence and referenced accurately.

Structured is coherent, written in a logical order, and brings together related points and material.

Formal in Tone and Style - uses appropriate language and tenses, and is clear, concise and balanced.

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

1. Complexity - written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically more dense and it has more varied vocabulary.

2. Formality - academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions.

3. Precision facts and figures are given precisely.

4. Objectivity - written language is in general objective rather than personal. Therefore, it has fewer words that refer to the writer or the reader. This means that the main emphasis should be on the information that you want to give and the arguments you want to make, rather than you.

5. Explicitness - it is the responsibility of the writer in English to make it clear to the reader how the various parts of the text are related. These connections can be made explicit by the use of different signaling words.

6. Accuracy - uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words with narrow specific meanings. Linguistics distinguishes clearly between "phonetics" and "phonemics"; general English does not.

7. Hedging - this refers to the use of cautious language in order not to sound condescending or too proud about a certain claim. Academic writing that uses hedged language allows for an objective and impersonal language and thus may provide greater interaction with the readers.

8. Responsibility - must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and justification for any claims you make. You are also responsible for demonstrating and understanding of any source texts you use.

9. Organization - it flows easily from one section to the next in a logical fashion. A good place to start is the genre of your text. Once you have decide on the genre, the structure is easily determined.

10. Planning it usually takes place after research and evaluation, according to a specific purpose and plan.

Examples of Academic Writing

• Book and Book Reports

Essays

Research Papers

• Academic Journal

• Abstract