our academic writing

our academic writing

Strategies for Effective Academic Writing

1. Introduction to Academic Writing

Accurate and effective academic writing allows students to communicate their ideas. While recognizing the differences between academic and everyday language, as long as students are informed, academic writing can be demystified. By following a clear plan and combining logical arguments, students can create an essay question, get rid of common mistakes, and, hopefully, set themselves on the right path. The different sections of this introduction outline the key components of an academic (SEU) essay.

There is a checklist at the end for students to use in their own lessons. An academic essay does not have to identify the task to be done when a list of to-dos is problematic. Students need to clarify the task because it is difficult to write an answer to a question that you are not sure of yourself. Where students go wrong is that they do not understand the job of the essay. They are asked to write an essay plan, and they immediately start to write their answer. They are trained to respond to the words that give the essay task. Keywords are the ones that will tell you the way to take an essay.

If you need to answer an analytical task, it is essential to identify the important things that will concern the course or theme in every questionnaire. However, students are stimulated to provide an interpretation of a precise difficulty in the first place, then it would be unnecessary to supply a descriptive response. This is not needed, though there are times when some types of creating are driven to describe the words of objectives when what is asked of you is an interpretative response. The process could result in mess and decrease ratings for analysis. When students collaborate with others in various essays, they should be watchful that they each identified different concepts within the same task since they might wind up creating the same type of each essay.

2. Key Components of Academic Writing

2.1 The Writing Process

Understanding and using the writing process is important for producing good academic writing. The process is technical but translates into a simple set of instructions for an author. Although the process can be conducted in any order, authors generally engage their minds through a series of steps such as: analyzing the question or instructions; brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, or mind-mapping; drawing up a plan or outline; drafting and writing; revising and editing; proofreading and submitting. Authors are aware that different stages of the process can be revisited as needed.

2.2 Thought Processes and Thinking Skills

Every writing assignment has various implicit or explicit goals, and it is useful for authors to reflect on and clarify these goals. Understanding the purpose of a writing assignment helps authors to set goals and to draw up appropriate plans. In an educational context, the first goal is thus learning; and goals may be explicit or implicit, such as to inform, report, describe, outline, persuade, argue, evaluate, or claim. These goals will help authors to understand what type of thinking skills are required.

3. Research and Citation Techniques

Consider obtaining a few reference guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, or some general texts that demonstrate research, writing, and other bibliographic techniques. A thesaurus is also a valuable resource that can be consulted to clarify word usage. Make a list of all reference guides you might need by field and genre. If you are writing a research paper, it is helpful to perform a variety of database searches using library databases and computerized search tools. There are also many resources that provide advice about how to do inquiry searches and compile the information that you find. Your best first stop is a reference librarian.

Writing—whether with journal-like analyses and reflective personal narratives, summaries of evidenced research, or direct reporting of printer, server, telephone, or group encounters—will be more successful when the writer has developed a theme that is relevant to established research and to others who may be interested in the topic. You may be surprised to find out how many people are already researching what you propose to study. Form a clear research question that is relevant to the academic community and write on subjects that you find significant. Attracting readers at multiple skill and curiosity levels enriches others’ learning experiences as well. The best way to start is by stating important theses, then supporting them with evidence, and describing the manner in which the evidence proceeds via a solid structure or annotation.

4. Structuring and Organizing Academic Papers

It is essential for successful academic writing that it is structured and organized clearly, to allow the reader easy access to the information that the writer wants to share. This does not mean that the academic writing lacks complexity or includes the structure that is typically published in newspapers or announcements, with very simple paragraphs that are easily understood, but rather, there is a clear structure that addresses the complexity of the information explained and allows the reader to fully engage with this. Specifically, a structured academic paper is one that addresses the academic ethos of the research or essay, has a clear argument that logically follows, includes information from an appropriate range of academic texts, has good sentence and paragraph structure, and includes clear referencing.

Organization is essential in structuring academic writing, and often, the easiest way to achieve this is to use the simple format of presenting the introduction, main body, and conclusion. These three areas remain the main components of any academic paper, but within each, it is possible to break these guidelines down into more manageable sections so that it is easier to create and present the piece of writing. Although it sounds somewhat simplistic, it is extremely useful to write the sections from the introduction through the conclusion.

5. Revision and Proofreading Strategies

At the revision and proofreading stage, it is crucial that you rework and review large-scale problems, such as organization and clarity in content, as well as errors in punctuation, grammar, and other language mechanics. These issues are what most readers will notice first. To a sophisticated reader, spelling, punctuation, grammar errors, and the like only reflect on the quality and care you put into the writing of the paper, and the levels of effort and care you take in addressing the ideas you are presenting.

Revise after receiving feedback. If you can, ask someone to read your paper. Feedback will ideally come from more than one reader. Resist the initial impulse to discard comments you do not like; indeed, try to rework the text in response to all comments. Instead of giving up if you receive an especially critical comment, make a plan for addressing the comment and revising the paper. Make an appointment with the professor or teaching assistant to discuss the feedback that is given, and go over your plan for revision after you have had a chance to cool off. With academic writing, it is customary to receive feedback and revise the piece longer and more often than it took to compile the first draft of the work. The best writers revise.