academic writing definition

academic writing definition

The Importance of Academic Writing

1. Introduction

Academic writing is an important part of every academic career. It is also important that students should learn to take it seriously, as writing academically will help in scoring good marks in assignments. It serves as the leading means of accumulating and evaluating knowledge. It helps in developing the critical thinking capacity of students. Good writing provides a productive vehicle through which students can check on their understanding of the subject. It encourages and improves the intellectual capacity of a student. It provides a person a chance to take part in a continuous learning culture in his field of interest. Students can clarify, reflect and deepen their understanding of a topic in the process of writing an assignment. The chance to better understand the topic is itself an engaging motivation. If the writer is engaged, then the reader will be more likely to take an interest in the writing. Academic writing carries great weight in a student’s life, this skill is important to learn if one is to get better grades throughout school and a lifetime career. This is because good writing will always be judged and it will always be a measure of one’s understanding. In an academic environment, someone who cannot write well is not considered as one who is able to understand and synthesize course materials. Writing should be taken as an opportunity to learn more than what it already known and to be imaginative in applying new ideas to different concepts. It is a learning chance for students to show how analytically and how willing they are to understand and support a position. With practice, the writing and researching involved in academic writing will turn into an interesting and stimulating process.

2. Benefits of Academic Writing

Second, and this more applies to taking higher level classes, academic writing shows the teacher/professor that you have a clear understanding of the material being taught. This may seem trivial for a gen-ed class that you don’t care about but need the credit for and just want to skate by, but for the classes that you are taking that are actually relating to your degree, this is very important. For your teacher to be successful in knowing that you understand the material, you will have a much easier time asking for referrals for internships, or job recommendations. A lot of the time, especially in college, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. If your writing shows that you have a firm grasp on the material, and you know that material well, the teacher is less likely to forget about you, which will help in future references.

The benefits of academic writing are numerous and very broad. Academic writing teaches you coherency. You learn how to take one thought, and then take another, less related thought and put it near the first. Then, the writer needs to explain what these two thoughts have in common, and then the second thought needs to mature and actually result from the first thought. Once the writer has successfully done that, they need to move on to the kin of the first thought, and take a less related thought… this continues on and on, thus creating a cohesive flow throughout the writing. This is something that is extremely important in professional work.

3. Elements of Effective Academic Writing

A very important part of your writing is the referencing. In order to write a good piece, you must know the sources of your evidence and information. With reference to evidence-based practice, look back to the point above about considering all views. To do this, you will need to produce a record of the sources of your information such as an “Evidence-based practice grid”. This will help to link information to certain views, allowing you to consider information from all angles. The sources of all information must be referenced, and anything that is considered common knowledge still needs to be cited.

Next is the idea of taking a neutral standpoint in your academic writing. While putting across your own argument in your work is important, it is crucial that people are able to see both sides of the argument. It is only when this has been done and the evidence on both sides has been considered that a proper decision can be made. Try to distance your writing from taking a definite standpoint. Although you are putting across your opinion, the reader should feel that their view could easily be validated from your writing because you have considered all views. This can be achieved through the use of conditionals: “If x is said to be true, then logically we can assume that…” or through using the third person.

One important element of academic writing is the idea of being cautious in your writing. You are required to base your work on evidence. This means being as specific as possible. Avoiding sweeping generalizations will give your writing a clear sense of “authority”.

4. Common Challenges in Academic Writing

Academic writing is a kind of writing where the author gets into an analysis of a certain issue. It’s analytical and methodical. Students often face a number of obstacles in finishing an academic paper effectively. Four common challenges in academic writing are: 1) Getting started – The very first is the most difficult stage in writing an academic paper. To begin with, you need an understanding of where you are going as well as how you should construct your work and the best way to achieve this is the use of an outline. An outline doesn’t have to be long and complex; it can be quite simple with ideas written in 3 to 4 lines. 2) Structuring the paper – In last week’s post, we talked about continuing on with the writing process to avoid the difficulty of editing while writing. The reason for this is that it’s hard to stick to one idea across a whole paper and the more you stop and start, the harder that idea is to remember. With an approximately 12-week semester for full-time students, it’s difficult to memorize the evolution of each idea. A good way to become less forgetful about your ideas that you plan to discuss is to make a note of them and maybe draw a diagram to show the connections between these ideas. 3) Managing time – So you’ve started with a week to go before the due date and now the panic has set in. Time management is one of the biggest issues with academic writing. Most of the time, college students with no real understanding of how long a task will take will procrastinate until the point of starting the task is too close to the due date. But even if the task was started early, many students don’t put a large enough allocation of time aside. 4) Integrating evidence – Finally, the often-titled ‘not-so-fun’ task of editing. Or more specifically, the problem with making your work seem well-researched. It is widely said that an effective academic paper is one that shows no trace of the effort that went into making it and that the reader should feel as if it was written quickly and easily with the ideas flowing off the page. This is quite contrary to what makes a good paper. When the effort is ‘invisible’, it shows that the writer has clarified their understanding of the issue and the ideas are sequenced. This is only ever apparent when writing a second or third draft of a paper but the credibility of the paper will be greatly improved. And in completing these drafts, the idea that it was written quickly and easily will be eradicated.

5. Conclusion

Although creative writing has a more entertaining nature with the writing process, it is important not to mistake an assignment from creative writing for a task that requires the use of critical thinking. Given the different nature of writing, this should not be confused with writing to be on an exam for the art of essay.

The conclusion with creative writing is that there may or may not be an audience. For students at university, this is often conducted as an exercise to see whether they understand the material. If the assignment is given the option to select one of the two, to compare or to contrast, creative writing is not vastly different from the other styles. This could include a short story and to see whether the comparison of the original story has met the requirements of the assignment.

One thing that academic writing does share with creative writing is the fact that it is done from somebody to an audience. The purpose of the writing is to be relevant to the audience. For creative writing, this is purely for the enjoyment of doing so. For academic writing, the individual must assume that it will take a variety of forms. Often, the writing will be aimed at the community of researchers in a particular area of study.

In conclusion, the necessity of academic writing for university students has been explained. It is necessary for university students to be well-acquainted with academic writing so that they can be successful in their respective fields. Because academic writing is quite formal writing, it is essential for beginners to get the know-how in writing this kind of text.