textero academic writing

textero academic writing

The Importance of Academic Writing

1. Introduction

College writing requires much more thinking and a critical approach. You can’t just regurgitate information in college writing, because most of the assignments will be based on critical thinking on a certain subject. Professors in college give students writing assignments to challenge them to think critically and articulate their findings in written form. This can be a difficult task for any student, and without the proper critical thinking skills and articulation, an academic paper may be near impossible for a student. Step Up to College also states “college writing strongly discourages this five-paragraph essay format, and often with good reason. For one, the five-paragraph theme limits what can be said. More important, any paper, regardless of length, that confines the thesis into only one or two paragraphs at the beginning is no longer a true thesis; but a strategic opening statement used to set the tone for the rest of the paper.” This is important to any student making the transition to college writing. High school format writing will not be acceptable to professors and may be confused by a student with their college writing.

Academic writing is an important part in the development of any student. Making the move from high school writing to college writing can be a difficult transition. High school writing is less complex and may not require as much thinking as college writing. That is one of the many things changed when making the transition from high school to college. College writing is more complex and may need some critical thinking on the assignment. Something students probably aren’t used to. In high school, writing is mainly based on the five paragraph essay, where students will kind of regurgitate information to the teacher. It’s not about what they know, but how well they can find information and use the information to fill in their five paragraph essay. Step Up to College, a transition website from high school writing to college writing, states “it’s not only what you know, but what you think.”

2. Benefits of Academic Writing

Intellectual development – Academic writing is an exercise in critical thinking; a process of testing ideas, solving problems, and developing informed positions about a given topic. A strong paper will go beyond a simple summary of a reading, integrating ideas from a variety of sources to support the writer’s own argument. This kind of scholarly writing, though different from creative writing, can embody a personal voice and still be creative. By exploring an issue in depth, and offering a unique perspective, writers can develop their ideas in a progression that is not only satisfying to them, but interesting to readers. This sort of focused, detailed work is invaluable to a learning process.

Academic writing serves as a tool of communication that conveys acquired knowledge from a specific field of study. Writing is essential to success in school and the workplace. In today’s workforce, there is an expected level of written competence; an increase in writing tasks is a reflection of a global standardized knowledge economy. The benefits associated with academic writing are especially apparent in an information economy where specialized knowledge is at a premium. A few benefits of academic writing include:

3. Tips for Improving Academic Writing Skills

Reading more journal articles will increase the familiarity and ease with which the above can be achieved.

It is often the case that one article will generate more questions than it answers. These questions may well form the foundation for a future experiment, so it is useful to note them down. If you are detail-oriented, compare and contrast the paper you are reading with another paper on the same topic. This may highlight inconsistencies between the two papers, and thus research errors would become apparent.

Reading academic papers is different for a task from reading for pleasure. In front of a journal article, you may want to ask yourself questions such as: what are the aims of this piece of work? What methods were used? What were the results obtained? etc. Writing down the answers to these questions (or making brief notes) may help to absorb the information. This is important especially if you are attempting to review or replicate a study.

1. How to read and learn more from academic papers

4. Common Mistakes to Avoid in Academic Writing

Another key area of language and style is the use of bias. It is natural that an argument will contain some element of bias; however, in order to persuade the reader, the bias should be balanced and well-founded in fact. Using emotive language is an easy trap to fall into. While it is effective in rhetoric, it can have adverse effects on the readers’ perceptions of your argument, as they might infer that it is heavily biased, uninformed, and thus not well-supported.

Grammar and syntax are also important in not confusing the meaning of the essay. Often articles are omitted from sentences, which can cause confusion as to the actual position of the noun in question, especially in scientific papers. Care should also be taken with verb tenses, as a failure to do this is common among second language speakers and can completely change the meaning of a sentence. A good tip is to read an offending sentence out loud, carefully placing emphasis on each article, and checking that it still makes sense.

The most common form of language and style errors in academic writing is to use informal language inappropriately. While it is necessary to write clear and concise English, colloquialisms, slang, and jargon should not be used within an academic essay. Slang and colloquialisms confuse the meaning of your arguments as they tend to be open to interpretation and can be taken literally. It is also difficult to tell when jargon becomes overused. If you are unsure if it is appropriate for your essay, it is best to leave it out. Contractions should also be avoided as much as possible, and the Plaines projection of “not” is preferable to the colloquial “-nt” form.

5. Conclusion

The previous chapters have discussed academic writing from a number of angles and with a number of concerns. Our intention with this text was to provide instructors with a reference to scholarly writing that would direct their students beyond lower order concerns such as spelling and grammar, and towards more complex concerns. Getting the students to develop powerful writing skills has been our goal all along. We have attempted to achieve this by providing coaching to students, engaging them in exercises, increasing their focus, and expanding their knowledge. Remembering that our work involves advice, support, and information, it has been our plan to limit the knowledge part to a minimum. Academic writing is an information-heavy industry, and traditional textbooks are the very best way to teach these concepts. We have tried to maintain an effective textbook with activities that can be found and understood quickly.