what is the purpose of academic writing

what is the purpose of academic writing

The Importance of Academic Writing

1. Introduction

The materials in this volume have been developed by applying a theoretical framework in the field of applied linguistics called ‘Systemic Functional Linguistics’ (SFL). The SFL framework is a tool for educators that provides a means of identifying different types of literacy tasks required of students for the different discipline studies, and it provides a learning pathway for each of these tasks. At the completion of the materials, a significant improvement in the level of academic writing should be noticeable. SFL provides a theory of language that integrates meaning and realization and so is a theory of language that is functional. SFL theory has powerful functional models of language that can be used to view written, spoken, visual, and multimodal texts. These functional models can be seen as tools used to understand literacy tasks for language pedagogy across the curriculum. An understanding of literacy tasks is a powerful learning design tool.

This volume is aimed at developing the level of writing in the higher education sector in all Australian states and territories. ‘Academic writing’ is a complex task, and it is vital that this level of literacy is developed across the Australian higher education sector. The book is designed to diagnose a range of issues experienced by students and to improve their level of writing. The diagnostic aspect involves the identification of writing issues that can be addressed by the materials. The improvement aspects focus on a range of micro skills.

2. Advancing Knowledge and Understanding

Writing is considered the most useful way to assess the ability of a student to find information about a particular topic and give a clear picture in their own words. Writing a research article can be an excellent way to increase the ability of documentation. Gathering and documenting information is the most important and useful skill that one can develop in their career, no matter in which field they are. Any discoveries that are made and documentation of that data must be preserved. For further research and development, that documentation could be utilized by other people working in the same or related field. So, the ability to gather information and document that information will be useful skills that a person can use throughout their life. As they say, “practice makes perfect,” regular writing will definitely increase the writing skills of a student. The well-known saying that “first impression is the last impression” also holds true in writing. So, good writing skills can take a student a long way.

The importance of academic writing is a well-defined and critical part of completing any course. They say that it is required to complete any course that they are taking. It has a defining role in terms of finishing a degree, and this is the simple and main reason why it is so important. Writing an academic piece is quite a challenging task but essential for students. Writing a research article is one of the important tasks in academics. In fact, writing a research article or a research paper raises the spirits of students to make changes in the world through new knowledge.

3. Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Finally, the most effective way to develop critical thinking is to provide students with an opportunity to make a claim and support it, whether through an informal discussion or a formal written assignment. By identifying an intellectual problem or question, inner motivation towards solving the problem, and a best possible resolution to the problem, students will then employ critical thinking skills to analyze the issue and form a solid judgement.

Another way to help students develop critical thinking skills is to make sure the assignment explicitly requires these skills. What critical thinking is, and how it develops over the duration of a standard four-year university education, is the complex topic of another essay. But here I will say that it always builds from a foundation of clear information, and often information is the focus of an academic paper. Assigning a specific writing strategy emphasized in the text, such as summary, can provide a clear task which helps students understand course material at a deeper level. Summary can also act as a valuable prewriting exercise for more advanced forms of writing. With a summary providing a strong foundation, it will be easier for students to think creatively and write more original content. Other specific writing strategies that require explicit critical thinking instruction are the Comparison and Contrast Essay and the Paraphrasing Paper.

If developing critical thinking skills is the primary goal, use the assignment to practice skills that will help students in many other ways. Design the writing assignment so that the steps lead to a sequence of decisions students must make, thereby leading to the development of expertise in making decisions. For example, if they are to write an evidence-based argument, have them decide on the topic, the position, the audience, and the genre. This will entail making decisions on what will be most effective and efficient, thus requiring evaluation and analysis. Developing these decision-making skills and weighing up the pros and cons of different options prior to making a decision will directly enhance critical thinking.

4. Communicating Ideas Effectively

In any case, it is detrimental to confuse the importance of what is communicated with the importance of the grade received on the assignment. Too often, students do the minimum required to get a good grade. Anything done for the sake of a grade will likely be forgotten right after the grade is received. If a student truly values his education, he should want to improve his writing as a skill in itself. This is best accomplished when students take an active interest in what they are trying to communicate, recognizing that good writing is the result of a process whereby the writer takes ownership of this skill. A student can be said to have taken ownership of writing when he proactively seeks out improvement.

Always consider the audience for a specific writing assignment. What is important to communicate? What is the best way of accomplishing this within the given audience? If the assignment is to write an essay about a personal experience, the student will still need to communicate his ideas effectively, though the voice used and the method of communication may differ from an essay whereby the student is developing a historical argument.

Many students have been led to believe that they should not modify an academic sounding voice. An academic voice can be thought of as a specific way of communicating ideas that is consistent with the ways ideas are communicated in academic genres. While it is true that a student should avoid too much deviation from an academic voice, it is also important that the voice not be mistaken for a wooden, unnatural sequence of complex sentence structures and arcane vocabulary, as this is often not an effective way of communicating ideas. It is possible to communicate in an academic voice with a clear and effective way of expressing ideas.

Throughout the process of writing essays, it is important to communicate your ideas with your reader. This can be done at the outlining stage, during drafts, and in the revision process. The system used to communicate these ideas can be thought of as a voice: a sequence of verb tenses, sentence structures, first-person pronouns, and so on, that should be modified depending on the kind of communication and the intended audience.

This section outlines the importance of communicating ideas effectively. Communication is an important part of the learning process. Consequently, the writing done by students should be done with the goal of communicating a set of ideas to an audience.

5. Conclusion

The author believes that the best way to diagnose an assignment question is to break the question down and separate the questions that are asking separate things. To do this, the question should be taken out of its context and reworded. This strategy is a successful one. The quote presented “the anatomy of the essay title” is explaining a similar technique. The author takes the word ‘anatomy’ and relates it to the ‘structure’ of the question. He concludes that deciding how the question should be answered is the first step to understanding how the work should be structured. This may not always be true, but without a clear structure in mind, it is common to veer off the question topic.

Tertiary education is becoming more important in the workplace. It is important to have the skills to be able to do the job. This essay will identify and analyze what techniques are best used to achieve an academic writing standard in tertiary education and assess the achievements and failures of certain techniques. In particular, the importance of using critical sources, in-depth analysis, and an effective writing style will be appraised.