What do we mean by academic writing?
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What do we mean by academic writing?
- 1. What Do We Mean By Academic Writing? Bruce Hargrave Military Education Group
- 2. Academic vs ‘normal’ writing • Are there some differences? • If so, how can we describe those differences? • We will have a look at some examples and try to establish some ‘rules’.
- 3. Read the examples and decide.. • Is this academic writing? • Why? (Or, why not?).
- 4. Features of Academic Writing • It is a process • It is a social practice • It has an obvious audience and a clear purpose • Academic writing is linear.
- 5. Features of Academic Writing • Complexity • Formality • Precision • Clarity and conciseness • Objectivity • Explicitness • Accuracy • Responsibility.
- 6. Rules of Academic Writing • Any evidence used to support an argument must be based on reliable research. • Objectivity is better than subjectivity. • Both sides of the argument must be presented – for and against, pros vs cons. • Emotional language should only be used with great care. • Critical analysis is vital.
- 7. Avoiding Errors • Use the toolset available to you – Spell check everything before submission – Grammar check everything before submission – AND proof read everything before submission • Proof reading tips – Get some temporal distance – Read out loud – Get someone else to read it to you.
- 8. Description vs. Critical Analysis • Describe what you have read. – But don’t just stop there! • Offer your views on what you have read. • Support your views.
- 9. Common Errors • Its and It’s – It’s is short for ‘it is’ (or ‘it has’). – The cat had eaten its dinner (no apostrophe required). – It’s time to put the cat out for the night. – It’s been raining for a week.
- 10. Common Errors e.g. and i.e. – do not mean the same things. – i.e. is short for id est, the Latin for it is. – e.g. is short for exempli gratia, – and means for example. The standard discount applies; i.e. 10%. Try using easy-to-read fonts; e.g. Georgia and Verdana.
- 11. Marking Frustrations • If all I do as the marker of your work is ask questions, then you have not written your work correctly • Here are some common questions I shout out when marking: – “How can you say that?” – “Who says?” – “Where did that come from?” – “What has this got to do with anything?”
- 12. The Academic Mindset • “Everything is open to Question” – If you ask all of these questions as you write then by definition you will be forced into supporting your work – Bias will be removed – Your work will be appropriately supported – You will write far fewer definitive statements.
- 13. Remember • Your opinion counts, tell me what you think, but support or refute what you say with academic underpinning. • It doesn’t matter if I don’t agree with you.
- 14. Enhancing the flow of your work • ‘Develop’ an argument – think of it as telling a story – it therefore has a beginning, a middle and an end – Give the reader some indication of what is coming, signposting the path you are going to take them on – This means more than just writing coherent and well supported sentences – It means using paragraphs, sections and chapters properly.
- 15. Useful Phrases • Use of some of the following will help signpost your work: – This point will be discussed further in Chapter 2. – As was highlighted in Chapter 1… – In the previous section [some stuff] was discussed. This section will [do something else with this stuff]… – Further consideration of this point will take place later in this work. – Whilst it may be prudent to investigate this further, that falls outside of the scope of this work.
- 16. Useful Linking Words • The academic feel of your writing will be enhanced by the use of simple linking words and phrases: – However … – Further … – Conversely … – In support of this stance … – Jones (2008) refutes this … – In clarifying this, Smith (2009) … – It should also be noted that …
- 17. Three Good Ways To Improve Your Academic Writing • Read more. • Read more academic writing. • Use the support team in the library.
Editor's Notes
- This is a brief introduction to the subject. In actual fact, academic writing is the main subject of this course. You will cover the mechanics of academic writing – including spelling, punctuation and grammar - in a lot more depth with your language tutor. During this week we will also discuss: Literature searches and literature reviews Critical analysis Research questions and how questions can be deconstructed Essay proposals and how they can be improved, and How to write a 4,000 word essay. These subjects are all part of academic writing.
- There are two pairs of examples. The first pair of writing examples are written by the same journalist. Example 1 is written for the Daily Mirror, a UK tabloid daily newspaper. Whilst it is hard to generalise, the readership of this paper comprises those who may have had little formal education after the age of 16 and are more likely to be manual workers. In terms of National Readership Survey (NRS) grades – used in the UK as a standard for market research – Daily Mirror readership is broken down into AB/C1=34%, C2/DE=66%. Example 2 is written for The Independent, a UK broadsheet daily newspaper. Independent readership is broken down into AB/C1=82%, C2/DE=18%. A=upper middle class Higher managerial, administrative or professional B=middle class Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional C1=lower middle class Supervisory or clerical and junior managerial, administrative or professional C2=skilled working class Skilled manual workers D=working class Semi and unskilled manual workers E=non working, Casual or lowest grade workers, pensioners, and others who depend on the welfare state for their income
- It is a process - It starts from understanding your task. It then goes on to doing the research and reading. The next stage is planning and writing various drafts. This is followed by proof-reading and editing. All this should lead to the final text. It is a social practice - By a social practice I mean that it is what people do together. This means that you always write with a readership in mind. You always write with a purpose: to explain, to persuade etc. It also means that what is right and wrong, appropriate or inappropriate is defined by the users in the social community. In your case these are other people in the ‘military community’. There is nothing natural about the organisation and the way language is used in a scientific report, for example. It is as it is because that is the way it has developed through centuries of use by practitioners. For that reason it has to be learned. No-one speaks (or writes) academic English as a first language (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1994, p. 8). It must be learned by observation, study and experiment. Academic writing is linear - it starts at the beginning and finishes at the end, with every part contributing to the main line of argument, without digression or repetition. This line of argument must be made clear whatever kind of writing you are producing and you, the writer, are responsible for making this line of argument clear and presenting it in an orderly fashion so that the reader can follow.
- Complexity - Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically more dense and it has a more varied vocabulary. It uses more noun-based phrases than verb-based phrases. Written texts are shorter and the language has more grammatical complexity, including more subordinate clauses and more passives. Formality - Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions. Precision - In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely. Clarity and conciseness – these are features of good academic writing. Unfortunately, there is a lot of academic writing that is neither clear nor concise. I would call that bad academic writing. Objectivity - Written language is in general objective rather than personal. It therefore 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. For that reason, academic writing tends to use nouns (and adjectives), rather than verbs (and adverbs). Explicitness - Academic writing is explicit about the relationships in the text. Furthermore, 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 signalling words. Accuracy - Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words with narrow specific meanings. Responsibility - In academic writing you must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and justification for, any claims you make. You are also responsible for demonstrating an understanding of any source texts you use.
- Objectivity refers to a deliberate distance between yourself as a writer and the subject matter of your assignment. Being objective is about creating this distance. Objectivity is established in various ways. Some students find it useful to think about the opposite of objectivity – ‘subjectivity’. If you are writing in a subjective way, you seem very close to your subject. Another way to think about this difference is this: imagine objectivity as being on the outside looking in. Subjectivity is being on the inside looking out. So, instead of writing about your own experiences, you write about the research and reading you’ve done. Instead of making points based on your opinions, write about the conclusion to which your research has led you. Instead of writing based on a chat, or argument, you had with your friends, use an interview you’ve conducted with an academic expert in the field.
- Objectivity refers to a deliberate distance between yourself as a writer and the subject matter of your assignment. Being objective is about creating this distance. Objectivity is established in various ways. Some students find it useful to think about the opposite of objectivity – ‘subjectivity’. If you are writing in a subjective way, you seem very close to your subject. Another way to think about this difference is this: imagine objectivity as being on the outside looking in. Subjectivity is being on the inside looking out. So, instead of writing about your own experiences, you write about the research and reading you’ve done. Instead of making points based on your opinions, write about the conclusion to which your research has led you. Instead of writing based on a chat, or argument, you had with your friends, use an interview you’ve conducted with an academic expert in the field.