The document provides guidance on developing academic writing skills. It discusses considering writing as a process, distinguishing academic and personal writing styles, and practicing visualizing text before writing. Some key differences between academic and non-academic writing include complexity of sentences, serious subject matter, use of formal language and structure, and addressing an academic audience. Several examples of sentences are provided and rated based on their formality, with the most academic examples using complex structure, precise vocabulary, passive voice and nominalization. The document stresses visualizing the audience, purpose and available material or evidence before starting an academic text.

1. Study Writing skills – I
Writing skills for academic purpose
Liz Hamp-Lyons & Ben Heasley
Pub: CUP
03-05-2022 1

2. Academic Writing processes
• Our aim in this study is to:
1. Introducing the idea that writing is a set of processes.
2. Showing how to distinguish between academic and personal styles of
writing.
3. Looking at the grammar of academic discourse.
4. Practicing visualizing text as a pre-writing step.
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3. Thinking about writing processes:
1. When you write an important text, do you make more than one
draft?
2. If option is given, do you prefer to write on paper or use a computer?
Have you ever asked yourself why?
3. What do you do before you start writing?
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4. 4. How do you start writing? Do you begin at ‘the beginning’ or jump in
wherever you have some ideas? Do you think one approach is better
than another?
5. What do you do while you are writing? Do you stop and think? Do you
ever go back to the beginning and start again?
6. When you finish your first complete draft, what do you do next?
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5. Discuss answers with your friends…
•Remember, there are no correct answers, only sensible
or thoughtless ones. Freely discuss all views.
• Would your answer be same for writing in your own language?
•Objective of this activity: to capture thinking about
something in order to talk clearly about it later.
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6. What is academic writing?
• There are different kinds of academic writing in English. Some of
these differences arise from the different disciplines and the ways in
which they create and share knowledge; some relate to the
audience (reader); and some to the use of which the text will be
put.
• The rules and definitions are very complicated.
• Yet we can easily recognize the difference between informal and
formal (academic) writing.
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7. Recognizing academic writing
• Read:
•Linguists were and remain convinced by Noam
Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, who discovered that however disparate
human languages seem, all share a common, basic
structure, seemingly hardwired into the brain.
* Identify three features of this sentence that you
think are academic.
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8. Read
The way you speak says a lot about you.
•Identify three features of this sentence that seem
non-academic to you.
•Discuss with your partner….
•Let us see the answers …
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9. Features of academic and
non-academic writings
• In first sentence:
• Complex sentence
• Serious subject
• Reference to academics, ‘linguists’ and ‘Noam Chomsky of …’
• Use of passive voice ‘Linguists were and remain convinced by N. Chomsky …’
• Shows truth status of statement or stance of writer, ‘seemingly hardwired into
the brain’.
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10. •In second sentence:
•Vague vocabulary, such as ‘way’, ‘say’ and ‘a lot’ – lack
of precision.
•Directly addressing the reader, ‘you’ – conversational
style
•Simple sentence structure.
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11. Levels of formality in academic and
non-academic writing
Academic Non-Academic
Reader Academics Family & friends
Content Serious thought conversational
Style Complex sentences
showing considerable
variety in
construction
Mostly simple and
compound sentences
joined by
conjunctions such as
and or but
Organization Clear and well
planned
Less likely to be as
clear and as
organized
Grammar Likely to be error free May not always use
complete sentences
Vocabulary Technical and
academic language
used accurately
Use of short forms,
idioms and slang
After distinguishing
some features of
academic and non-
academic writing, let
us now recognize levels
of formality
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12. Read the following sentences and tick
A(academic) or N(non-academic)
Sentences A N Notes
I couldn’t finish the interview on time.
The initial tests were completed and the results analyzed by June 2008.
I’d like to start by drawing your attention to previous research in this
area.
In the 1990s, some researchers started to point out the problems with
this theory.
He agreed with me that this procedure didn’t make much sense.
We’ll repeat the test sometime next year.
While it is still too early to draw firm conclusions from the data,
preliminary analysis suggests the following trends are present.
In addition, the research attempts to answer two further related
questions.
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13. Check your answers: compare and evaluate
Sentences A N Notes
I couldn’t finish … N Use of “I”; and short form, ‘couldn’t’
The initial tests … A Use of passive voice; ‘were completed; use of precise vocab,
‘initial’
I’d like to start … N Use of ‘I’ and ‘Your’; short form ‘I’d’
In the 1990s, some… N In an academic work we would expect some bibliographic
references after ‘some researchers’
He agreed with me … N Use of ‘me’; short forms; vague vocab, ‘much sense’
We’ll repeat … N Use of short form; ‘We’ll; vague
While it is still too early… A Complex sentence
In addition, the research… A Use of connector, ‘In addition’; impersonal style i.e. ‘the
research attempts’ rather than ‘I’ or ‘we’
03-05-2022 13

14. Study Writing skills – II
Writing skills for academic purpose
Liz Hamp-Lyons & Ben Heasley
Pub: CUP
5/3/2022 14

15. Read these Paragraphs
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16. Paragraph B
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17. Paragraph C
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18. Paragraph D
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19. After reading these paragraphs, give ratings:
1 to the most academics and 4 to the least
• Compare your answer:
• From the most to the least academic: B D C A.
• Explanation:
• B: This is the most academic, having been taken from a research book on
academic writing. It exhibits complex sentence structure with ‘distant’ verb
forms such as present perfect (e.g. ‘have had’); high-level vocabulary, such as
‘reciprocal relationship’ and ‘complex cognitive and linguistic skills’; content
that display the outcome of serious thought and nominalization.
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20. Cont…
• Nominalization: academic writers frequently use the noun forms of
verbs to help focus their work on concepts rather than specific
actions. E.g. Using ‘development, application, and activation’ rather
than ‘develop, active and apply’.
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21. Explanation cont…
• D: this is the second most academic, being taken from a research
report. It exhibits complex sentences; references (kunii, 1994);
academic vocabulary, ‘effectively’, ‘capability’, and ‘disseminated’;
passives, ‘it has been claimed; and discourse markers, ‘with this in
mind’, ‘The capability to’ and ‘To prepare our students for these
endeavors'. This text is more explicit than ‘B’ – it belongs academic
genre – it is a research report.
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22. Explanation cont…
• C: This is a mixture of academic and non-academic modes. It contains
direct reference to the reader, ‘your’ and ‘you’; but it also contains a
passive, ‘the reader is focused’; and is itself a long complex sentence.
The text was taken from an instruction manual.
• A: This could be part of speech, or an informal letter or e-mail. The style
is didactic rather than academic. The use of a question-&-answer
sequence suggests informality, as does the use of the filler ‘Anyway’.
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23. The writing process:
Visualizing your text
• Before we study Grammar and Linguistic relativity of academic writing,
let us see how can we visualize our text?
• To write texts that are academic, begin by thinking about three key
elements: audience, purpose and material.
• Ask yourself 3 questions…
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24. Ask yourself:
1. Who is the text for? (Audience)
2. Why is the text needed? (Purpose)
3. What resources – data, evidence, reference material, and so on –
have I got that I can use? (Material)
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25. Ideas for starting academic text
• Material: make sure you have enough material, resources, data,
evidence etc available.
• Highlight ideas, evidence and arguments.
• Purpose: is it report or argument. Going to be used for???
• Audience: who are readers? How will they use the text? Their depth of
knowledge n reading?
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