Students, professors, and researchers in just about every discipline use academic writing to convey ideas, make arguments, and participate in scholarly conversation. Academic writing is described as evidence-based arguments, precise word choice, logical organization, and an impersonal tone. Though sometimes looked at as long-winded or inaccessible, strong academic writing is very the contrary: It informs, analyzes, and persuades in an easy manner and enables the reader to interact critically in a scholarly dialogue.
Samples of Academic Writing
Academic writing is, needless to say, any formal written work produced in an academic setting. The following are some of the most common while academic writing comes in many forms.
Literary analysis: A literary analysis essay examines, evaluates, and makes a quarrel about a work that is literary. As its name suggests, a analysis that is literary goes beyond mere summarization. It requires careful close reading of one or multiple texts and often centers on a characteristic that is specific theme, or motif.
Research paper: a study paper uses outside information to support a thesis or make a quarrel. Research papers are printed in all disciplines and might be evaluative, analytical, or critical in the wild. Common research sources include data, primary sources (e.g., historical records), and secondary sources (e.g., peer-reviewed scholarly articles). Writing a study paper involves synthesizing this external information with your own ideas.
Dissertation: A dissertation (or thesis) is a document submitted at the conclusion of a Ph.D. program. The dissertation is a book-length summarization of the candidate’s research that is doctoral.
Academic papers can be done as a part of a course, in a course of study, and for publication in an academic journal or scholarly book of articles around a layout, by different authors.
Characteristics of Academic Writing
Most disciplines that are academic their very own stylistic conventions. However, all writing that is academic certain characteristics.
- Clear and limited focus. The focus of an paper—the that is academic or research question—is established early by the thesis statement. Every paragraph and sentence of the paper connects back once again to that focus that is primary. All content serves the purpose of supporting the thesis statement while the paper may include background or contextual information.
- Logical structure. All academic writing follows a logical, straightforward structure. With its form that is simplest, academic writing includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The introduction provides background information, lays out of the direction and scope associated with the essay, and states the thesis. Your body paragraphs offer the thesis statement, with each body paragraph elaborating on a single supporting point. The conclusion refers back into the thesis, summarizes the main points, and highlights the implications of this paper’s findings. Each sentence and paragraph logically connects to another location in order to present a argument that is clear.
- Evidence-based arguments. Academic writing requires arguments that are well-informed. Statements must certanly be sustained by evidence, whether from scholarly sources (as in a study paper), link between a report or experiment, or quotations from a primary text (as in a literary analysis essay). The utilization of evidence gives credibility to a quarrel.
- Impersonal tone. The purpose of academic writing would be to convey a logical argument from an objective standpoint. Academic writing avoids emotional, inflammatory, or elsewhere biased language. It must be presented accurately and objectively in your paper whether you personally agree or disagree with an idea.
Most published papers also have abstracts: brief summaries of the very important points associated with paper. Abstracts come in academic database search engine results so that readers can quickly see whether the paper is pertinent with their own research.
Let’s say you’ve just finished an analytical essay for your literature class. If a peer or professor asks you what the essay is about—what the point of the essay is—you must be able to respond clearly and concisely in a single sentence. That sentence that is single your thesis statement.
The thesis statement, available at the termination of the very first paragraph, is a one-sentence encapsulation of one’s essay’s main idea. It presents an overarching argument and could also identify the key support points for the argument. In essence, the thesis statement is a road map, telling your reader where the paper is certainly going and how it shall make it.
The thesis statement plays an important role in the writing process. Once you’ve written a thesis statement, you’ve established a focus that is clear your paper. Frequently referring returning to that thesis statement shall prevent you from straying off-topic through the drafting phase. Needless to say, the thesis statement can (and really should) be revised to reflect alterations in the content or direction regarding the paper. Its ultimate goal, in the end, is to capture the key ideas of your paper with clarity and specificity.
Academic writers from every field face similar challenges through the writing process. You are able to improve your own writing that is academic avoiding these common mistakes.