What is Academic Writing?
Academic writing is writing which communicates ideas, information and research to the wider academic community. Academic writing should be: structured, evidenced, critical, precise, balanced, objective, and formal.
Academic writing can be divided into two types: student academic writing, which is used as a form of assessment at university, as well as at schools as preparation for university study; and expert academic writing, which is writing that is intended for publication in an academic journal or book. Both types of academic writing (student and expert) are expected to adhere to the same standards, which can be difficult for students to master.
Academic writing should have a clear structure. The structure will often derive from the genre of writing. For example, a report will have an introduction, a method section, a results section, and a discussion section, while an essay will have an introduction (including a thesis statement), clear body paragraphs with topic sentences, and a conclusion. The writing should be coherent, with logical progression throughout, and cohesive, with the different parts of the writing clearly connected. Careful planning before writing is essential to ensure that the final product will be well structured, with a clear focus and logical progression of ideas.
Academic writing should be evidenced, in other words the opinions and arguments should be supported by facts, reasons, statistics, and cited information from experts in the field.
Academic writing should be critical, rather than simply descriptive. As an academic writer, you should not simply accept everything you read as fact. You need to analyse and evaluate the information you are writing about, in other words make judgements about it, before you decide whether and how to integrate it into your
own writing.
Academic writing should be balanced. This means giving consideration to all sides of the issue and avoiding bias, as well as showing the strength of your arguments by using hedges or boosters.
Academic writing is objective. In other words, the emphasis is placed on the arguments and information, rather than on the writer. As a result, academic writing tends to use more passive structures, rather than active voice.
Finally, academic writing is more formal than everyday writing. It tends to use longer words and more complex sentences, while avoiding contractions and colloquial or informal words or expressions that might be common in spoken English.