Academic Writing Features PDF

Firstly let’s talk about what separates normal writing from academic writing. Academic writing has 7 features. It should be structured, Evidenced, Critical, Precise, Balanced, Objective based and formal. Good academic writings should have a clear structure that tells the reader what type of writing...

Firstly let’s talk about what separates normal writing from academic writing. Academic writing has 7 features. It should be structured, Evidenced, Critical, Precise, Balanced, Objective based and formal. Good academic writings should have a clear structure that tells the reader what type of writing it is, example (argumentative, essay, report). It should also be logical and the ideas should be connected. There should be a clear focus of what you are writing and why. Careful planning should be done before writing. Academic writing also should be evidenced. Meaning should have sources like (examples, facts, reasons, citations, statistics). Now we go on to Critical, academic writing should not simple describe from the source. The information should be evaluated and analysed before being used. Next is precise, academic writing should use precise and clear language using technical vocab. Additionally academic writing should be balanced meaning there should not be any bias or writer’s personal opinions. Continuing it should be objective, meaning it is written from a general perspective instead of the writer's perspective. Instead of i heated the water you should write the water was heated. Instead of in my opinion we write it can be seen that. Finally academic writing should be formal. You should not use any slang or informal sounding words. There are more jargon’s and complex vocab and often the same word is not used frequently. Moving to next topic we talk about APC (audience, purpose, context) You have to make it clear who you are writing to, for what purpose are you writing and why you are writing. Now lets talk about engaging with the text. TOQ (thoughts, opinions, questions). Do you understand the topic, do you have any knowledge about the topic and do you have any questions). You should be able to understand what you are reading and give feedback when commenting on other work. Now we talk about how to evaluate whether the source you are citing is of quality. 1. Relevance: does the writing relate to the topic you are writing about. 2. Currency: is the source posted within 5 years? 3. Objectivity: was there any bias? Did the author try to view the situation from different angles?. 4. Formality: wast the choice of words formal? 5. Quality of evidence: are the sources opinion based example statistics, facts. The next part we are going over is bibliography. This is really important. There are two main parts of a bibliography, Citation and annotation. The citation should use APA 7th citation which is the name of the author, year of publication, title, website name, link. Now we have annotations which have two common types. Summative and evaluative. A summative annotation should summarise the main ideas of a text. An evaluative annotation should have a brief summary of the source and the evaluation of the sources provided. Then we move on to thesis statements. An effective thesis statement should include your stance. The argument and supporting evidence. A thesis statement is a sum up of the main idea of your essay written after the introduction. Writing usually consists of an introduction where you give the outline of what the essay should be like. The body is where your main points are and the supporting evidence. Lastly the conclusion is where you should summarise everything and write something about the credibility of the sources found. This is most important to remember the format for a citation. In-text citation should have author and year of publication.