Students, professors, and researchers in just about every discipline use academic writing to convey ideas, make arguments, and take part in scholarly conversation. Academic writing is characterized by 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 quite the contrary: It informs, analyzes, and persuades in an easy manner and enables your reader to engage critically in a scholarly dialogue.
Samples of Academic Writing
Academic writing is, needless to say, any formal written work produced in an setting that is academic. While academic writing is available in many forms, the following are several of the most common.
Literary analysis: A literary analysis essay examines, evaluates, and makes a disagreement about a literary work. As the name suggests, a analysis that is literary goes beyond mere summarization. It requires careful close reading of 1 or multiple texts and frequently centers around a characteristic that is specific theme, or motif.
Research paper: A research paper uses outside information to support a thesis or make a quarrel. Research papers are printed in all disciplines and will 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 an investigation paper involves synthesizing this external information with your personal ideas.
Dissertation: A dissertation (or thesis) is a document submitted by the end of a Ph.D. program. The dissertation is a book-length summarization for the candidate’s research that is doctoral.
Academic papers can be done as an element writing essay website of a class, in a program of study, and for publication in an journal that is academic scholarly book of articles around a layout, by different authors.
Characteristics of Academic Writing
Most disciplines that are academic their own stylistic conventions. However, all academic writing shares certain characteristics.
- Clear and focus that is limited. The main focus of an academic paper—the argument or research question—is established early by the thesis statement. Every paragraph and sentence for the paper connects back again to that primary focus. While the paper can sometimes include background or contextual information, all content serves the objective of supporting the thesis statement.
- Logical structure. All academic writing follows a logical, straightforward structure. With its simplest form, academic writing includes an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The introduction provides background information, lays out the direction and scope associated with the essay, and states the thesis. The human body paragraphs offer the thesis statement, with each physical body paragraph elaborating on one supporting point. The final outcome refers back again to the thesis, summarizes the points that are main and highlights the implications regarding the paper’s findings. Each sentence and paragraph logically connects to a higher in order to present a clear argument.
- Evidence-based arguments. Academic writing requires arguments that are well-informed. Statements must certanly be sustained by evidence, whether from scholarly sources (as with a study paper), link between a research or experiment, or quotations from a primary text (like in a literary analysis essay). The usage 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 avoids that are writing, inflammatory, or otherwise 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 of this paper. Abstracts appear in academic database search results so that readers can determine whether the quickly 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 this essay is—you should be able to respond clearly and concisely in a single sentence. That single sentence is your thesis statement.
The thesis statement, available at the end of the first paragraph, is a one-sentence encapsulation of one’s essay’s main idea. It presents an overarching argument and could also identify the primary support points for the argument. In essence, the thesis statement is a road map, telling the reader where in actuality the paper is going and just how it shall make it happen.
The thesis statement plays an role that is important the writing process. As soon as you’ve written a thesis statement, you’ve established a clear focus for your paper. Frequently referring back into that thesis statement shall prevent you from straying off-topic throughout the drafting phase. Needless to say, the thesis statement can (and may) be revised to reflect changes in the content or direction of this paper. Its ultimate goal, most likely, would be to capture the key ideas of your paper with clarity and specificity.
Academic writers out of each and every field face similar challenges during the writing process. You are able to improve your own academic writing by avoiding these common mistakes.