In This Chapter
In her essay, “You Can Learn to Write in General,” Elizabeth Wardle argues that there is no one, single way to write. There is no one set of rules that can teach you to write well in every situation. She argues that understanding this idea can be helpful for writers, because it gives them the freedom to keep learning.
You may wonder why you need a required composition course. Haven’t you already learned to write essays in high school?
If we accept Wardle’s argument, then it means accepting that there is not one single way of writing essays. Because “writing is always particular,” the writing you do for each of your college courses will be specific and particular to the specific course as well.
As Wardle argues, “no single class or workshop can teach people to write, once and for all.” In this course, you will not learn the single key to writing a perfect essay in every class. Instead, you’ll learn strategies for writing in an academic context that you can apply broadly. These strategies will become a tool box that you can apply to various courses.
This course does not focus on writing in general. Instead, we’ll focus on the skills and strategies you can use for a specific form of writing: Academic Writing.
What is Academic Writing?
Academic writing is a specific genre of writing used in academic settings, specifically colleges and universities. Academic writing is mostly found in scholarly journal articles and books on academic topics written by scholars and researchers, but students enrolled in college courses are also required to use the forms and conventions of academic writing in their class work.
Although all academic writing shares certain similarities, it is important to note that there is no single form of academic writing. Each individual discipline (subject) has its own writing requirements and conventions. Using lines from a poem or an older literary critique of a short story might be appropriate in your English Literature class, but using literary works or older sources probably wouldn’t be appropriate for your science courses.
Your success with academic writing depends upon how well you understand the specific situation you are addressing as you write. Understanding that scientists and social scientists, for instance, value the most recent and objective data possible, would be necessary for successful writing in those courses.
However, even if each individual course or discipline might have slightly different expectations, there are similarities that all types of academic writing shares. Having a basic understanding of the general features of academic writing can help you feel more confident as you approach writing tasks in any course.
This class will focus on the shared conventions of academic writing. Over the course of this semester, we will build on your previous knowledge about writing and the skills you already have, so that you can better meet the requirements of this and future college courses.
Before we begin