2 Introducing Academic Writing
Ann Inoshita; Karyl Garland; Kate Sims; Jeanne K. Tsutsui Keuma; Tasha Williams; Core Curriculum; and Melissa Elston
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the broad components of academic writing
- Learn how academic writing is unique and distinctive, compared with informal or professional writing
What is Academic Writing?
Like all writing, academic writing is intended for a particular audience and context. The audience for academic writing includes individuals within the university community, some of them instructors with advanced degrees. Essays, proposals, laboratory research reports, annotated bibliographies, and article and book reviews are among the genres of academic writing; and different lengths, formats, and documentation styles generally are specified for each. Authors of academic writing are expected to familiarize themselves with models and stated expectations (including discipline-specific ones) and to demonstrate their ability to fulfill them.
In addition to following models and specified guidelines, authors writing for an academic audience should be attuned to unstated expectations. Academic writing is produced within a community, and any community has shared values and customary ways of communicating. Writers for an academic community need to learn and use academic and discipline-specific vocabulary. Writers should also develop the ability to use styles, tones, and forms of reasoning and argumentation that are accepted as appropriate for each academic genre. In many of these genres, for example, the writer is expected to adopt an objective tone and to rely upon logical argumentation with little or no reliance upon emotional or personal appeals.
The word “standard” is used to describe the level of quality that a given item possesses. So an “intellectual standard” is one that measures the overall value of a scholarly effort. Such standards apply to essays, reports, assignments, group discussions, and even notetaking. For overall success, students need to know their professors’ standards and need to develop their own standards, with the concept of “intellectual standards” at the forefront.
There are nine primary intellectual standards to keep in mind: clarity, precision, accuracy, depth, breadth, logic, significance, relevance, and fairness. Keeping a list of these standards (or even using an actual checklist) and applying them to academic thinking, writing, and other scholarly interaction is an excellent way to ensure one’s continued intellectual growth and college and career success.
These standards can help scholars, both students and instructors, form connected and quality ideas (e.g., “critical thinking” or “analysis”) and craft written work (e.g., essays, reports, articles, reflections, and other writing sometimes known as “papers” or “homework”).
Many of the editorial comments and corrections (e.g., those from peers, mentors, tutors, and professors) shared with students regarding their written work