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this video is brought to you by
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eapfoundation.com
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the website for all your academic
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english needs
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so this video will answer the question
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what is academic writing
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and there are two parts to the video
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first i'll give a definition of academic
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writing
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then i'll look in more detail at the
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features of academic writing
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first then a definition
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so academic writing is writing which
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communicates
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ideas information and research to the
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wider academic community
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and it can be divided into two types
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student academic writing
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and expert academic writing these two
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forms differ in terms of what they are
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the audience and the purpose student
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academic writing is used as a form of
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assessment
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at university or it may also be used at
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schools in preparation for university
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study
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the audience will be your tutors or
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professors at university
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and the purpose is to demonstrate
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learning expert academic writing on the
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other hand
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is writing for publication in academic
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journals or books
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the audience is other experts in the
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same field and the purpose
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is the creation of new knowledge and
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although these two types of academic
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writing
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are different in terms of content
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audience and purpose the standards and
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requirements are the same
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for both and this makes sense for
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example if you're learning to drive a
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car
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if you're a student driver you still
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need to obey the speed limit
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stop at red lights and so on in other
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words you have the same standards and
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requirements
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that expert drivers do so let's look now
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in detail at the features of academic
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writing
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there are seven different features that
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we'll look at
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academic writing should be structured
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evidenced critical precise
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balanced objective and
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formal so let's begin by looking at
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structured
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academic writing should have a clear
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structure in order for the reader to
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easily follow the main ideas or
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arguments
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the structure often derives from the
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genre of writing
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for example reports will usually begin
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with an introduction
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followed by a method section a results
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section
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and a discussion section an essay on the
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other hand will have an introduction
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including a thesis and will be divided
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up into body paragraphs
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each of which should have a topic
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sentence and it will finish with a
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conclusion
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probably containing a summary these are
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the most common genres of academic
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writing but there are also
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many others for example literature
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review dissertation research
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proposal and so on each of which has a
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different kind of structure
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being well structured also means that
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the writing should be
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coherent in other words there should be
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a logical progression of ideas
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it should also be cohesive in other
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words the different parts are clearly
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connected
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for example by using reference words and
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transition signals
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being well structured also means we need
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a clear focus
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so for the academic writer that means
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you need to understand very clearly what
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you're writing about
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and why it also needs careful planning
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before writing
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in some ways you can think of academic
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writing as being like a house
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the door is the introduction that leads
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in and then each room is like a
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different section
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or different paragraph which serves a
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different purpose
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now if you were building a house you
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wouldn't just start building you would
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plan it very carefully first
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and the same is true for academic
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writing without careful planning it
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won't have a very clear structure
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and it will be very difficult for the
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reader to follow the ideas
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so the second feature of academic
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writing is that it should be evidenced
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this means opinions and arguments should
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be supported
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by evidence in other words facts reasons
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examples statistics citations
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let's have a look now at an authentic
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academic text
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this is the introduction to an article
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about dengue fever
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dengue is a major global problem in many
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parts of the world
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causing epidemics throughout the
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developed and developing countries
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so this is a fact and the fact is
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strengthened by the citation
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but at al 2013. in thailand specifically
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frequent outbreaks in all administrative
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provinces of thailand
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due to so this is giving the reasons
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vector breeding conditions
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and hyperendemic nature of the virus and
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this causes significant impact on public
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health resources this
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is a fact again supported by a citation
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shu et al 2019 in bangkok alone a recent
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2017 outbreak resulted in over 4
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000 case counts being reported in a
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single month
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so that's a statistic again supported by
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a citation
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ministry of public health 2020
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and this is very much a quality of
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academic writing the use of in-text
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citations
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so being able to cite and reference
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sources appropriately
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is a key skill that any academic writer
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needs to learn
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the next feature is critical so academic
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writing does not simply describe the
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information should be analyzed and
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evaluated in other words the writer
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should make judgments about it
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before it's used and sometimes in making
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those judgments you may decide not to
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use the information at all
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in order to be able to write critically
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you really need to understand the topic
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in depth
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so a great deal of research will be
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needed here again is another authentic
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example
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while the studies in table 1 have
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employed both quantitative and
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qualitative methods
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all were observational an observation
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study may well reveal data
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however an observational study is
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incapable of ruling out potential
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non-linguistic factors
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for example so here this is critical
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evaluation by
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revealing the limitations of previous
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research
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the next feature is precise academic
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writing should use clear and precise
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language
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this will enable the reader to follow
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the ideas more easily
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so this includes the use of technical in
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other words subject specific
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vocabulary sometimes such vocabulary may
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need defining for example if the term is
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not commonly used by other experts or if
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you need to demonstrate
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understanding to your tutor so that's
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for student
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academic writing so if we look back at
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the article on dengue fever
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we can see some examples of technical
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vocabulary
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so there's a phrase vector breeding
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conditions and
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hyperendemic nature of the virus so
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these phrases are difficult for us
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the non-specialists to understand but
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these terms have precise meaning for the
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expert audience that this article was
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written for
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next academic writing should be balanced
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this means that academic writing should
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give consideration to
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all sides of the issue and avoid being
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biased
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additionally an academic writer should
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show how strong their claims are
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and this is often done using hedges or
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boosters
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for example the evidence suggests that
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more safety controls are needed
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or this could be caused by lack of
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education
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so the word suggests is a way of hedging
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or making this statement
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less certain and so is the word could
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and these sentences could be written
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more strongly clearly there is a need
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for more safety controls
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the research indicates that the lack of
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education is to blame
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so these sentences use boosters the
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first one
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clearly the second one indicates
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so showing how strong or certain your
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ideas are or how uncertain your ideas
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are
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is a way to give balance to your writing
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next academic writing should be
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objective emphasis should be placed on
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the arguments and information
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rather than on the writer so instead of
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i heated the water the water was heated
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so this uses passive which is fairly
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common in academic writing
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instead of in my opinion it can be seen
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that
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so this is an impersonal structure using
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it
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and in personal structures with it and
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there are again very common in academic
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writing
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finally academic writing should be
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formal when thinking about academic
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writing this is maybe the first feature
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that comes to mind
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so academic writing tends to use more
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complex sentences
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and also tends to avoid contractions and
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colloquial or informal words
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for example instead of this isn't the
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case
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this is not the case there are many
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words and collocations which are used
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more frequently in academic writing than
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in non-academic writing
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and researchers have made lists of these
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for example the academic word list
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the awl and the academic collocation
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list
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the acl for example instead of there are
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lots of reasons
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there are a significant number of
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reasons
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instead of conditions changed a lot
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which is not very formal
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there was considerable variation in the
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conditions
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so both of those examples use more
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academic vocabulary including words from
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the academic word list
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so to sum up we've seen a definition of
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academic writing and we've seen
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seven features of academic writing
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namely that it is structured
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evidenced critical precise balanced
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objective and formal for more
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information on this and related topics
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please visit the website
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eapfoundation.com
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you can also find a worksheet for this
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video and others in the series
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by visiting eapfoundation.com forward
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