...introduction Academic writing in English is linear, which means it has one central point or theme with every part contributing to the main line of argument, without digressions or repetitions. Its objective is to inform rather than entertain. As well as this it is in the standard written form of the language.There are eight main features of academic writing that are often discussed. Academic writing is to some extent: complex, formal, objective, explicit, hedged, and responsible. It uses language precisely and accurately. Complexity Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically denser and it has a more varied vocabulary. It uses more noun-based phrases than verb-based phrases. Written texts are shorter and the language has more grammatical complexity, including more subordinate clauses and more passives. Written language is relatively more complex than spoken languageWritten texts are lexically dense compared to spoken language Written language is grammatically more complex than spoken language. Formality Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions. In general this means in an essay that you should avoid: a. colloquial words and expressions; ""stuff", "a lot of", "thing", "sort of", b. abbreviated forms: "can't", "doesn't", "shouldn't" c. two word verbs: "put off", "bring up" d. sub-headings, numbering and bullet-points...
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...and Technology Support Academic writing What is academic writing? Well, it is writing done by scholars for scholars. Thanks goodness I am just a student not a scholar hence academic writing does not concern me, right? Wrong! As a university college student you are part of a community of scholars. You are expected to be able to engage in the following activities: Read about certain ideas Think about certain ideas Argue about certain ideas Write about certain ideas Before you start to write you have to read widely in your area of interest. Carry out a literature search in the library or an online search in the Internet. Look for relevant articles in the journals or newspapers or even in books. In an academic writing you have to acknowledge references made in the bibliography. While reading extensively you have to think and decide whether you agree with the authors’ views or otherwise. Do you have evidence to support your stand? On what ground do you choose a particular position. You have to argue it out convincingly in your writing. Do not use hearsay or your gut feeling to support your argument. Look for concrete evidences in other scholars’ work. It is very wrong to submit an academic writing where you merely joint together paragraphs from various articles read without contributing your views, your arguments and your thinking of the subject you are writing. Remember it is not an exercise for you to summarise other authors’ writings. Now, how to create...
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...“Invention” or “Discovery” is the means whereby a writer or orator either finds (discovers) or creates (invents) content. In academic writing or speaking, invention often is thought to begin with research, but students also use invention techniques to help them prepare for research. Invention fosters critical thinking skills, so that as students do their research, they are more open to various problems and perspectives and more able to connect what they learn to their personal experiences and knowledge; invention also helps writers or speakers narrow a topic, clarify a thesis, develop ideas, or find arguments. In addition, once some preliminary reading or drafting is done, invention techniques can help he writer or speaker to refocus. Finally, these techniques are helpful for students who are blocked. Not all invention techniques are suited to all communication tasks. Encourage students to experiment with these strategies to find out which work for them. Clustering For those who need a visual picture of their ideas, clustering (also called visualizing) is a helpful method of invention. Clustering can be done as a part of brainstorming groups (see below) or by students working alone. What follows is a procedure for clustering to provide to students: 1. Write a word related to the topic in the middle of a page and circle it. 2. Think of other words that come to mind when you think of the word. Let your mind be playful. Don’t judge or evaluate; just let the words flow...
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...Explain the following strategies of writing 1. Evaluating -evaluating is the process is the process of determining the value and importance of writing. This enables the writer to determine the quality of writing to write that will make the audience be attracted to your article. It also helps the writer to make his writing purposeful so that to fulfill the intention of writing. 2. Interpreting Refers to the process of being able to come up with the meaning of the writing. This enables the writer to effectively write because he/she is able to evaluate what entails the writing. 3. Exploring Refers to the process of going through and doing research on the type of writing to write. This equips the writer with experience on what and how to write. It also enables the writer to determine to who he/she is writing to. 4. Discussing and examining Discussing involves the progress of considering and examining a writing by argument and giving comments till a solution is reached, while examining refers to inspecting carefully to test the knowledge and qualification of whatever the writer is going to write. Discussing and examining makes the writer knowledgeable and experienced in writing. PURPOSE OF ACADEMIC WRITING 1. Presentation of information that indicates understanding of the subject matter. 2. Persuasion is intended to convince the audience by offering convincing argument that supports your point of view. 3. Informative writing aims at passing information and highlighting...
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...Academic reading and writing are such important things for us (the college students). College students are claimed to be able to write anything that worth reading. In order to make a good essay, article, or even thesis, we should understand and have many concepts or knowledge. We know that there are many ways to enrich our knowledge, but the easiest way is by reading. In this internet era, we can always browse online news and articles by our PCs, smart phones, or tablets in every where or every time. Besides, I believe that every university has large library, students can access the books easily. So, it is not a big problem when it comes to reading. However, reading means that we have to understand what we read. Reading is categorized success if we can explain the content of the book/article, at least the main idea. After all, Mr. Eran Williams (RELO of US Embassy) said that reading is the fastest way of learning. He also said that anyone who likes to read, he/she will be able to write easily. In academic writing, we have to consider ourselves that we write for audiences. It means that we must target a more general audience than just your lecturer or marker. Also, the writing must require original idea and the content must not too long and not blabber. If you want to write nicely, there are five steps of writing process that you may follow. First is prewriting, we think and decide on a topic to write about. Second is drafting, we just put the information into our own words. The...
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...the ability to write is a necessity in life. Luo 1989:26 Indeed, Writing is very important for EFL students and writing is the basic part of academic and professional life. What distinguishes a literate person from an illiterate one is the ability of the former to read and write. What distinguishes a successful EFL learner from an unsuccessful one is the ability of the former to convey his/her ideas and thoughts (knowledge) in a written form. It is obvious that a person can learn how to read easily, whereas in the case of...
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...Academic Writing There are many different components to writing, although many individuals may not necessarily take advantage of them, in the end, learning them will better the individual. To start off with, you must show to your reader that your subject content has purpose. Purpose shows that you writings are about something, it has character and, is meaningful. Without purpose in your writings, the reader may think that the content is either boring or maybe even fictitious. Next we have audience. When writing, it's import to remember who your writing to and what your writing about. Your writings should cater to the audience that it's writin for so that, no matter the subject matter or content within the writings, your audience can relate to what is written. When submitting a paper or writing to an audience, your content should contain a certain tone as well. Tone imply's feelings and actions to the reader that the writer may want to give off on a more personal note. Without tone, the content may feel bland and uneventful. Last but not least, we have content. Content within writings is important because without it, the reader may not be able to get the broader view of what has been written. Content allows an individual to have a grasp on information sentence by sentence, and word for word, the overall "meat and potatoes" of the writing. If these techniques are applied to an individuals overall writing style, he or she wI'll undoubtedly be seen above all others....
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...difficulty in writing and reading in an academic setting. However, if college students follow the right approach to this, they can overcome the problems of academic writing and reading. Stuart Greene, a composition scholar and an author of “Argument as Conversation: The Role of Inquiry in Writing a Researched Argument”, claims that academic writing and conversation share some similarities. Mike Rose, another expert in academic writing and an author of “The Politics of Remediation”, asserts that professors should develop college students’ reading and writing skills by not criticizing their mistake but welcome it. By understanding what are important approaches or strategies of studying in academic setting that...
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...about all the resources available. There are lots. * * The CWE is probably the best. It’s located in the library section. It has tutorials, sample papers, and writing & style guides. CWE can help with grammar and spelling, APA formatting and check for plagiarism. * * There’s also a resource for math. Here you’re able to review math topics, complete worksheets and there’s answer booklets. Live math tutors are available to help. There are videos to show how to do math problems. * * There’s a skills & career center too. Here there are resources to help with writing cover letters and resumes. * * There are so many ways to research topics in the library too. There’s a specialized and general resource. Ebooks are available as well as dictionaries, thesis, and encyclopedias. * There’s also videos too. * * There are many on line communities in all areas so you can chat with other students. * So check out UoP! It will be great! * * Lori * * You asked your facilitator to review your e-mail draft. She liked what you wrote and asked you to write a summary to post in the class forum for the other students to read. Write a 150- to 200-word summary for your class of the resources available to students. Remember to write using an academic tone. University of Phoenix has a lot of resources available to students. Located under the...
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...in life it is important to learn how to write academic essays in order to communicate various ideas and points of view. Academic essays is composed of there primary stages, the Intro, Body, and conclusion. This formant allows one to stay focus in their writing. Elements such as writing style and tone should be considered as well. One must also consider their audience. Also it is important to establish credibility in the eyes of one’s audience. This can be accomplished through strong sources, personal testimonies and other relevant connections to the subject matter. While the above aspects are important they are not absolute and the best writers are able to strike a balance between these various elements to form a writing style all their own. They are many good examples of good writing yet the best way is to allow one’s own personal experience and personality to come out in one’s writing. One thing on the don’t do list is letting your bias and views of the world stop your from evaluating opposing views and merits with competing points of views and ways of life. Now it begins. Yes, the infamous introduction. Many of my professors told me in the past that I needed to work on my introductions. It wasn’t until I read the book “The Say, I Say “ that I began to grasp the importance of good writing, especially good introductions. Also reading about the “pitch” and how to form one really helped me get more comfortable about my writing .The introduction is good to start with a attention...
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...Solutions to Avoiding Bad Academic Writing By Jason Beneby Northcentral University Abstract This paper will assess the writing process and offer an explanation of how academic professionals process what is good academic writing, what are common mistakes made by academic writers, common criticisms against poor academic writing, and solutions how to avoid poor academic writing. The paper will discuss how academic professionals develop ideas, and go about expressing those ideas to their peers. The paper will also explain how academic professionals use complex information to explain simple ideas and phenomena, and how the use of such complex words, is often perceived as unnecessary jargon and nonsensical to those outside the scientific community. The paper will also provide an example of how writing has become so predictable, that one author purposely submitted a flawed paper, just to have the published as proof that academic writing had fallen to new lows. Finally the paper will offer possible solutions that would help writers avoid the pitfalls that lead to poor academic writing. Keywords: jargon, academic, incomprehensible, phenomena Solutions to Avoiding Bad Academic Writing The practice of academic professional writing revolves around the principle of presenting researched studied information to peers for review in the academic community. It is this mindset that allows researched or theoretical information, to be presented in a context...
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...INTERMEDIATE ACADEMIC READING & WRITING CHAPTER 1 PRE-WRITING PREPARED BY: ZARINAH ABU BAKAR NAME OF SCHOOL FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND GENERAL STUDIES CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING LEARNING OUTCOMES TOPIC At the end of this chapter, students will be able to: Use a variety of pre-writing activities to generate ideas, focus a topic, and formulate a method of developing an essay select and narrow an essay topic Slide 2 of 17 CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING TOPIC OUTLINES TOPIC Introduction 1.1 Pre-writing 1.1.1 Steps in process writing 1.1.2 Analysing the topic/question- directive words 1.1.3 Selecting and narrowing an essay topic 1.2 Pre-writing strategies 1.2.1 Brainstorming methods 1.3 Reading and note taking strategies 1.3.1 Note taking skills Slide 3 of 17 CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING INTRODUCTION TOPIC Slide 4 of 17 CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING 1.1.1 STEPS IN PROCESS WRITING The Writing Process TOPIC Slide 5 of 17 CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING 1.1.2 CHOOSING A QUESTION TOPIC If you have a choice of essay questions consider the following factors when deciding which essay to do: which topics interest you most? which topics have good resource materials available? which topics are most relevant to you personally or professionally? which topics might be easiest for you to write about? Slide 6 of 17 CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING 1.1.2 Analysing the topic/question- directive words TOPIC Slide 7 of 17 CHAPTER 1: PRE-WRITING 1.1...
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...I failed to include a detailed response on how I will improve my academic writing this semester in my academic writing improvement plan. When reading the feedback I discovered how my writing was limited and how I was not providing adequate information, I decided to use this feedback from my tutor and progress through the semester on improving my paragraph structure and apposite information. This semester I have edited my writing multiple times and this has allowed me to discover mishaps that I turned s blind eye to. In comparison to the feedback I received on the second assessment, it was evident that my writing had improved quite a lot and was of a higher standard. . I use a computer daily in formal and informal ways. At home I use it...
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...Differences Between Personal and Academic Writing Personal writing is written for non-academic purposes and audience. The structure in which ideas are organized is also a recognizable aspect of academic writing. In this style, ideas are well planned and usually put in a specific order in paragraphs and in complete and comprehensive sentences. Academic writing also avoids using constricted forms, personal pronouns, reluctance fillers, and using first names of people when referring to other researchers. Using the passive voice as well as difficult sentences is also a common feature of academic writing style. Unlike academic writing, non-academic writing uses short modest sentences and the active voice. Honestly I’m not quite sure if there is any similarity in academic writing and personal writing. The reason I say that is because I’m just beginning to learn about this and although at times it does seem as though they are similar at time they are not. So I’m still a little unsure on this. Skills a strong academic writer must possess is: - They use academic language - They have precise punctuation - They have accurate capitalization - There are extremely little to no spelling errors in their work - Their sentences flow and aren't run-ons - They have good transitions especially into each different paragraph - Their quotes are well unified - They use evidence to support each of their statements - Their thesis is well thought out and specific, not unclear - They...
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...Moving from Academic to Business Writing Style When I first entered the business world as an intern, I quickly realized that I would have to unlearn the academic writing style in order to improve my business communication skills. I have learned that being able to writing effectively and professionally is the key to being successful. Due to the advancement in technology, the way we communicate with each other has completely transformed. Business professionals are now able to communicate instantly via e-mail, phone, and video with a simple touch of a button. Effective business writing is a skill that can be improved with practice. Understanding the differences between academic and business writing is essential for success. Business writing differs from academic writing in terms of: • Format • Purpose/Audience • Content Business writing is composed of simple, short sentences that vary in length. It is important to write in a clear and concise manner to avoid information overload. The writer should convey the message in as few words as possible. The authors of “Writing that Works” emphasize that it is important to “write concisely, but do not be so blunt that you risk losing the reader’s goodwill” (Alred, Brusaw, & Oliu, 2013, p. 277). The use of bullet points and bold font helps to summarize the information and emphasize important details. The two main purposes of business writing are to recommend actions and inform the audience. In business writing, the audience...
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