Answer each of the following questions in 3-5 sentences
1. What is academic writing? What are its features?
2. What is the importance of academic writing?
3. How is academic writing different from a letter? How about from a court order?
4. Why is academic writing equated to thinking?
5. If you use the first person point of view in writing academic papers, is it still considered academic? Why? Why not?
Answers
Answer:
1. Academic writing is to some extent: complex, formal, objective, explicit, hedged, and responsible. It uses language precisely and accurately. It is also well organised and planned.
*features are:
a. Complexity:
Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written language has longer words, it is lexically more dense 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.
b. Formality:
Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions.
c. Precision:
In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely.
d. Objectivity:
Written language is in general objective rather than personal. It therefore has fewer words that refer to the writer or the reader. This means that the main emphasis should be on the information that you want to give and the arguments you want to make, rather than you. For that reason, academic writing tends to use nouns (and adjectives), rather than verbs (and adverbs).
e. Explicitness:
Academic writing is explicit about the relationships int he text. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the writer in English to make it clear to the reader how the various parts of the text are related. These connections can be made explicit by the use of different signalling words.
f. Accuracy:
Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words with narrow specific meanings. Linguistics distinguishes clearly between "phonetics" and "phonemics"; general English does not.
g. Hedging:
In any kind of academic writing you do, it is necessary to make decisions about your stance on a particular subject, or the strength of the claims you are making. Different subjects prefer to do this in different ways.
A technique common in certain kinds of academic writing is known by linguists as a ‘hedge’.
h. Responsibility:
In academic writing you must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and justification for, any claims you make. You are also responsible for demonstrating an understanding of any source texts you use.
i. Organisation:
Academic writing is well organised. It flows easily from one section to the next in a logical fashion. A good place to start is the genre of your text. Once you have decided on the genre, the structure is easily determined.
j. Planning:
Academic writing is well planned. It usually takes place after research and evaluation, according to a specific purpose and plan.
2. The purpose of academic writing, as with most other kinds of writing, is to communicate. For you, as a student, your writing is the marker's only window to your thoughts. Therefore it is important that you learn how best to write in a way which will convince the marker that you understand what you are talking about.
3. The difference between academic writing and letter writing is: Academic writing is a writing that is clear, concise, focused, structured, and backed up by evidence. It uses formal language and colloquialism and slang are not used rather, casual language should only be used for emphasis.
4. Academic writing is equated to thinking because it is done by students, researchers, professors, and writers to convey scholarly thoughts and ideas. This writing is basically based on evidential arguments, logical reasoning, factual representation, precise and apt writing which all involves thinking to a great extent.
5. Writing in the first, second, or third person is referred to as the author's point of view. ... This is acceptable when writing personal information, a journal, or a book. However, it is not common in academic writing.