Eng-205 – Academic Reading and Writing

BS

Lecture Notes

Topic: Features of Academic Writing

Ahmad Mujtaba Ali

Email: [email protected]

Department of English
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
GC Women University, Sialkot
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 1

Slide 1

ACADEMIC READING AND WRITING

(ENG-205)
BS

Lecture Notes
Features of Academic Writing

Ahmad Mujtaba Ali

Department of English
GC Women University, Sialkot
[email protected]
1

Writing is a skill that is required in many contexts throughout life. However,

academic/research writing is quite different from personal writing because it follows its own
set of rules and practices. This lecture presents an overview of main features of academic
writing.
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 2

Slide 2

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

•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.

2

Academic writing is clear, concise, focussed, structured and backed up by evidence.

Its purpose is to aid the reader’s understanding. It has a formal tone and style. It a clear focus
on the research problem under investigation, and precise word choice. Academic writing
deals with the theories and causes of a given topic, as well as exploring alternative
explanations for these theories or events. It also adheres to traditional conventions of
punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 3

Slide 3

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

•Complexity •Hedging

•Formality •Responsible

•Precision •Organize

•Objectivity •Plan

•Accuracy

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 it is in the standard written form of
the language. Each subject discipline has certain writing conventions, vocabulary, and types
of discourse. However, there are some general characteristics of academic writing that are
relevant across all disciplines.
To be a good academic writer, you will need to learn the specific styles and structures
for your discipline, as well as for each individual writing task. Some ways to do this are to:
• ask for more information from your lecturer/supervisor
• study the writing style of the academic articles in the most prestigious journals in your
discipline
• look at the successful writing by other students in your subject area.
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 4

Slide 4

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

•Complexity

ØWritten language is relatively more complex than spoken language.

•Formality

ØAcademic writing is formal by avoiding casual or conversational

language, such as contractions or informal vocabulary.

•Precision

ØBeing precise means to choose the right words for the intended purpose.

Complexity: Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language.

Written texts have proportionately more lexical words than grammatical words. 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.
Halliday (1989, p.79) compares a sentence from a spoken text:
You can control the trains this way and if you do that you can be quite sure that they'll
be able to run more safely and more quickly than they would otherwise, no matter how bad
the weather gets.
with a typical written variant:
The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train
running in the most adverse weather conditions.
Formality: Academic writing is relatively formal. In general, this means that in an
essay, one should avoid colloquial words and expressions. One can make writing more
formal through the vocabulary that one uses. One should choose formal instead of informal
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 5

vocabulary. For example, ‘somewhat’ is more formal than ‘a bit’. Formal academic writing
avoids contractions. For example, use ‘did not’ rather than ‘didn’t’.
Precision: Precision writing is a style of written communication whose primary
objective is to convey information. One needs to be precise when you use information, dates
or figures. For example, do not use "a lot of people" when you can say "50 million people".
To be selective in an effort to clearly convey the purpose and meaning of the writing.
Precision allows readers to clearly follow your methodology and argument. It adds to
credibility and perception of accuracy and validity of writer’s claim.
Slide 5

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

•Objectivity

ØAcademic writing is objective by avoiding direct reference to people or

feelings, and instead emphasising objects, facts and ideas.

•Accuracy

ØAccuracy concerns the careful use of language to express meaning.

•Hedging

ØIt is necessary to make decisions about your stance on a particular

subject, or the strength of the claims you are making.
5

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. Nobody really wants to know what you "think" or "believe". They want to
know what you have studied and learned and how this has led you to your various
conclusions. The writer should move information around in the sentence to emphasise things
and ideas, instead of people and feelings. In general, avoid words like ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘myself’.
For example, instead of writing ‘I believe the model is valid, based on these findings’, write
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 6

‘These findings indicate that the model is valid’. For example, instead of writing ‘In my
opinion, this a very interesting study’, write ‘This is a very interesting study’.
Accuracy: Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words
with narrow specific meanings. Choose the correct word, for example, ‘meeting’, ‘assembly’,
‘gathering’ or ‘conference’. Accurate language requires the careful use of paragraph and
sentence structure and word choice to describe and analyse your topics effectively.
Hedging: An important feature of academic writing is the concept of cautious
language, often called ‘hedging’. In other words, it is necessary to make decisions about your
stance on a particular subject, or the strength of the claims you are making. In academic
settings, writers need to be cautious and critical about the claims they make. With the help of
‘hedges’, writers can soften their statements to avoid criticism for being radical or
overconfident. In order to distinguish between facts and claims, writers often use tentative
language such as ‘it seems likely that...’ or ‘arguably....’
Consider this example: Children living in poverty do poorly in school.
Do all children living in poverty do poorly in school? Definitely not, and no research
can collect the data about every child in the world. In addition to this, a socio-economic
situation is only one of the factors that can determine children’s performance in school.
To avoid this situation, the sentence could be modified as: Children living in poverty
tend to do poorly in school.
Due to adding the verb tend, a writer acknowledges that this is just a tendency and
that there are still poor children who are successful in school.
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 7

Slide 6

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

•Responsible

ØOne must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and
justification for, any claims one make.

•Organize

ØAcademic writing is well organised. It flows easily from one section to

the next in a logical fashion.

•Plan

ØAcademic writing is well planned. It usually takes place after research

and evaluation, according to a specific purpose and plan.
6

Responsible: In academic writing, one must be responsible for, and must be able to
provide evidence and justification for, any claims one makes.
One is also responsible for demonstrating an understanding of any source texts one
uses. This is done by paraphrasing and summarising what one reads and acknowledging the
source of this information or ideas by a system of citation.
Organize: Academic writing is well organised. It flows easily from one section to the
next in a logical fashion. Organization in writing is how ideas are presented. Typically,
organization refers to the larger parts of a piece of writing, although it also refers to how
paragraphs and sentences are written. The flow of a piece of writing affects how readers
interpret ideas. It must be cohesive and possess a logically organized flow of ideas; this
means that the various parts are connected to form a unified whole. There should be narrative
links between sentences and paragraphs so that the reader is able to follow your argument.
Plan: Academic writing is well planned. It usually takes place after research and
evaluation, according to a specific purpose and plan. Remember that, most formal academic
writing at university is set by, and written for, an academic tutor or assessor, and there should
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 8

be clear criteria against which they will mark student’s work. It is very important to make
plan before one starts to write. Try to express each point in plan simply and clearly in note
form. It helps during the writing process.
Academic Reading and Writing: Lecture Notes 9

References
Gillett, A. (2010). Using English for academic purposes. Active Learning in Higher

Education, 10, 120-137.

Perelman, L., & Barrett, E. (1997). The Mayfield handbook of technical and scientific

writing. McGraw-Hill, Inc..

http://www.mit.edu/course/21/21.guide/home.htm