What is Academic Writing?
The Nature of Writing
by Susan Oaks
Writing about any subject engages many modes or ways of thinking.
Look at the two pictures. Describe specific details you see in each picture. Which picture interests you more? Why? What feelings or reactions do the pictures evoke? Can you identify specific details that help to evoke these feelings or reactions? What do you think each picture is about? Can you find a common link between the pictures in terms of subject matter? Composition? Viewer reaction? If you wanted to give someone just one important idea about the pictures, what would it be? What does all of this have to do with writing?
You have just experienced some thought processes used in writing. Writing starts with observation, with the writer noticing and choosing something to write about. Writing often involves description, with the writer using concrete details. Writing generally involves explaining, perhaps explaining "why." Writing may involve inference on the basis of evidence, interpretation on the basis of observation. Writing often involves synthesis, or finding the common link between things and explaining that link. And writing involves selection and focus. The writer may focus on one main approach or idea in one piece of writing. For example, one writer may compare the meanings of the two images above, while another writer may contrast the feelings they evoke, or describe similarities in subject matter, or argue for his or her interpretation of the paintings. Writers consciously or subconsciously choose the type of thinking to focus on in their writing.
Writing can be thought of as thinking made visible; it helps bring into consciousness normal human thought processes. Just as your thinking about the pictures was unique, your writing will be unique, as there is no one, single way to think about a subject; there is only the individual writer’s way. And the writer's way of observing, thinking, recording, and structuring writing may change from situation to situation.
Writing also doesn't happen all at once, but happens as a process, just as you went back and forth between looking at the pictures and formulating your thoughts. Writing clarifies and presents the results of the writer’s thinking process. A definition of "process" might be useful here: "a system of operations in the production of something; ongoing movement," American Heritage Dictionary.
So, to recap, writing:
· is thinking
· is unique to each individual
· is a process
· is meant to be read.
Academic writing often is expository writing, or writing that explains. As you write for college, you may explain a number of things, such as observations, feelings, experiences, your own thoughts, and others' thoughts. You're usually expected to offer your own insights into a subject, often using a method of investigation and explanation used by a particular field of study. Read more about the nature of writing and the nature of college writing as you read about academic discourse.
Academic Discourse
by Catherine Copley
Imagine someone new to sports initiating a conversation with long-time sports fans: "So what do you think the Raiders will wear in their next game?” or "Was Tiger Woods’ last golf match cost-effective?" or "Which Knick do you think is the best father?" This person just isn't asking the “right” questions, hasn't got sports talk straight. It's not a matter of wardrobe or accounting or good parenting; it's plays, scores, contracts, winners. If you want to join the conversation, those are the terms. In order to be an effective participant in any discourse community, you have to use their lingo, their language game, with its own terms, values, and rules, whether the discourse community is that of your workplace, your group of friends, or your family. Just so, in academic discourse and college writing: there are terms that you must know, accept, and use.
When you begin study at Empire State College or any college, you enter an academic community that shares certain ways of thinking, valuing, speaking, and writing. In joining the conversation in your studies, you will gradually develop your ability to speak, write, and think in the discourse our community. Even at the outset, though, you need to have a working knowledge of important values, key terms, conventions, rules, forms and methods of academic discourse in order to write successfully. In addition to learning a little about the discourse before trying to write in it, you will also benefit from learning some strategies successful students use to effectively join the academic conversation in their college writing.
Have you learned that the important “rules” for academic writing are correct grammar, good writing style, clear organization, or proper documentation format? Wrong! You could write a paper exemplary in all these areas, but as important as they are, you might still fail to write a single “correct” sentence for your assigned paper. Essential “rules” for successfully participating in the discourse of the community operate at a deeper level. You will need to engage the values, vocabulary, forms, and manners of the language as well as understand your position, what you bring to the conversation, to join in effective communication and good writing.
