Mind map of top level disciplines and professions by Useamuse is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Summary
| Humanities and Social Science | Natural Sciences |
| Formal Sciences | Professions and Applied Sciences |
Academic writing refers to
- texts composed by writers — especially academic fields
- the writing style that academic writers share across academic fields, including Humanities and Social Science; Natural Sciences; Formal Sciences; Professions and Applied Sciences
- the name of a common undergraduate course in U.S. colleges and universities. During their general education coursework, students may select from a variety of courses that introduce them to academic writing, including Writing Across the Curriculum or Writing in the Disciplines
Related Concepts: Academic Writing Prose Style; Style; Writing Styles
What is an Academic Writing?
Works that are characterized as having an “academic style” tend to have the following attributes:
- Research-based
- Academic writing tends to be grounded in textual research and empirical evidence as opposed to anecdotal evidence and personal opinion. Appeals to logos are privileged over appeals to ethos and pathos.
- Thesis-driven & deductively organized
- Thoughtful, well reasoned, detailed
- Academic writing tends to be substantive rather than superficial, vague or underdeveloped. Claims are supported with evidence, qualifiers, and backing.Writers tend to specialize and go into great depth.
- Reflective, self-critical
- Academic writing may be persuasive yet even so writers are careful not to overstate claims and to be self critical about methods. Writers relate their work to the work of past investigators and clarify the contribution to the field.
- Formal in style and tone
- Academic writing tends to avoid contractions, colloquial expressions, sexists use of pronouns. Because it is written for specialists, some jargon is used, but not unnecessarily.
- Respectful of copyright and intellectual property
- Academic writers tend to contextualize secondary sources, clarify the ebb and flow of scholarly conversations, and carefully follow academic styles for attributions.
