Seven Features of Academic Writing and Their Importance

Skills for Higher
Education

Scholarly publications and universities make use of a formal style of writing, which is
known as the academic writing. It is characterized by structure, clear and focused manner of
writing that is backed up by evidence (Altınmakas and Bayyurt, 2019). The main purpose of
academic writing is to help the writer understand the written work. The present essay will focus
on seven features of academic writing and their importance.
Structure is an important feature of academic writing that provides the base to any written
work. This is determined by the genre of writing. The structure of a report will be different from
that of an essay. While a report comprises of sections such as introduction, main body and
conclusion; an essay comprises of a thesis statement and clear paragraphs that begin with a topic
sentence. Structure is important as academic writing is required to have clarity to be able to have
a logical flow from one section to another (Teng, Qin and Wang, 2021). Proper structure assists
in making a logical progression throughout the written work. It also makes the various parts
clearly connected with one another. Moreover, structure requires careful planning which further
ensures that the written piece of work is focused and comprises of ideas that logically flow
throughout. Structure is regarded as an important feature of academic writing because a text that
is well structured helps the reader to not only follow the argument of the text but also navigate
through it. A cohesive text is one that comprises of a clear structure and logical flow.
Evidence is another feature of academic which comprises of the element of
responsibility. It provides an opportunity to the writer to provide justifications for the claims
made in the work. This feature is important as it involves demonstration of understanding of the
source texts that have been used for making the written piece of academic writing. Moreover,
evidence provides credibility to the work. Evidence assists the writer in persuading the readers to
accept the claims made in the work. Absence of an element makes an argument as merely an
opinion. Hence, evidence is one of the central features of academic writing which makes it
credible. Acknowledge the source of ideas, data and findings further provides defense against the
allegations associated with plagiarism. Furthermore, provision of evidence is important as it
enables the readers to perform assessment of the quality of findings. Moreover, evidence helps in
not only confirming the claims but also qualifying them thus helps in developing the paper.
Evidence provides support to the ideas expressed throughout the writing. Further, the writer is
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able to substantiate each assertion made within the writing with the help of evidence. In this way,
evidence is important for improving the authenticity and credibility of the writing.
Academic writing is required to be critical rather than just describing. This requires the
writer to analyse as well as evaluate the information before writing it. Also, they are required to
make apt judgments about the information as well. This, known as critical writing, involves
through research in order to enable the writer to explore an aspect in a critical manner while
writing it. Being critical is important for an academic writing piece as it is one of the higher –
order thinking skills (Mitchell and et.al., 2021). It also assists in evaluating a topic from different
perspectives. In this way, critical writing provides a holistic view of the subject matter. Further,
critical writing is an important part of academic writing as it helps in evaluating a topic on the
basis of different criteria. Rather than providing a narrative description of a topic, the writer
provides various contrasting views on the concerned topic. This provides strength to the piece of
academic writing.
Balance is an element of academic writing which is important to be focused upon it is
required for the academic writing to be balanced. In other words, for a piece of academic writing
to be effective, it is necessary that consideration is given to various sides of a particular issue
being studied. It is evident that it is possible to challenge various arguments and evidences n a
subject matter (Huisman and et.al., 2018). Therefore, it becomes of utmost importance that
academic writing should provide stance of the writer on a particular topic. Moreover, balanced
writing is important for avoiding bias. Hedges is an effective way of making the writing
balanced. Balanced writing also arouses the interest of the reader and prompts him to read more.
Thus it makes the written material more relatable and significant. Furthermore, it prevents the
issue of presenting a written work in a extreme perspective, thus depicting a balance between
various opinions and stances.
Academic writing also comprises of a feature known as ‘Precision’. This involves
utilizing specific figures, dates and other information. This feature provides clarity and
conciseness to the written piece of work. In other words, it involves ensuring that fuzziness and
ambiguity are avoided (Vo, 2019). Further, minimal number of words are used for conveying
information which makes the writing concise. However, care is taken not to compromise on the
clarity of the information. The element of precision is inculcated in academic writing by
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