Study Skills for Higher Education: Key Features of Academic Writing

This article discusses the key features of academic writing and why they are important for higher education. It covers structured writing, evidence-based arguments, critical thinking, balanced writing, precision, objectivity, and formality. The article also includes references to relevant books and journals.

Study skills for higher
education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body.......................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Learning the study skills are important and vital to increase the confidence level along with
supporting higher competence and self-esteem to have high success and growth. Academic
writing basically comprises of the formal style of writing that is more factual and informative in
nature which present clear understanding to readers (Giltrow, Gooding and Burgoyne, 2021).
Current assignment is based on writing essay on the key features of the academic writing along
with discussing why these features are important in supporting academic writing.
Main Body
Academic writing is basically very explicit form of writing the aim at providing all the
vital and significant information to the reader which they need to understand the actual and
authentic meaning from the supplied message (Yu, 2021). Thus, academic writing is having
many key feature that are vital and significant in sharing actual meaning and information to the
readers. A discussion about these seven key features of the academic writing has been provide
below along with analysing why they are important:
Structured- Academic writing tend to have a clear structure that is drive from the genre of
the writing. Further, it has been seen and analysed that the careful planning before the writing is
also vital and essential to ensure that the final report and writing is well in structured and present
a logical progression of ideas along with presenting a precise and clear focus (Lu, Casal and Liu,
2021). Along with this, the structure forms out a vital part of an academic writing as it is
something that helps to make the idea of writing to be more clear together with guiding and
emphasising on the comprehension of reader which strengthen the main arguments of the
writing. Further, a well-structured academic writing also enables the reader to the effectively
follow the arguments in a logical flow and also supports navigation of text along with indicating
the intention, characters and key themes of the writing.
Evidenced- It is vital and important to support the arguments and opinions of academic
writing with valid evidence. Academic writing comprises of use of information from experts in
various filed, thus, to maintain the authenticity and reliability of the facts it is important and vital
to support this information with proper evidence and reference along with in-text citations
(Mason and Atkin, 2021). Further, evidence forms out a key feature and important within the
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academic writing as it helps in supporting the claims made in writing with reliable evidence this
gives higher authority and reliability for academic writing.
Critical- Being critical while academic writing is also vital and significant as it supports
better analysis and evaluation of each aspect of information and comprises of both negative as
well positive aspects of a topic thus supports more logical and better judgement. Along with this,
critical writing tends to require more in-depth research and insight in the topic to get enough
understanding about to topic to present a critical evaluation of facts. Further, having critical
academic writing is important as it supports deepen and better insight and higher understanding
of important concepts and also supports to clarify interrelationships between the core concepts
based on strong critical thinking (Wen and Lei, 2021).
Balanced- Another important feature of the academies writing comprises of the fact that
it needs to be effectively balanced which means that all the sides and section of the research and
writing should be given equal consideration and must avoid the biasness. Further, it has been
analysed and reviewed that balancing is important and vital within academic writing as it
supports the original ideas in a fair manner and also ensures insights with those of others that
helps in reaching out a meaningful contribution (Hey-Cunningham, Ward and Miller, 2021).
Along with this, balanced academic writing also tend to supports the higher level of academic
integrity through employing and leading out a parallel structure of same length and importance to
clearly emphasis and supports the core idea of reading and writing along with focusing on more
clarity and creating a pleasing rhythm to effective understand the provided information (Lee and
Briggs, 2021).
Precise- Making use of a clear and precise tone and language is also vital and significant
academic writing feature as it ensures that the reader gets the actual and specific meaning from
the presented information. Precise academic writing includes use of the technical vocabulary and
also takes the scientific measurements that are both accurate and precise in nature
(Arnbjörnsdóttir and Prinz, 2021). Further, it has been also analysed that being precise is
important in academies writing as it ensures check on poor data processing and inaccurate
information together with presenting and coming up with the true and accurate information.
Along with this, being precise in writing also supports improved understanding and more clear
presentation of key facts and figures to deliver true information.
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Objective- It is vital and important that the academic writing should be based on the
objective and needs to emphasis on the main arguments and information in place of the writer.
Further, it is important within academic writing to place more emphasis and focus on the nouns
and noun phrase more than the use of the verb and adverb along with making mare sue of the
passive structure rather than active voice to send a clearer understanding of the shared
information (Lu, Casal and Liu, 2021). Along with this, it is significant and important to write in
objective or impersonal manner in academic writing as it helps and enables in sounding more
convincing through having better persuasiveness to academic audience. Beside this, making use
of the phrase such as I think and I believe would also tend to give an impression of the biasness
thus, it is significant to write in objective manner to remain more clear and fair while academic
writing through clamming effect and supporting different viewpoint (Mason and Atkin, 2021).
Formal- It has been seen that being formal is vital feature of academic writing as it needs
to emphasis on core topic as compared with everyday writing. Thus, academic writing needs to
make use of the longer words together with the complex sects that focus and emphasis on
avoiding the contractions and informal expressions which tend to be common in the day to day
spoken English (Wen and Lei, 2021). Along with this, it is important and significant to make use
of formal tone in academic writing as it supports more respect for the audience and also reflects
and suggest that the writer is much more serious about providing and sharing information about
the topic. Further, making use of the formal key feature while academic writing as it presents the
tone that is used by the educated people while communicating and reflect about the seriousness
of topic and information together with evading any form of misinterpretation and ambiguity of
the facts and information (Hey-Cunningham, Ward and Miller, 2021).
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above essay writing, a conclusion can be made that the academic writing is
more informative and formal in nature that tend to provide specific and precise information about
a selected a topic. Further, it has been also summarised that the academic writing is based on
evidence and require proper reference and in text citation to maintain the authentic and reliability
of facts. Further, being formal and objective are also the core feature of academic writing to
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supports unbiased view point and more emphasis on topic based on higher critical thinking and
analysis of facts.
REFERENCES
Books and journal
Arnbjörnsdóttir, B. and Prinz, P., 2021. The Art and Architecture of Academic Writing. The Art
and Architecture of Academic Writing, pp.1-303.
Giltrow, J., Gooding, R. and Burgoyne, D., 2021. Academic writing: An introduction. Broadview
Press.
Hey-Cunningham, A.J., Ward, M.H. and Miller, E.J., 2021. Making the most of feedback for
academic writing development in postgraduate research: Pilot of a combined programme
for students and supervisors. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 58(2),
pp.182-194.
Lee, S.M. and Briggs, N., 2021. Effects of using machine translation to mediate the revision
process of Korean university students’ academic writing. ReCALL, 33(1), pp.18-33.
Lu, X., Casal, J.E. and Liu, Y., 2021. Towards the synergy of genre-and corpus-based
approaches to academic writing research and pedagogy. International Journal of
Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching (IJCALLT), 11(1), pp.59-71.
Mason, S. and Atkin, C., 2021. Capturing the struggle: adult learners and academic
writing. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 45(8), pp.1048-1060.
Wen, J. and Lei, L., 2021. Linguistic positivity bias in academic writing: A large-scale
diachronic study in life sciences across 50 years. Applied Linguistics.
Yu, S., 2021. Giving genre-based peer feedback in academic writing: Sources of knowledge and
skills, difficulties and challenges. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46(1),
pp.36-53.
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