Academic Writing Skills: A Report for Higher Education Students

This report delves into the essential skills required for higher education, focusing on academic writing. It highlights the features of academic writing, including objectivity, formality, precision, and structure, emphasizing their importance in effective communication and knowledge analysis. The report also includes a personal reflection on the learning process, using the Gibbs reflective cycle to assess the experience. It discusses the benefits of understanding academic writing features and identifies areas for improvement, particularly in communication skills. The conclusion reinforces the significance of academic writing skills in higher education and their role in enhancing understanding and knowledge acquisition. Desklib provides students access to similar solved assignments and past papers.

SKILLS FOR HIGHER
EDUCATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Features of academic writing......................................................................................................3
Personal experience.....................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Higher education deals with going through changes where every department will
influence the trajectory of the student. Students are supposed to maintain the pace in accordance
with their academic goals and collaborate with others. They will have increase responsibility and
have to manage their work and studies accordingly (Shalini Radha, 2018). It requires for them to
exhibit some skills that will help them to adjust to these new changes in a better way. This report
deals with the different features involved within the academic writing and details of the personal
experience about the learning.
MAIN BODY
Features of academic writing
There are different ways by which writing can be influenced by having a main purpose to
do so. Writing differently helps in providing easy communication and helps in producing the
assessment of tasks to come under the academic writing. The aim behind academic writing is to
analyse to produce knowledge. It is an important skill with regard to the academic context and
for following an effective communication. Some of the important features within academic
writing includes:
Objective: Academic writing is the source of presenting and analysing the issues that are
present at the objective position. This position will aim at the gaining the information by the
method of conducting a research and having reasoning rather than being influenced by any
personal feelings and opinions (Yu, 2018). Objective is an important necessity within academic
writing and focusing on the actual realization and belief. While defining objectivity, it is
important to discuss about the presented arguments rather than making any assumptions
regarding that particular problem. It tells about the things that the students have studied while
they draw recommendations and conclusions for the same.
Formal: It helps in proving information to understand the final meaning. It depends on
the readers and listeners for providing an extra amount of information that will complete the aim
of the message. Formal academic writing consist of non rhetorical questions and includes full
words within some specific categories. One can improve the passage with the formal vocabulary.
It avoids using words that are not suitable within this context. Moreover, formal academic

writing also helps in avoiding any contradictions involved in the commonly spoken English
language.
Precision: It deals with having a sufficient level of detail and specific information
required within the academic writing. These details are dependent on the purpose of the work
and avoiding any form of ambiguity (Ansarifar, Shahriari, and Pishghadam, 2018). It makes the
writer specify the details and its preferences. Adding such details helps in making the message
more clear and precise towards the aim. It also helps in using a wide range of specific figures and
dates and makes the content more accurate. Precision includes the use of multi- word verbs that
are important to develop a meaning to the main writing.
Structure: It is important than the academic writing consists of a clear structure. This
structure will help in deriving the genre of writing. It includes following a certain format within
writing. Most of the students have skills to write and compose writing in a structured way. It help
the readers to understand the and follow the argument done within the writing. It consists of
introduction, followed by paragraphs with the content related to this topic and ends with
conclusion. Structure helps in providing a logical base for progression throughout the overall
writing.
Personal experience
There was a different experience within my learning process that can expressed by using
the Gibbs reflective cycle. My experience in this learning was both good and bad. I understood
different ways that are included in the process of academic writing. However, it was a bit tough
to get used to the new information gained from the process. Learning the new things opened my
mind towards the benefits associated with academic writing along with making use of different
features of academic writing to make it very easily readable to the readers. I felt that I have some
skills that are very important for pursuing higher level education. But there are some skills that I
must work on. The overall experience of this session was very insightful in gaining the
information regarding the academic writing. The good things about this session are the
information that I gained and was new to me. It helped me in improving my writing skills while
developing the understanding about the important features involved in the same. The bad
experience was that it was hard for me to write all this in theory as I understand the practical
application of academic writing and its features. I developed time management skills within the
process that helped me mange my work and studies within certain deadlines. Overall it was a

good experience where I gained a lot of information although, I will work on improving my
communication skills that will me understand and gain the perception of other individuals within
academic writing.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that academic writing is very important within the skills required of a
higher level of class. There are many benefits of using the skills associated with the academic
writing. Moreover, Some features of the academic writing helps to make the writing the best for
the reader where they can understand and gain knowledge about the provided topic in an easy
and accurate way. This session helped the students learn various things that will help them to
improve their academic writing.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Ansarifar, A., Shahriari, H. and Pishghadam, R., 2018. Phrasal complexity in academic writing:
A comparison of abstracts written by graduate students and expert writers in applied
linguistics. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 31, pp.58-71.
Shalini Radha, K., 2018. The use of metacognitive strategies and argumentative features in
academic writing of tertiary students/Shalini Radha Krishnan (Doctoral dissertation,
University of Malaya).
Yu, X., 2018. Two-level comparisons of lexical features in academic writing between native and
nonnative writers and across nonnative writers.