Academic Writing in Higher Education: Features and Communication

This report provides a comprehensive overview of academic writing, highlighting its key features such as clear structure, academic evidence, critical writing, effective balance, precise language, objectivity, and formality. It emphasizes the importance of these features in conveying information, conducting research, and communicating effectively within the academic community. The report details how academic writing differs from other forms of writing by requiring a structured approach with elements like introductions, methods, results, and discussions, supported by data, quotations, and statistics. It also underscores the significance of critical analysis, balanced perspectives, and the use of precise and formal language to ensure clarity and credibility. Ultimately, the report concludes that mastering academic writing skills is essential for students to analyze, understand, and communicate knowledge effectively in their respective fields of study, with resources like Desklib available to aid in their learning process.

Academic Writing
1

Contents
Academic Writing............................................................................................................................1
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Features of academic writing......................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
Books and journals......................................................................................................................9
2

3

INTRODUCTION
Academic writing is a descriptive which is used to give facts or information to explain some
facts or finding research and to convince readers about their explanation or theory is right. It is
the most important skill in the relation of academics as writing is the main method of academic
communication. Academic writing is all about communicating ideas, information and research to
the wider academic community. This report is covering all the information regarding academic
writing and the features which together make it different from other forms of writing. This will
also covers the importance of academic writing used to write scholarly materials in colleges and
universities (Al Badi, Osman and Abdo, 2020).
Features of academic writing
Clear structure: Academic writing has a clear structure as written language is comparatively
more complex than the spoken language. Language which is written has longer words, dense and
has more vocabulary. In this, most of the scholars already had a great skill of creating a
structured essay. Academic writing has more linguistic features and variations in comparison to
the spoken language. Its written texts are very short and the language written has more
complexity in grammar involves more subordinate clauses and passives. It should have a clear
structure which derives from the categories like introduction, methods, results and discussion for
a report with a careful planning. It is an important feature of academic texts as they are organised
in a specified manner that they have a clear structure. This will make it easier for a reader to
navigate the texts and understand the whole matter in a better way. Making the clear structure
will draw it easy for a person by organising all the material to understand the things.
Academic evidence: Academic writing should be supported by the evidences like data,
quotations, facts, figures, theories, statistics etc. which will add substance in a person’s ideas,
allow the reader to view, what has been informed to the thinking and ideas to be fit in and differ
from others in a field. Opinions and arguments in an academic writing should be supported by
evidence. The writing will be related to the data and information from the experts in the field
and important to the information appropriately. This may involve paraphrasing, summarising and
referencing skills like with the use of in-text citations and a reference section is also included for
the evidence (Omidian and Siyanova-Chanturia, 2021).
4

. It is important as evidence in an academic writing will give the authority to the writer and
allows a reader to evaluate the basis of their assertions whether the readers are just having their
personal opinion or whether they all are backed up by the extensive research. To use a clear and
effective evidence within a paragraph, a simple step can be followed is firstly introduce the
evidence, state the introduced evidence and then explain the main message an individual is
emphasizing through the evidence.
Critical writing: An academic writing needs strong writing skills which require understanding
the topic and the issues. To develop the structure of an essay and paragraph, this is used to
analyse various interpretations and developing arguments supported by the evidences. It is all
about using and questioning the information rather than simply absorbing and then describing it.
It locates the information in a broader way and tries to develop an understanding of the links
existing between them. In an academic writing, there is a need of analysing and evaluating the
information like making judgements, deciding the way of integrating the writing known as
critical writing. This requires a great deal of research for a writer to grow a deep understanding
of a topic to be critical about it. An academic writer should not accept everything as a fact, it
require a great deal to evaluate an understanding of the given topic. The purpose for writing in a
critical manner is for evaluating an individual’s work to increase the understanding of a reader
which is subjective because it can show the opinion of a writer and evaluation of a text. This is
important as it is used to demonstrate the way of using the information and its understanding. It
means the engagement and an academic debates and research in any area of a subject (Ntereke
and Ramoroka, 2018).
Effective balance: Academic writing should be balanced which means giving considerations to
all the issues and avoiding biasness. It is very important for the academic writer to express their
attitude on a specific topic to show how strong their claims are in their writing. A good written
academic essay to have a good balance in the voice of a writer, mixed voice and source of voice
in each paragraph. In an academic writing, balancing the original ideas and insights with others
allow to make a meaningful contribution. It will help to explain the academic integrity as
students depends on the work of others to strengthen and give evidence for their ideas. For the
students, a proper balancing is important for academic functioning where students give the
priority to the price of personal factors which involves relationships and exercise. It leads to the
declining in an academic performance as general health and well-being which are critical to the
5

optimal academic functioning. It is used as a tool of communication that conveys acquired
knowledge in a particular field of study which will assist the students to analyse and convey a
better understanding, think in a critical manner and focus on various techniques and style. This
does not need any long formation of sentences and a complicated vocabulary (Ravari and Tan,
2019).
Precise language: An academic writing should use clear and precise language to make sure that
a reader understands the meaning. This involves the use of technical which is also particular in a
subject, related to the vocabulary which is used when it says the meaning more precisely than a
same on-technical term. This is used in writing when a person is using information, dates or
figures like mentioning 50 million people in an essay. Writing in a precise way means being
exactly that allows readers to clearly follow the methodology and argument. When writing for an
informed audience, is a case with a thesis precision is important. It shows how close
measurement comes to its true value because of bad equipment, poor data processing or human
error which leads to the inaccurate results that are not very close to the truthfulness.
Objectivity: Academic writing represents and evaluates the problems and arrives at an objective
position where it concentrates on and is informed by research and reasoning other than personal
feelings and opinions. It is related to the research and not on the opinion of a writer about a
chosen or given topic. When a person is writing objectively that are connected about facts and
not affected by personal feelings. For example, I have served two terms in the United States
senate. It is primarily factual with regards to the feelings of writer and on the other hand it
includes the attention to both the subject defined and the reaction of a writer. Being objective in
writing suggests that they are related about the facts and are not affected by personal feelings
which are considered as being fair in their work. This is because of the strong feelings about the
topics of assignment, writing should give and reference the evidence used to write a paper.
Objective writing is writing a paper which can be verified through the evidences, facts and
figures. It tends to utilise nouns and phrases more than verbs and adverbs as well as a passive
structures. In academic writing, emphasis is put on the arguments and information other than the
writer like water was heated rather than I heated the water (Smith, 2018).
Formal: Academic writing is very formal than a person is writing the things every day. It means
to use longer words and very difficult sentences while avoiding contractions or words which are
informal in expressions like stuff, a lot of, thing, and sort of, that might be common in spoken
6

English. Informal writings, abbreviated types of words and phrasal word verbs mention
informalities are not suitable in this context. There are words and collocations which are used in
academic writing more frequently than in non-academic writing, and researchers have developed
the lists to assist the students of academic English like academic word list, academic vocabulary
list and academic collocation list (Sahoo and Mohammed, 2018).
7

CONCLUSION
It is concluded from the above report is that an academic writing is serving as an instrument of
communication which says acquired understanding in a particular field of study. Writing in an
academic manner which will aid the students to analyse and convey the understanding, thinking
critically and concentrates on the style of writing. This is used to help in reading in a specified
manner which is used to write everything in a simplified manner.
8

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Al Badi, A. A., Osman, M. E. T. and Abdo, M., 2020. The impact of virtual writing tutor on
writing skills and attitudes of Omani College students. Journal of Education and
Development, 4(3), p.101.
Omidian, T. and Siyanova-Chanturia, A., 2021. Parameters of variation in the use of words in
empirical research writing. English for Specific Purposes, 62, pp.15-29.
Ntereke, B. and Ramoroka, B., 2018. Towards developing academic writing support for graduate
students: An emic perspective of postgraduate academic writing needs and experiences at
University of Botswana. Lonaka Journal of Learning and Teaching, 9(2), pp.81-95.
Ravari, Z. K. and Tan, K. E., 2019. A qualitative investigation of strategies and experiences of
non-native students writing master’s theses. Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education.
Smith, C., 2018. Six factors influencing academic writing productivity and satisfaction. Impact
of Social Sciences Blog.
Sahoo, S. and Mohammed, C. A., 2018. Fostering critical thinking and collaborative learning
skills among medical students through a research protocol writing activity in the
curriculum. Korean Journal of Medical Education, 30(2), p.109.
9