Characteristics of academic writing | English Composition I (2024)

TIP: Developing your “writer’s sense” about communicating within the writing situation is the most important thing you should learn in freshman composition. What is this “writing situation?” This situation is explained further in detail elsewhere and consists of:

• • knowing your audience

  • knowing the occasion or context

  • conveying the message clearly

  • understanding the formats and genres

  Developing your “writer’s sense” about communicating within the writing situation is the most important thing you should learn in freshman composition. Figure 1, below, depictingthe writing situation, presents a wonderful image describing all the complexities involved in the writing situation.

Looking More Closely at the “Academic Writing” Situation

Writing in college is a fairly specialized writing situation, and it has developed its own codes and conventions that you need to have a keen awareness of if you are going to write successfully in college. Let’s break down the writing situation in college: Who’s your audience? Primarily the professor and possibly your classmates (though you may be asked to include a secondary outside audience). What’s the occasion or context? An assignment given by the teacher within a learning context and designed to have you learn and demonstrate your learning. What’s your message? It will be your learning or the interpretation gained from your study of the subject matter. What’s your purpose? To show your learning and get a good grade (or to accomplish the goals of the writing assignment). What documents/ genres are used? The essay is the most frequent type of document used. So far, this list looks like nothing new. You’ve been writing in school toward teachers for years. What’s different in college?

Myth #1:

The “Paint by Numbers” myth. Some writers believe they must perform certain steps in a particular order to write “correctly.”Truth:Rather than being a lock-step linear process, writing is “recursive.” That means we cycle through and repeat the various activities of the writing process many times as we write.

Myth #2:

Writers only start writing when they have everything figured out.Truth:Writing is not like putting away ironed and folded clothing.Writers figure out much of what they want to write as they write it. Rather than waiting, get some writing on the page—even with gaps or problems. You can come back to patch up rough spots.

Myth #3:

Perfect the first draft.Truth:We put unrealistic expectations on early drafts, either by focusing too much on the impossible task of making them perfect (which can limit the development of our ideas), or by making too little effort because we don’t care or know about their inevitable problems. Nobody writes perfect first drafts; polished writing takes lots of revision.

Myth #4:

Some have got it; I don’t—the genius fallacy.Truth:When you see your writing ability as something fixed or out of your control (as if it were in your genetic code), then you won’t believe you can improve as a writerand are likely not to make any efforts in that direction. With effort and study, you can improve as a writer. I promise.

Myth #5:

Good grammar is good writing.Truth:When people say “I can’t write,” what they often mean is that they have problems with grammatical correctness. Writing, however, is about more than just grammatical correctness. Good writing is a matter of achieving adesired effect upon an intended audience. Plus, as we saw in myth #3, no one writes perfect first drafts. Finally, there is no point in having great grammar if you aren’t saying anything worth saying with your writing.

Myth #6:

The Five Paragraph Essay. Somesay,avoid it at all costs;while others believe no other way to write exists.Truth:With an introduction, three supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion, the five paragraph essay is a format you should know, but one which you will outgrow. You’ll have to gauge every writing assignment to see whether, and how, this format is useful for you.

Myth #7:

Never use “I”.Truth:Adopting this formal stance of objectivity implies a distrust (almost fear) of informality and often leads to artificial, puffed-up prose. Although some writing situations will call on you to avoid using “I” (for example, a lab report), much college writing can be done in a middle, semi-formal style where it is ok to use “I.”

Knowledge of Research Skills

In school,research has perhaps meant checking on Google and Wikipedia.College, however, will require you to search for and findmore in-depth information. You’ll need to know how to find information in the library, especially what is available from online databases that contain scholarly articles. Researching is also a process, so you’ll need to learn how to focus and direct a research project and how to keep track of all your source information. Realize that researching represents a crucial component of most college writing assignments, and you will need to devote lots of time to researching.

The Ability to Read Complex Texts

Whereas your previous writing in school might have been based on your experiences, college writing typically asks you to write on unfamiliar topics. Whether you’re reading your textbook, a short story, or scholarly articles from research, your ability to write well will be based upon the quality of your reading. In addition to reading attentively, you’ll need to think critically as you read:separating fact from opinion, recognizing biases and assumptions, and making inferences. Inferences are how we, as readers, connect the dots: an inference is a belief (or statement) about something unknown made on the basis of something known. You smell smoke; you infer fire. Inferences are conclusions or interpretations that we arrive at, based upon the known factors we discover from our reading. When you, then, write to argue for these interpretations, yourjob is to getreaders to make the same inferences you have made.

The Understanding of Key Disciplinary Concepts

Each discipline whether it is English, Psychology, or History has its own key concepts (ideas), and language, for describing their specific ways of understanding the world. What Is “Academic” Writing?Don’t kid yourself that your professors’ writing assignments are asking for your opinion on the topicfrom just your experience. They want to see you apply and use in your writing theconcepts you’ve read about. This is called text-based writing. Though different from a multiple-choice exam, academic writing also requires you to demonstrate your learning. So whatever writing assignment you receive, inspect it closely for what concepts it asks you to bring into your writing.

Strategies for Synthesizing, Analyzing, and Responding Critically to New Information

To organize your research, you need to develop the skill of a seasoned traveler who can be dropped in any city inthe world and is able to navigate his way. Each writing assignment asks you to navigate through a new terrain of information, so you must develop ways to graspnew subject matter in order, and then to use it in your writing. We have already seen the importance of reading and researching for these literacy tasks, but after findingthe information, you will need to learn ways of sorting and finding meaningful patterns in this information.