An
approach to academic writing and
Where writing begins motives and audience
Academic writing is a product of
many considerations : audience, purpose, organization, style, flow and
presentation.
Audience
An
audience is a group of readers who reads a particular piece of writing. As a
writer, you should anticipate the needs or expectations of your audience in
order to convey information or argue for a particular claim. Your audience
might be your instructor, classmates, the president of an organization, the
staff of a management company, or any other number of possibilities. You need
to know your audience before you start writing.
Even
before we write, we need to consider our audience. The audience for most
graduate students will be an instructor, who is presumably quite knowledgeable
about the assigned writing topic. To be successful in our writing task, we need
to have an understanding of our audience’s expectations and prior knowledge,
because these will affect the content of our writing.
Why the Audience is Important ?
To
be an effective writer, you must use language that is audience-centered, not
writer-centered.
In writing, the audience is the group of people who
will read our writing. If there is no audience, our writing is nothing. Think
carefully about our audience before we begin will make our writing be clear and
has a goal. Knowing our audience is about understanding their knowledge, but
also their attitudes and opinions. It is about understanding their level of
reading comprehension, and the academic setting (i.e. how formal to be in our
diction, how complex to make some sentences, how long to make paragraphs etc.).
We even need to think about their level of interest.
Who is the Audience ?
When
writing an academic paper, we must not only consider what we want to say, we
must also consider to whom we are saying it. In other words, it is important to
determine not only what we think about a topic, but also what our audience is
likely to think. Having identified the audience, we will want to consider how
familiar they are with the subject matter.
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/page.cfm?pageid=326
Purpose
and Strategy
The
Purpose of Academic Writing
When we write letters to friends, our main purpose is often to let them know that we are thinking of them. When we write a book report, our purpose is often to give our opinion of it. If we write a funny story, the main purpose is usually to entertain the reader. Academic writing also has a main purpose, one that is sharp and clear. The main purpose of academic writing is to search for a truth based on objective evidence. We must exercise a constant vigilance against confusing objective evidence with personal opinion.
Strategies for Academic
Writing
How to Respond to Writing
Assignments
·
If the
assignment was given orally, write it out and read it until you're thoroughly
familiar with it.
·
Look for key words. Pay particular attention
to the thought process your instructor expects you to use, which is often
captured in a single or set of key
words.
Time Management
Every writer follows a different process. And
every paper does the same. The amount of time needed to write a satisfying
paper varies from person to person and paper to paper. And, the length of time
required to write a paper isn't just a matter of what kind of paper it is. Some
papers seem to write themselves; others that we thought would be easy take what
seems like forever. One generalization that might be safe is that it's never a
good idea, no matter how simple an assignment might seem, to write it at one
sitting. All papers benefit from the distance a writer gains by putting a paper
down for a few hours or, preferably, longer. A good night's sleep can be more
productive than three agonizing hours of trying to get a piece of writing
right.
Dealing with Writer's Block
Students often report that their biggest
problem with a writing assignment is getting started. What causes writer's
block -- fear of the empty expanse of white paper in front of you -- and what
can a person do about it? Writer's block
is caused primarily by judging your writing before or as you write. If you have
perfectionist tendencies, writing may be particularly difficult for you. What
is essential to keep in mind is that writing is a process, and a process takes time.
Organization
Information is presented to readers is a
structured format. Even short pieces of writing have regular, predictable
patterns of organization. An organization is defined by the elements that are
part of it (who belongs to the organization and who does not?), its communication (which elements communicate and how do they
communicate?), its autonomy (which changes are executed autonomously by the
organization or its elements?), and its rules of action compared to outside
events (what causes an organization to act as a collective actor?).
By coordinated and planned cooperation of the
elements, the organization is able to solve tasks that lie beyond the abilities
of the single elements. The price paid by the elements is the limitation of the degrees
of freedom of the elements. Advantages of
organizations are enhancement (more of the same), addition (combination of
different features) and extension. Disadvantages can be inertness (through
co-ordination) and loss of interaction.
One very common strategy in academic writing is to organize
information in terms of problem solution (Hoey 1983). This pattern usually has
four parts :
1.
Description of a situation
2.
Identification of a problem
3.
Description of a solution
4.
Evaluation of the solution
In addition to the problem-solution structure, some other
ways of organizing information include the following.
·
Comparison-contrast
·
Cause-effect (focusing on one cause and multiple effects as in an
earthquake or describing multiple causes and one effect as in global warming)
·
Classification (categorizing as suggested by the following example
:”Earthquake effects on underground structures can be grouped into two
categories : 1. Ground shaking and 2. Ground failure such as liquefaction,
fault displacement, and slope instability”. Note the cause-effect aspect of
this as well).
Advantages of organizations are enhancement (more of
the same), addition (combination of different features) and extension.
Disadvantages can be inertness though co-ordination) and loss of interaction.
Organization
is a continuous process. Organization is important for two reasons. Not only
does it help your readers understand the connection between the details of the
essay and your thesis, but also organization itself can help you write the
essay in the first place. Planning on a method of organizing your essay
will help you determine how to write it. A clear thesis will give your essay
purpose and direction, but choosing a pattern of organization before you draft
will ensure that every part of your essay works to support and develop that
thesis.
Style
Academic writers need to be sure that
their communications are written in the appropriate style. The style of a
particular not only be consistent but must also be appropriate both for the
massage being conveyed and for the audience. One difficulty in using the
appropriate style is knowing what is considered academic and what is not.
Finally, academic style is not used in all academic settings
http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/aso-online/academic-writing/academic-style.php For
most academic essays, you are expected to use a formal writing style. You need to learn about the DOs and DON'Ts of this
style so that you can edit your work effectively. This style may vary if you
are asked to write in an informal style.
Capital is a complex
nation. There
are ( use of impersonal constructions /avoidance of
personal language) many definitions of the words itself, and capital as applied
in accounting can be viewed( use of model verbs, use of the passive
voice) conceptually from a number of standpoints; that is, there is legal
capital, financial capital, and physical capital (use of technical
language).The application of financial and physical concepts of capital ( use
of the use nominalizations and complex noun (or nominal) groups) is not
straightforward as there are(use of impersonal constructions /avoidance of
personal language) various permutations of these
concepts applied in the business environment.
In the second example
paragraph, grammatical features such as the use of everyday language, personal language,
contractions, the active voice and phrasal verbs contribute to the more
informal and personal nature of this paragraph. Although there are distinct
differences apparent in different types of writing in the various university
disciplines (i.e. writing in the sciences as compared to writing in a
humanities based discipline), the language features evident in the first
example contribute to an appropriate academic style. Finally, academic style is not used in
all academic settings.
Flow
What Is “Flow?”
Flow is
simply writing that moves fluently from one idea, phrase, or sentence to the
next. Flow enables the experienced reader to grasp concepts and images along a
continuum and provides a stimulating encounter with words and phrases, not
unlike listening to music. However, novice writers commonly confuse the misuse
of language or ignorant mistakes with “flow.” We specified transitions sentence
to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, idea to idea, and topic to topic.
http://suite101.com/article/how-to-make-your-writing-flow-a103907
Flow
·
Make sure you move
continuously from one thought to another. Try not to break up the discussion of
a single idea with a random remarks or thoughts that will actually be discussed
in more detail later. Slow down! Take one thought at a time, explain yourself
fully, and then move on.
·
Try to connect ideas
together. Just like paragraphs needs traditions, so do ideas within a
paragraph. You can try to use adverbs ( however, although, etc), introductory
clauses or phrases that link the previous thought to the new one ( in this way,
for this reason, for this purpose, towards this goal, etc).
·
Try to make sentences flow in
the direction of old idea to new thought. Passive construction can sometime be
useful here. Also, as said above, introductory clauses and phrases can be
useful.
Presentation
In addition, our
presented work is more likely to receive a positive response if we perform the
following tasks.
Considered the overall format of your written before your written work
– Does the paper look clean and carefully prepared?
– Are there clear paragraphs?
– Is the line spacing appropriate?
– Use of white space?
– Standard fonts and sizes?
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Errors
that could have been avoided by careful proofreading are generally considered
less acceptable.
These include :
ž
Grammar
ž
Article
ž
The
capital letters
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Punctuation : Full Stop ( . ), Comma ( , ), Semicolon ( ; )
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