Introduction to Essay Writing
Academic writing is one of the skills that people and especially students, scholars, and professionals should develop. What is academic writing and is it important to learn academic writing? These are common questions asked by many people, including college, university students, and professionals. Other common questions that people ask are: “Can I learn academic writing”, “where can I learn about writing”, “where can I learn to write an essay?”. If you are interested in learning academic writing or want to learn essay writing, or how write a paper, you better read on. This article serves as your introduction to essay writing and provides essential insights for anyone eager to learn about writing academically.
Before diving into academic essay writing and learning how to write a paper, it’s helpful to understand the general concept of writing. Writing is the act of communicating or passing information in written form or using text. Writing can be categorised in different ways. For the purposes of easy essay learning, we may categorise writing into fiction writing, content writing, general writing, and academic writing. Fiction writing involves writing about things mostly drawn from one’s imagination, rather than real life events. In fiction writing, the writer or author invents the characters, setting, plot, dialogues, and themes of the story. Stories included in story books, novellas, and novels are often works of fiction and thus fall under fiction writing. Fiction writing is mainly aimed at providing entertainment to readers. Compared to the other types of writing, fiction writing often requires the highest level of creativity.
Content writing involves writing information that people read online, such as a website copy, blog article, social media post, and email content. When you create a website or blog, you probably need to create and publish content. In other words, you want to make the information you have written available for other people to read so that they can be informed about something (such as products you are selling), entertained, or take some action (such as purchase a product or service that you or someone else is selling).
General writing involves writing information that target a general audience. A general audience includes people with advanced knowledge in some subject or field as well as those with little or no advanced knowledge. The general public is an example of a general audience. Examples of general writing are news articles found in newspapers and popular magazines. You don’t need to be a professional or expert in any field to read the articles in a newspaper. The articles written in the newspaper are often written using simple language that even people with basic education can understand. Such articles are written to be read by the general public; both professionals and people with no professional knowledge in any area.
Academic writing, which is the focus of this article, may also be referred to as scholarly writing, academic essay writing, academic research writing, research writing, or essay writing. Academic writing involves writing content of academic nature. Academic writing is usually done to inform readers, demonstrate knowledge in an academic area, offer evidence for an argument, examine data, or assess existing body of knowledge or viewpoints.
Most colleges and universities require their students and scholars to engage in academic writing as part of the process that leads to their graduation with a certificate, diploma, or degree. This is the case since in most learning institutions, students are required to write essays, research papers, or term papers – all of which fall under academic essay writing – as part of their assignments or examinations. If you have ever done an essay, term paper, or research paper in school, college, or university before, you have actually engaged in academic writing. This is regardless of your performance in the exercise that you engaged in. Academic writing is also used for publications that are read by teachers, scholars, researchers and professionals or presented at conferences.
What is Academic Writing?
Having provided a brief description of writing generally and an introduction to essay writing, it is time to delve a little deeper into the subject of academic writing. What does academic writing involve? Academic writing mostly involves essay writing. This is the reason, academic writing is often referred to simply as essay writing in college and university. Essay writing is the process of sharing complex ideas, opinions, or thoughts in written form. From this description of essay writing, it is clear that if you want to learn academic writing, you need to develop the ability to construct complex arguments and explanations. What this essentially means is that you need to develop the ability to present your views by combining sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into an essay. You also need to develop the ability to express ideas, explanations, and reasoning clearly and make readers understand the topic and the claims or arguments you are making in the essay.
For many people who wish to learn academic writing, the fact that essay writing is at the centre of academic writing makes academic writing scary and something they would rather avoid. This should not be the case for you as you can learn how to write an essay by learning the basics of essay writing, reading how to write different types of essays, and engaging in essay writing practice. Fortunately, we are dedicated to presenting a lot of information on academic writing from which you can learn essay writing for free. Before discussing the basics of academic essay writing and how to write different types of essays, let’s continue with the broader subject of academic writing by focusing on the characteristics of academic writing.
Characteristics of Academic Writing
For those who wish to learn about writing academically, here are the main characteristics of effective academic writing: It is widely agreed that academic writing is well planned and focused, structured, formal in tone and style, and is backed up by evidence.
- Planned and focused – Academic writing answers a question and demonstrates an understanding of the subject. An important purpose of academic writing is to aid the reader’s understanding.
- Structured – An academic essay is written in a coherent manner and follows a logical order, such as following the general format of introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. As such, an academic essay is well organised and brings together related material and points.
- Applies formal tone and style – In academic writing, there is careful use of language and tenses. Academic writing involves clear, concise, and balanced communication and arguments. Additionally, in academic writing, we aim to be neutral, formal, and unbiased.
- Evidenced –Academic writing aims to demonstrate knowledge of the subject area you are writing on. It thus involves research, which is referring to other sources of information – such as text books, websites, journal articles, or people – and providing evidence for the information that you provide. It is worth pointing out at this point that even in fiction, general, and content writing, some level of research is often involved as the author may consult other sources of information to get ideas, facts, or even inspiration. Evidence (such as references) is used to support opinions and arguments and work must be accurately referenced.
You need not worry if you still don’t understand what these four main characteristics of academic essays entail. There’s more to these characteristics and we can’t explain them all in one article. You will make sense of the characteristics as you read on and proceed to the basics of academic essay writing. For now, let’s briefly touch on the concept of formal tone with an example.
Let’s compare two sentences to understand tone:
- James Abraham Academy teaches learners what they need to know to excel in their exams.
- At James Abraham Academy, we do our best to ensure you learn what you need to excel in your exams.
These two statements are generally trying to convey the idea that the academy is focused on teaching learners what they need to learn for them to excel in their examinations. Please read the sentences again and try answering this question: Which of the two statements sounds more friendly, inviting, or personal?
If you chose Statement 2, you are right. But what makes it sound more friendly or personal? Well, it’s because the sentence makes use of first person and second person pronouns (I, we, our, you, your). It sounds like someone is really addressing or talking to you at a personal level. It also sounds like the person is marketing the academy. When we use first and second person pronouns, we tend to create a personal connection between the author and the reader by grouping the author and the reader together. On the other hand, when we use third person pronouns (he, she, it, they), however, like in Statement 1, we sound more formal, neutral and less friendly (we are concerned only with presenting what we think is a fact). We are not really concerned about creating or fostering a personal relationship with our audience. In the table below, we present some of the first, second, and third person pronouns that are commonly used in everyday life.
|
|
First Person |
Second Person |
Third Person |
|
Singular |
I, me, my, myself, mine, |
You, your, yours, yourself |
He, she, his, hers, herself |
|
Plural |
We, us, our, ours, ourselves |
You, your, yours, yourselves |
They, themselves |
In academic writing, we are not concerned with marketing or selling a product but in presenting facts as they are. We are not concerned with pleasing our audience, sounding friendly, or appearing to be welcoming. Rather, we aim to convince our audience (the reader) that our argument or point of view is valid. In academic writing, formal (as opposed to informal) language and tone is used. Statement 2 (above) illustrates the kind of language used in academic writing as it demonstrates the use of formal and neutral tone. As you may notice from the two statements, the choice of words that you use when writing potentially shapes the tone and style of your academic essay.
Academic writing is not necessarily complex and you do not have to use complex or complicated vocabulary and overly long sentences, especially when you are a beginner. You can write good academic essays by using simple, short sentences and everyday vocabulary. In fact, by using simple, straightforward language and sentence structure, you may avoid grammatical and other errors while still presenting your arguments effectively.
It is important to note that when writing an academic essay or paper in a given discipline, you will need to use relevant vocabulary and conventions. For example when writing a paper in biology, you will need to use relevant biological terms (such as osmosis, genes, organisms, tissues, genome, organelles, biosphere, ecosystems, species etc). The use of discipline-relevant terms not only shows your knowledge of the subject you are writing on but also contributes to the conciseness, clarity, and professionalism of your work.
Why is it Important to Learn Academic Writing?
If you’re still asking, “Is it important to learn academic writing?”, the answer is a resounding yes. There are several reasons why you should learn academic writing or develop academic writing skills. With good academic writing skills, you will be able to write strong essays and thereby greatly improve your chances of getting good grades in school or college. This is because academic writing helps you develop strong communication, language, reasoning and critical thinking, and research skills, all of which are necessary for good or excellent academic performance. In addition, by engaging in academic writing, you develop the ability to understand audiences and reach them better and increase your knowledge on different subjects. Knowledge of academic writing is not only important for your life in college or university. Good essay writing skills increase your chances of getting a good job and advancing in your career, especially if your career involves researching, strong written communication, and critical thinking. Additionally, mastering academic essay writing can open up freelance opportunities, enabling you to earn by writing or training others in essay, report, or research writing. Overall, academic writing can greatly contribute to your success as a student, person, and professional.
Types of Assignments in Academic Writing
There are several types of assignments that fall under the umbrella of academic writing and that you’ll likely encounter as a student or someone who wants to learn academic writing well. Some of the types of academic writing works are listed in the table below. Each assignment type provides an opportunity to practice how to write a paper or how to write an essay, both of which are critical skills.
Types of Assignments in Academic Writing
|
Article critique |
Business plan |
Poster design/creation |
|
Article review |
Application essay |
Presentation/Podcast |
|
Book review |
Personal journal |
Qualitative analysis |
|
Business Report |
Literary analysis |
Content/ thematic analysis |
|
Case study |
Literature review |
Discussion board post |
|
Course work |
Research paper |
Dissertation/ Thesis |
|
Critical review |
Movie critique |
Research report |
|
Essay |
Scholarship essay |
Personal reflection |
|
Grant proposal |
Marketing plan |
Questionnaire design |
|
Lab report |
Personal statement |
Research proposal |
|
Memo |
Statistical analysis |
Research proposal |
|
Movie review |
Literary analysis |
Systematic review |
|
Poster |
Research report |
Rhetoric analysis |
|
Questionnaire |
Book Summary |
Scholarship essay |
|
Speech |
Business proposal |
Case briefs (law) |
|
Term paper |
Article summary |
Annotated bibliography |
Most of the work that is done in academic writing is done in essay form. In college or university, an essay writing assignment may be referred to a “essay”, “term paper”, “research paper” or “academic paper. These terms are often used interchangeably and may be used to mean the same thing – an essay.
Introduction to Essay Writing Summary
In summary, this article offers an introduction to essay writing for those interested in learning academic writing or essay writing for college and university. The article has answered the question “what is academic writing” and has highlighted the characteristics that should be presented in your academic essay. With the knowledge of the characteristics of academic writing in mind, when doing academic writing, you should ensure that your essay or academic writing work is well planned and focused, properly structured, applies formal tone and style, and your ideas and arguments are supported by evidence (mostly in the form of references). When writing an academic essay, you do not necessarily have to use overly long sentences or complex and complicated vocabulary – you can write an excellent paper by keeping it simple. The article has also answered the question, “Is academic writing important”? This article has also presented some of the types of assignments you may encounter as a college student, professional, freelance writer, or consultant. Developing academic writing skills can improve your academic performance and provide a foundation for career success.