What Is Academic Writing? Common Mistakes Made When Writing Academic Pieces

Academic writing refers to writing used to communicate ideas and information across academic communities. It’s a formal style of writing primarily used in learning institutions such as universities as well as scholarly publications. As a student, you will encounter various forms of academic writing as a form of assessment.

Some of the common academic pieces students must compile in their school curriculum include dissertations, research papers, and essays. As with other writing texts, academic writing follows the same writing process. However, it has to contain specific content structured in a certain style.

In this article, we elucidate what academic writing is as well as the dos and don’ts of these pieces.

Table of Contents

1. Types academic writing
2. Characteristics of academic writing
3. The don’ts of academic writing
4. Useful tools for academic writing
5. Academic writing checklist

Types of Academic Writing

Academic writing can be divided into two parts: student academic writing and expert academic writing. Student academic writing is mainly for assessment, while expert academic writing is intended for publications, reports, articles, and books. Here are some of the most common types of student academic writing:

Essays

An essay is a short, structured argument that uses sources from a class to answer a question. An instructor provides students with a question that they must answer based on research and evidence from the class.

Annotated Bibliography

This form of academic writing presents a list of references you have used in your writing. A short description must accompany each source.

Research Paper

A research paper is more detailed than an essay. A student chooses a topic and conducts extensive independent research to compile this piece.

Research Proposal

Before embarking on a research paper or dissertation, you must compile a research proposal. This is an outline of a potential project you intend to work on in the future.

Dissertation/Thesis

A dissertation is a final research project that must be completed at the end of a student’s course. It’s a large piece of writing that requires extensive research on any topic the student chooses.

Literature Review

This is a type of academic writing that requires the student to analyze existing research on a topic and present it in relation to a newly found study.

Lab Report

A lab report is a compilation of the significance, methods used, results, and conclusions of a lab experiment.

The types of academic writing depend on the different fields of study. Students write pieces according to what they are studying. However, most academic writing shares the same concepts and principles. Its aim is to convey information effectively.

Characteristics of Academic Writing

Formal and Unbiased

Academic writing aims to convey information impartially. Arguments must not be personal but based on evidence and research. The writer’s opinions and preconceptions must not be considered when writing an academic piece.

Every student must provide evidence to support their content rather than simply making assertions. Consider all sides of your topic and avoid being inclined to one. To avoid bias, all methods used during the research and compilation of any piece must be presented.

Academic writing uses a consistent formal style in all pieces. This ensures that the reader can easily assess and compare with previous work by other researchers.

Clear and Precise

The aim of academic writing is to convey information in a way that the reader can understand easily. Therefore, when writing these pieces, ensure that you are clear and straight to the point. Avoid using vague words or words like perhaps, which give the impression that you are not sure of your statements.

Reflect on your word choice and ensure that you are accurate and confident in your choices. It’s common to use jargon or technical terms when writing academic pieces. You must be very strategic when using these words, as they are meant to improve the accuracy of your work and not make it more complicated.

Well Structured

For academic writing to be effective, it has to serve and fulfill a specific purpose. Therefore, collecting ideas and putting them together does not qualify as accurate academic writing. It has to have a focused and clear structure.

Ensure that your academic writing begins with a thesis statement or a research question. From there, you can develop a focused argument.

The Don’ts of Academic Writing

 Personalize

Academic writing should only be personal if it’s relevant to the topic. The content of your writing should focus on the content itself and not information about the author or any of their views and opinions.

Overcomplicate

Most students assume that academic writing has to be long-winded and content-filled for it to be effective. However, the best approach is to ensure your work is clear, concise, and direct. This not only helps you convey your information better but also allows your reader to understand it better.

Make Use of Emotive Language

Academic writing is different from journalistic, literal, and marketing content. The styles used in these pieces differ from what you should use in academic writing. Although you need to be persuasive in your piece, avoid using emotive or subjective language.

Useful Tools for Academic Writing

Academic writing can be a long, tiring process, as most of them are bulky. For this reason, you need to use writing tools to make your work easier.

Grammar Checker

When writing bulky pieces, you may need to identify all the grammar mistakes you may have made in your work. A grammar checker scans your text, identifies all forms of grammar mistakes, and corrects them.

Paraphrasing Tool

A paraphrasing tool helps to rewrite your text more clearly. It also ensures you refrain from repeating yourself. You must be careful when using this tool since you must credit all sources provided by this tool.

Summarizer

A summarizer helps you condense bulky and complicated text into clearer information that your reader can easily understand.