Academic writing or scholarly writing refers primarily to nonfiction writing that is produced as part of academic work in accordance with the standards of a particular academic subject or discipline, including:
reports on empirical fieldwork or research in facilities for the natural sciences or social sciences, monographs in which scholars analyze culture, propose new theories, or develop interpretations from archives, as well as undergraduate versions of all of these.
Academic writing typically uses a more formal tone and follows certain conventions, such as referencing other academic work and making use of established rhetorical strategies. However, the exact style, content, and organization of academic writing can vary depending on the specific genre and publication method. Despite this variation, all academic writing shares some common features.
Challenges to scholarly writing and strategies to overcome them are systematised by Angelova-Stanimirova and Lambovska in.Angelova-Stanimirova, A., & Lambovska, M. (2024). Your Article is Accepted. Academic Writing for Publication: A Deep Dive into International Research on Challenges and Strategies. Journal of Language and Education, 10(3), 108-127. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2024.22198.
Academic style Academic writing often contains prose register that is conventionally characterized by "evidence...that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded and disciplined in the study"; that prioritizes "reason over emotion or sensual perception"; and that imagines a reader who is "coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response."
Three linguistic patterns that correspond to these goals across fields and genres, include the following:
a balance of caution and certainty, or a balance of hedging and boosting; explicit cohesion through a range of cohesive ties and moves; and the use of compressed noun phrases, rather than dependent clauses, for adding detail.
The stylistic means of achieving these conventions will differ by academic discipline, seen, for example, in the distinctions between writing in history versus engineering, or writing in physics versus philosophy. Biber and Gray propose further differences in the complexity of academic writing between disciplines, seen, for example, in the distinctions between writing in the humanities versus writing in the sciences. In the humanities, academic style is often seen in elaborated complex texts, while in the sciences, academic style is often seen in highly structured concise texts. These stylistic differences are thought to be related to the types of knowledge and information being communicated in these two broad fields.
One theory that attempts to account for these differences in writing is known as "discourse communities".
Criticism
Academic style has often been criticized for being too full of jargon and hard to understand by the general public. In 2022, Joelle Renstrom argued that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on academic writing and that many scientific articles now "contain more jargon than ever, which encourages misinterpretation, political spin, and a declining public trust in the scientific process."
Discourse community
A discourse community is a group of people that shares mutual interests and beliefs. "It establishes limits and regularities...who may speak, what may be spoken, and how it is to be said; in addition, [rules] prescribe what is true and false, what is reasonable and what foolish, and what is meant and what not."Leitch, Vincent B. Deconstructive Criticism. New York: Cornell UP, 1983: 145.
The concept of a discourse community is vital to academic writers across all disciplines, for the academic writer's purpose is to influence how their community understands its field of study: whether by maintaining, adding to, revising, or contesting what that community regards as "known" or "true." Academic writers have strong incentives to follow conventions established by their community in order for their attempts to influence this community to be legible.
Discourse community constraints Constraints are the discourse community's accepted rules and norms of writing that determine what can and cannot be said in a particular field or discipline. They define what constitutes an acceptable argument. Every discourse community expects to see writers construct their arguments using the community's conventional style of language, vocabulary, and sources, which are the building blocks of any argument in that community.
STEM writing often follows strict formats, like the IMRAD structure. This format helps organize ideas clearly and also makes research easier to repeat and check.
Writing for a discourse community For writers to become familiar with some of the constraints of the discourse community they are writing for, across most discourse communities, writers must: identify the novelty of their position make a claim, or thesis acknowledge prior work and situate their claim in a disciplinary context offer warrants for one's view based on community-specific arguments and procedures
The structure and presentation of arguments can vary based on the discourse community the writer is a part of. For example, a high school student would typically present arguments differently than a college student.
Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) is an educational program that aims to improve students' writing skills within the context of various disciplinary communities.The Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse provides resources for such programs at all levels of education.
Collaboration between writing centers and STEM faculty help students follow writing rules in their fields. Programs like WATTS train peer tutors to give better feedback on academic papers. These programs focus on writing strategies rather than subject knowledge.
Novel argument In a discourse community, academic writers build on the ideas of previous writers to establish their own claims. Successful writers know the importance of conducting research within their community and applying the knowledge gained to their own work. By synthesizing and expanding upon existing ideas, writers are able to make novel contributions to the discourse.
Students improve by analyzing scientific data and solving real-world problems and hence create new ideas. It also helps them connect ideas from different subjects.
Intertextuality Intertextuality is the combining of past writings into original, new pieces of text. According to Julia Kristeva, all texts are part of a larger network of intertextuality, meaning they are connected to prior texts through various links, such as allusions, repetitions, and direct quotations, whether they are acknowledged or not.Roozen, Kevin. (2015) "Texts Get Their Meaning from Other Texts." Naming What We Know: Threshold Concepts in Writing Studies, Adler-Kassner & Wardle, eds. Logan: Utah State UP, 44-47, Writers (often unwittingly) make use of what has previously been written and thus some degree of borrowing is inevitable. One of the key characteristics of academic writing across disciplines is the use of explicit conventions for acknowledging intertextuality, such as citation and bibliography. The conventions for marking intertextuality vary depending on the discourse community, with examples including MLA, APA, IEEE, and Chicago styles.
Summarizing and integrating other texts in academic writing is often metaphorically described as "entering the conversation," as described by Kenneth Burke:Burke, Kenneth (1941). The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley: University of California Press, 110-111.
In science writing, writers must connect their work to past research. This keeps their arguments relevant and also shows how ideas grow and change in science.
Key elements While the need for appropriate references and the avoidance of plagiarism are undisputed in academic and scholarly writing, the appropriate style is still a matter of debate. Some aspects of writing are universally accepted as important, while others are more subjective and open to interpretation.
Style Contrary to stereotype, published academic research is not particularly syntactically complex; it is instead a fairly low-involvement register characterized by the modification of nominal elements through hedging and refining elaborations, often presented as sequences of objects of prepositions such as what, where, when, and whom. Logical structure Writing should be organized in a manner which demonstrates clarity of thought.Open University, 7. Academic writing – general principles, accessed 10 January 2023 Appropriate references Generally speaking, the range and organization of references illustrate the writer's awareness of the current state of knowledge in the field (including major current disagreements or controversies); typically the expectation is that these references will be formatted in the relevant disciplinary citation system.Giltrow, Janet and Michele Valiquette. (1994). Genres and knowledge: Students writing in the disciplines. In Freedman, Aviva; Peter Medway (Eds.), Learning and teaching genre, Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook (pp. 47-62). Bibliography Typically, this lists those materials read as background, evidencing wider reading, and will include the sources of individual citations. Avoidance of plagiarism Plagiarism, the "wrongful appropriation of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions", and the representation of them as one's own original work, is considered academic dishonesty, and can lead to severe consequences.Council of Writing Program Administrators, "Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices" . Princeton University. 2012-07-27
Academic genres Academic writing encompasses many different genres, indicating the many different kinds of authors, audiences and activities engaged in the academy and the variety of kinds of messages sent among various people engaged in the academy. The partial list below indicates the complexity of academic writing and the academic world it is part of.
STEM papers often focus on showing methods and data, but some teachers now ask students to explain their ideas better which helps students write like scientists.
By researchers for other researchers Scholarly monograph, in many types and varieties Chapter in an edited volume Book review Conference paper Essay; usually short, between 1,500 and 6,000 words in length Explication; usually a short factual note explaining some part of a particular work; e.g. its terminology, dialect, allusions or coded references Literature review or review essay; a summary and careful comparison of previous academic work published on a specific topic Research article Research proposal Site description and plan (e.g. in archeology) Technical report Translation Journal article (e.g. History Today); usually presenting a digest of recent research
Technical or administrative forms Brief; short summary, often instructions for a commissioned work Peer review report Proposal for research or for a book White paper; detailed technical specifications and/or performance report
Collating the work of others Anthology; collection, collation, ordering and editing of the work of others Catalogue raisonné; the definitive collection of the work of a single artist, in book form Collected works; often referred to as the 'critical edition'. The definitive collection of the work of a single writer or poet, in book form, carefully purged of publishers' errors and later forgeries, etc. Monograph or exhibition catalog; usually containing exemplary works, and a scholarly essay. Sometime contains new work by a creative writer, responding to the work Transcribing, selecting and ordering oral testimony (e.g. oral history recordings)
Research and planning Empirical research Experimental plan Laboratory report