English 2150 Blog

Academic writing is a type of writing that refers to expository and argumentative prose that is used mainly by university students, faculty, and researchers to convey information about a certain subject. Academic writing is usually precise and straightforward. As an academic writer throughout my years in college and grade school, I wouldn’t say I was bad writer, but it wasn’t something I liked to do.

As an academic writer, certain topics would interest me, but personally I prefer to write on a topic that is fascinating to me. In my freshman year of college, I was given a project to write on whether or not Lucy could be a human ancestor? I have always found certain historical times and cultures interesting and wanted to learn more about it. The topic of Lucy and early human ancestry was really intriguing, but the professor had restrictions, like the project has to be a minimum of ten pages, or we have to find information from certain resources, and the way the essay was structured was also very crucial to the grade we received. What I mean by that is certain information had to be in paragraphs and they had to be in a certain order. Before beginning my draft for the essay, I thought to myself that I would not have a problem elaborating and expanding my ideas. While I was doing my draft I noticed that I was running out of things to say and the information I had did not reach the 10 page minimum.  All of a sudden an interesting essay which I wanted to learn more about, became something I was forcing myself to do. To me, elaborating and digging deeper into certain details is something I can definitely improve on with academic writing. Most of the time I elaborate my ideas I feel like I’m repeating something or adding a detail that is not necessary. So for this particular essay I got my professor to proof read and basically go over the essay with me. The professor noted some of the important details I was missing and also gave me some more resources to find important information. Writing and academic writing are probably two of my least favorite things to do but in terms of being successful as an academic writer, I would say I am pretty good just based on grades and feedbacks from old teacher and professors. Academic writing, I believe takes a lot of obedience because there are usually restrictions or formats we must follow in order for the essay to even be graded and graded well.

Another piece of academic writing that I’ve also done in college is an informative essay on how Chinese Americans have become a model minority in the United States. For this essay it was strictly data and factual information from college databases. We weren’t supposed to give any opinions on this topic because my thesis was being backed by reasoning. Again I did well on this piece of writing in terms of grading because all directions were followed the essay was very straightforward. Writing academic essay with a class and getting them looked over by other classmates and the professor also improved my writing because they noticed revisions that would make the essay better for the final version. For this particular essay I used some of the parts from the Toulmin method and also Logos to give my reader information on this topic.

In the article, Why is Academic Writing So Academic by Joshua Rothman he explains the difference between other types of writing and academic writing. He writes, “Ordinary writing—the kind you read for fun—seeks to delight (and, sometimes, to delight and instruct). Academic writing has a more ambiguous mission. It’s supposed to be dry but also clever; faceless but also persuasive; clear but also completist. Its deepest ambiguity has to do with audience.” I strongly agree with this statement because as I’ve pointed out before academic writing is a test of obedience and following directions, kind of like a mission. Whereas when I am writing for fun on social media, texting, or even writing about a topic I enjoy and want to write on I don’t think of it as something I have to do but rather something I want to do. Academic writing is personal because there is a small audience and you are writing this work specifically for the professor or your own classmates.

In conclusion, academic writing is used mainly for research and university writing purposes. It is very straight forward and to me it tests obedience in following directions and certain procedures. As an academic writer myself I strongly believe the things Joshua Rothman said about the differences that academic writing and writing for fun is. I also believe I am a good academic writer even though writing is my least favorite thing to do in school. Some of my experiences with academic writing is that I believe I do better when I write drafts so that I can receive feedback from not only the professor but also my other classmates. I believe drafts are very important to the academic writing process because it allows you to see edits and revisions you normally wouldn’t see.

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