Rida Malik
Professor Rosenberg
English 2150
09/27/2017
1st Draft
Defining academic writing can be a little tricky because there is no set definition. If I were to come up with my own definition, it would be that it is any piece of writing related to an educational use. Not to complicate things, but the word academic means ‘relating to education and scholarship’ and writing means ‘the activity or skill of marking coherent words on paper and composing text.’ But what really does that mean?
If you really come to think of it we have been academically writing since the first day we began school. From 1st grade when we wrote what we were thankful for on Thanksgiving until right now at this very given moment, writing a paper on academic writing. Many people might believe that this writing begins in college, but I think otherwise. There have been multiple occasions where we have had to share our thoughts and experiences on paper and hand them into a teacher for an assignment for a long time now, and that to me would be considered academic writing. But when you hear the words ‘academic writing,’ what exactly comes to your head? Although I think all of our educational writing pieces are considered academic writing when I hear those words, not all of my assignments come to mind. My main thoughts begin with my research papers, essays that I had to submit, and informative writing assignments. Those are all in a way informational pieces of writing, however, my pieces of writing that are more emotional and self-centered, that are still written due to the purpose of an assignment, do not really pop up to be academic writing. Academic writing sounds serious and informative when it should include all of our work and not just the informative research papers and assignments.
I think other key concepts of academic writing consist of how writing is written. The grammar, the sentence structure, the wording, all of these play key roles in academic writing because it shows whether or not you have good writing skills. When writing you have to present clear thoughts so that what is you are saying can really be heard. Details and a coherent message are two points to good writing. In academic writing, you must make a point and present evidence to back up that point. Now I know in the beginning of this essay I said that anything writing assignment can be considered as an academic piece of writing, I still stand by that but wiring pieces have to have evident thoughts and they need to be backed up by evidence. You can have an emotional piece of writing that can still have evidence and reasoning to still be considered an academic writing. Your reasoning should overpower your emotions when writing a collegiate piece. Your thoughts should be organized and coherent and convey a steady message. Your thoughts should not be all over the place. You can use different tactics to convey this message. For example, in my, blog I wrote, “After reading my own writing and performing the ethos/pathos/logos analysis, I saw how If I had not used it, my writing would’ve been very ineffective.” Using different writing strategies further your argument and make your writing sound more efficient, believable, and convincing.
It is hard to say how i would perceive myself to be an academic writer. I would not say that I am completely bad, but on the other hand i would not say that I am very good either. I think i have a good understanding of how to write. I do get careless and make tons of mistakes in my writing. Learning from my mistakes help me grow from them. I tend to make a lot of mistakes in my grammar and write phrases where they do not belong. To be truthfully honest, no one is perfect in their writing. Writing can always be improved one way or another. I believe that my writing specifically always needs a load of improvement. Academic pieces should be written almost perfect or at least it should look like there was an effort in making the writing look perfect. My writing sometimes comes off as very childish, as if am writing like I’m in middle school, so for tat reason I tend to feel that I am not the best at writing but I always try my bests to improve and make my writing better. So it is said that ‘Academic writing is always a form of evaluation that asks you to demonstrate knowledge and show proficiency with certain disciplinary skills of thinking, interpreting, and presenting.’ (Irvin) I think based on this, one of the reasons my writing is not as strong is because I always fail to do at least one of the elements of successful writing and that throws my whole writing piece off. If i actually were able to cover all aspects, I think my writing would not be that bad and I could consider myself a good writer.
Academic writing is something that pays much attention to many and I something that can not be avoided. First, you should learn exactly what academic writing is, that way you can improve your writing more knowing how you have to write and the details of it. It helps you out a little more and can essentially improve your writing as well. In my words, academic writing is a writing piece that has an educational purpose.