Defining academic writing can be a little tricky since 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 does that really mean? If you really come to think of it, we have been academically writing since the first day we began school. Ever since 1st grade, when we wrote what we were thankful for on Thanksgiving, till 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 our educational writing pieces are considered academic writing, not all my assignments come to my mind when I hear those words. My main thoughts begin with my research papers and informative writing assignments. Those are, in a way, pieces of writing that portray some kind of information. However, my pieces of writing that are more emotional and self-centered, 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 our work and not just the informative research papers and assignments. Therefore, when one is to think about academic writing, they would believe it to be something professional or having some type of serious research involved.

A main concept of academic writing is how it is actually written. The grammar, the sentence structure, the wording; these all play a major role in academic writing because it shows whether or not you have good writing skills. When writing a paper, you must present clear thoughts, so the message to are trying to convey can easily be heard. Two other points in good writing would be details and having logical/rational reasoning. In academic writing, it is vital to provide evidence or have research about the point you are trying to convey to the readers. In the beginning of the essay, I mentioned how any writing assignment can be considered as an academic piece of writing, however, it is absolutely necessary to back it up with evidence. You can have an emotional piece of writing that can still have evidence and reasoning to still be considered an academic writing. The reasoning you give should overpower your emotions when writing a collegiate piece. Your thoughts should be organized and coherent and convey a steady message. They 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. In order for my writing to be better, it is better to reread it and analyze the paper.
I would not consider myself an awful writer, but I would not consider myself the best writer either. I do have a good understanding of how to write a paper, however, I can always improve my skills. I can put in more time revising my paper, since I do tend to make careless mistakes that could have been avoided if the paper was read several times. Learning my mistakes will only help me in the future and prosper into becoming a better writer. Academic writings are professional, so in that case should be written with commitment. They should be perfect, or at least show that an effort was made to improve on it. When I am writing, I tend off giving a childish look to it, as if I am still in middle school, therefore I am not the best writer or at the top of my ability either. I always try to improve on my writing skills and try to make it 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 could cover all aspects, I think my writing would not be that bad and I could consider myself a good writer. In order for you to be a good writer, you need to put in time and consistently revise your paper for careless mistakes.

Academic writing is something that pays more attention on something that is more professional based and provides efficient evidence towards whatever you claim in the paper. In order for you to become better in academic writing, you would need to write more often and revise your paper several times before actually submitting it. In that way, you can always improve your paper and/or your mistakes. There are a lot of mistakes that can be avoided if you take out the time and actually revise the paper and read it thoroughly a couple of times. Academic writing is a writing piece that has an educational purpose to it and informs the reader about something.