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Characteristics of academic writing
Common characteristics of scholarly writing often include:
Formal tone and style
Scholarly writing uses a formal style that shows the writer's knowledge and expertise in the subject area. Writers typically use the third-person point of view throughout scholarly writing to show objectivity. Formal writing has a serious tone to give credibility to the ideas the writer is presenting.
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Objective argument
Academic writing aims to make an objective argument using evidence. Writers support their statements and key points using facts and evidence-based research. They use data and analysis to present an argument objectively, without stating their own beliefs or assumptions.
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Use of resources
Writers use scholarly writing to show their knowledge of the subject. They support their conclusions with evidence and cite those resources, often including a bibliography with their work. A bibliography lists all the scholarly articles, books or other resources a writer references throughout the text. It's important to cite sources in scholarly writing because it gives credit to others for their research and helps to support the major points of the text.
Logical structure
Scholarly writing's clear and logical structure can help readers follow the text and make connections between related concepts. It has an introduction and a conclusion and a well-defined thesis statement. A thesis statement is a summary, typically in the introductory paragraph, that defines the key point or argument of the text. The body of the text supports the thesis statement, and the conclusion summarizes the idea and explains its significance.
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Free of errors
It's important for scholarly writing to be clean, consistent and free of errors so that readers view the text as a credible source. Scholarly writing uses specific language to convey key points. It also follows grammatical rules and remains consistent with stylistic conventions, such as spelling, punctuation and verb tense.
7 categories of academic writing
Here are seven categories of academic or scholarly writing:
1. Chapters
Scholarly writers may submit chapters for an edited volume or collection, which features submissions from different authors. These edited publications can offer different viewpoints on a single topic or idea. These chapters follow other styles of academic writing but may provide less background because readers are likely to have some knowledge of the subject already. Often, the writers of these chapters have already published scholarly documents on the topic, and they may submit shorter versions or similar pieces of writing for the collection.
2. Essays
An essay is a short piece of writing, usually between 1,500 to 2,000 words, that presents an idea or argument. Typically, an essay aims to convince the reader of an idea using research and analysis. The writer provides context on the subject to help support their argument. Academic writers often publish their essays in scholarly journals.
3. Research articles
A research article provides an in-depth analysis of the author's independent research. It clearly explains the researcher's processes and methods to show how they arrived at a conclusion. It usually references other data and resources to reinforce the findings of the research. Writers often submit these articles to academic journals or similar publications. Many times, peers in the industry review these articles before their publication.