ISFD 41. Language and Written Expression IV. Saubidet Stella.
Student: Perez Stefania.
Irvin, Lennie L. What is Academic Writing?.
Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Volume 1. Ed. Charles Lowe, Pavel
Zemliansky. Parlor Press. 2010. Print.
What is
Academic Writing?
INTRODUCTION: THE ACADEMIC WRITING TASK
This chapter´s objective is to acquaint starter
students with academic writing, its characteristics and types, and its constituents.
The Academic Writing Situation
A new writer has an unexpended perspective of
the writing situation in general because writers are split from the audience in
time and place, hence the necessity to create a context, which is one of the
main goals of any writer: in-context communication. According to Lee Ann
Carroll, in College, writers do “Literacy Tasks”, an equivalent to “Writing
Assignments”, which requires researching skills(search for in-depth
information, keep trace of sources), skills to read sophisticated material(reading
difficult texts underlies writing accurately), discernment of main ideas(using
subject´s key concepts in the task demonstrates the learning and understanding
of the topic), strategies for being synthetic, analytical and critical to new
information (inferring the topic, its key concepts and recognizing the
connections among them).
IN COLLEGE, EVERTHING´S AN ARGUMENT: A GUIDE
FOR DECODING COLLEGE WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
Literacy tasks begin with an argument in which
a claim (thesis statement) is presented. The thesis is sustained by reasonable
supporting material based on evidence. The purpose of the claim is to get the
audience´s regard (even approval) of the point of view presented in it. The
more evidence, the more persuaded people will be. Academic Writing is an
Analysis with three characteristics: 1) open inquiry; 2) identification of
subject´s parts; 3) examination of these parts separately and determination of
the relationship among them. The three common types of Writing Assignments are:
1) The Close: the claim is presented explicitly, therefore the writer needs to
add supporting material only; 2) The Semi-Open: the claim is implicitly planned
in the task, thus, the writer needs to investigate in depth to create a thesis
plus supporting material; 3) The Open: the writer chooses the topic, writes the
claim and its supporting material. Investigation and limiting the topic are
needs.
Three Characteristics of Academic Writing
According to Chris Thaiss and Terry Zawacki,
Academic Writing has three features:
1)Persistency,
open mind, and disciplined study on the part of the writer.
2) Dominance
of reason over emotion.
3) Rational
imagined audience.
THE FORMAT OF THE ACADEMIC WRITING
It is called Critical Essay by the author, and
has specific textual characteristics, which are flexible:
1) It
has a claim and supporting material;
2) The
thesis is disputable;
3) It
is organized in an Introduction, Body and Conclusion;
4) The
sources are the text (quotations needed), the assert (thesis statement) and, at
least, three supports for each assert;
5)Documenting
the sources (differentiation of outsider and insider information). Clarifying
where the information was obtained;
6) Transition
sentences must be clear and must have a link to the thesis statement;
7) Use
of MLA or APA for bibliography;
8) Few
or no grammar mistakes.
CONCLUSION
Achieving academic writing skills is based on
the recognition of what is being done and the understanding of writing
assignments, regarding its features and plausible steps.
Bibliography
Irvin, Lennie L., what is Academic Writing?. Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing. Volume 1. Ed. Charles Lowe, Pavel Zemliansky. Parlor Press. 2010. Print.
