Nature of Academic Writing

Learning Outcomes
• Explain the importance of academic
writing
• Identify different genres of text
• Analyze genre, audience, and purpose in a
text
• Describe and explain characteristics and
mistakes in academic writing
 Genre
• refers to the typical structure and
organizational patterns of a text, its
intended audience and its purpose
 Academic Text Types
Textbooks
• are specifically designed to help the
learner. For example, they might have
summaries or review quizzes
• vary in style, tone and level depending on
their audience
• good place to start when learning about a
new topic.
 Academic Text Types
Essays (shorter texts)
• vary in length and formality, but they
usually contain three sections:
Introduction, Main body, Conclusion
• usually need to include citation of sources
• help teachers to see what students have
learnt and how deeply
 Academic Text Types
Research Articles
• are written mainly for a specialist
audience – researchers, academics and
postgraduate students.
 Academic Text Types
Research Articles
They usually contain the following:
• Introduction to the research
• Literature review
• Background to the research and method
• Results or main findings
• Discussion, including authors' interpretation of the results
• Recommendations: ideas for future research
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Appendix (optional) to give information such as tables of raw
data from the research
 Academic Text Types
Dissertations and Theses
• (typically 10,000 to 20,000 words) at
Master's level, and theses (typically 60,000
to 80,000 words) at Doctor's level (PhD)
• are the result of a long period of reading,
research and reflection – perhaps several
months or years.
 Academic Text Types
Dissertations and Theses
The structure and style varies across disciplines but is likely to
include the following:
• Introduction
• Background
• Literature Review
• Research Design/Methodology
• Results/Findings
• Discussion/Interpretation
• Recommendations
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Appendix (optional) to give information such as tables of raw
data from the research
 Academic Text Types
Case Studies
• may be found in any discipline, though
they are most common in disciplines such
as business, sociology and law.
• primarily descriptive
 Academic Text Types
Case Studies
A typical structure is as follows:
• Context (what is the focus, where, when?)
• Description of the setting (person,
company or place)
• An account of how this changed over the
period of time under investigation
• Headings help the audience work through
the text
 Academic Text Types
Reports
• used to describe what happened (e.g. in a
piece of research) and discuss and
evaluate its importance
• are found in different disciplines, such as
science, law and medicine
 Academic Text Types
Reports
They typically include some or all of the
following:
• Context/Overview (Title, Contents etc.)
• Introduction
• Methodology/Description of the event (e.g.
piece of research)
• Findings/Main points
• Discussion/Evaluation
• Conclusion
 Directions: Match the text types under Column A on
the following purpose of academic text found in
Column B
Column A Column B
Textbooks a.) These are written for readers who
have expert knowledge of a topic.

Shorter student texts: essays b.) These show the importance of a

piece of research.
Longer student texts: dissertations and c.) Access these to find out about
theses writing in your discipline.
Research articles d.) These could be 80,000 words long
for Phd students to further master their
field.
Case studies e.) This is a good avenue to start your
research.
Reports f.) These describe changes or
developments, within a company or
social group.
 Analysing text: Genre, Audience,
and Purpose
• Audience- could be experts, or it could be
newcomers to the topic
• Genre- type of text used to interact based
on expectations
• Purpose- message of the paragraph
pattern present in the texts
 Analysing text: Genre, Audience,
and Purpose
The purpose of particular genre might be to:
• Present and explain information
• Persuade the audience to accept a new
argument
• Describe a process
At a greater level of detail, the purpose of a
particular genre could be to:
• Present a claim- offer citations to support the
claim- provide explanation and examples to
help understanding- evaluate material
Directions: Read the 4 excerpts. Identify each
text type. Compare and contrast their genre,
audience, and main purpose (GAP).
Sustainable transport for a large business: the case of Leeds
Metropolitan University
There were 2,287,540 students in UK higher education in 2004/2005. A
high percentage live away from home, or come from abroad (some
318,395) and they are heavy consumers of transport. There were
109,625 full-time academic staff, and 51,030 part-time staff, plus many
administrative and support staff. Higher education is a large foreign
currency earner. It is big business. But some universities are massive,
and equate with very large corporations both in their financial turnover,
and in the environmental footprint generated by their transport
activities.
Leeds Metropolitan University is a good example. It is one of the largest
universities in the UK, with 52,000 students and 3,500 staff. Its turnover
is about £135 million per annum. Of course, its economic impact is far
larger than this, as the student body is not an insignificant proportion
of the total population of the city, and they are all consumers and
spenders. The university has three major campuses. One of the
campuses is on the edge of the city, on a restricted site. A second
campus is five miles north from the city centre, on an outstanding but
inaccessible parkland site, while a third campus is fifteen miles away in
Harrogate.
What are the main effects of the global financial crisis of 2007-8?
Discuss with reference to at least two sectors of the global economy.

The global financial crisis of 2007-8 has had a number of major

interrelated effects. These effects are important and wide-ranging. This
global financial crisis was arguably the most major crises of its type
since the great depression of the 1920s and 1930s (Crotty 2009), and
was caused by various factors including the US sub-prime lending
phenomenon, high consumer debt in many of the major advanced
economies, and banking practices. This essay examines the most
serious effects following the crisis and argues that their impact was not
only financial and economic but also social and environmental (Peters,
Marland, Le Quere, Boden, Canadell & Raupach 2012).

First and foremost the crisis was financial, but it was also social. In other
words, the impacts were felt by ordinary people in serious ways. For
instance, there was a significant tightening in the lending behaviour of
banks in western economies, particularly the USA and the UK. Many
people were no longer able to get loans to buy houses, with access to
credit made more difficult.

Source: Crotty, 2009 & Peters et.al, 2012

The role of grazing
Many of the world's greatest grasslands have long been
grazed by wild animals, such as the bison of North America or
the large game of East Africa, but the introduction of pastoral
economies also affects their nature and productivity (Figure
2.7) (Coupland, 1979).

Light grazing may increase the productivity of wild pastures

(Warren and Maizels, 1976). Nibbling, for example, can
encourage the vigor and growth of plants, and in some
species, such as the valuable African grass, Themeda triandra,
the removal of the coarse, dead stems permits succulent
sprouts to shoot. Likewise the seeds of some plant species are
spread efficiently by being carried in cattle guts, and then
placed in favorable seedbeds of dung or trampled into the soil
surface. Moreover, the passage of herbage through the gut
and out as feces modifies the nitrogen cycle, so that grazed
pastures tend to be richer in nitrogen than ungrazed ones.
Also, like fire, grazing can increase species diversity by
opening out the community and creating more niches.
Mutation analysis of the candidate genes SCN1B-4B, FHL1, and LMNA
in patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy

Introduction: Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC)

is a genetically determined heart disease characterized by fibrofatty
infiltrations in the myocardium, right and/or left ventricular
involvement, and ventricular tachyarrhythmias. Although ten genes
have been associated with ARVC, only about 40% of the patients have
an identifiable disease-causing mutation. In the present study we aimed
at investigating the involvement of the genes SCN1B- SCN4B, FHL1,
and LMNA in the pathogenesis of ARVC. Methods: Sixty-five unrelated
patients (55 fulfilling ARVC criteria and 10 borderline cases) were
screened for variants in SCN1B- 4B, FHL1, and LMNA by direct
sequencing and LightScanner melting curve analysis. Results: A total of
28 sequence variants were identified: seven in SCN1B, three in SCN2B,
two in SCN3B, two in SCN4B, four in FHL1, and ten in LMNA. Three of
the variants were novel. One of the variants was non-synonymous. No
disease-causing mutations were identified. Conclusions: In our limited
sized cohort the six studied candidate genes were not associated with
ARVC.
Source: Refsgaard et al, 2012, p.44
 ACADEMIC TEXTS GENRE, AUDIENCE, AND PURPOSE

TEXT A TITLE: Genre:

Summary: Audience:
Purpose:

TEXT B TITLE: Genre:

Summary: Audience:
Purpose:

TEXT C TITLE: Genre:

Summary: Audience:
Purpose:

TEXT D TITLE: Genre:

Summary: Audience:
Purpose:
Characteristics of Academic Writing
1. Clear and limited focus
• focus and argument or research question is
established early by the thesis statement

2. requires a straightforward structure

• In its simplest form, academic writing includes an
introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion
• Each sentence and paragraph logically connects to
the next in order to present a clear argument
Characteristics of Academic Writing
3. Evidence-based arguments
• statements must be supported by evidence,
whether from scholarly sources (as in a research
paper), results of a study or experiment, or
quotations from a primary text (as in a literary
analysis essay).
4. Impersonal tone
• to convey a logical argument from an objective
standpoint
• avoids emotional, inflammatory, or otherwise biased
language
 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Academic
Writing
1. Wordiness
The goal of academic writing is to convey
complex ideas in a clear, concise manner.
Don’t muddy the meaning of your argument
by using confusing language. If you find
yourself writing a sentence over 25 words
long, try to divide it into two or three
separate sentences for improved readability.
 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Academic
Writing
2. A vague or missing thesis statement.
The thesis statement is the single most
important sentence in any academic paper.
Your thesis statement must be clear, and
each body paragraph needs to tie into that
thesis.
 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Academic
Writing
3. Informal language. Academic writing is
formal in tone and should not include slang,
idioms, or conversational language.
 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Academic
Writing
4. Description without analysis
Do not simply repeat the ideas or arguments
from your source materials. Rather, analyze
those arguments and explain how they
relate to your point.
 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Academic
Writing
5. Not citing sources
Keep track of your source materials throughout
the research and writing process. Cite them
consistently using one style manual (MLA, APA,
or Chicago Manual of Style, depending on the
guidelines given to you at the outset of the
project). Any ideas that are not your own need
to be cited, whether they're paraphrased or
quoted directly, to avoid plagiarism.
 References
• https://eas.epigeum.com/courses/eas/45/c
ourse_files/html/uta_3_10.html
• https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-
academic-writing-1689052