Academic Style in Writing

Characteristics of Academic Style in Writing All writing can be analyzed for its style by considering various features. Academic and colloquial styles run on a continuum which can vary along the following dimensions: structure/organization All writing is organized in some way. Even a personal letter contains an introduction, body, and conclusion. Discourse features commonly found in academic writing include simple or extended definitions, problem-solution organization, the literature review, clear and early presentation of the thesis and organization of the text, and clear topic headings. sentence structure Academic writing tends to use more complex sentence structures, less common sentence structures, such as subject-auxiliary inversion, and more passive voice. Questions are more typically used more often in less formal, more colloquial texts as are imperatives (commands), suggestions (let’s), and incomplete sentences and phrases (A what?). support for argument Academic writing tends to use the literature review, scholarly opinion and theories, historical facts and cases, and hard data (including statistics) and analysis of this data to support its argument. It might use specific cases and examples to illustrate points. It usually doesn’t use personal anecdotes. The evidence it does uses requires in-text citations. Colloquial and news texts might refer to various sources (“according to research at Johns Hopkins University”) but need not give a citation. It might also just give a vague source, e.g. “studies have shown that…” language vocabulary: Use of Latin words and phrases, Latin-based words, low frequency but precise vocabulary, professional/specialist terms are all common in academic writing . Academic written language uses fewer phrasal verbs and idioms but does not eschew them altogether. Journalistic and colloquial writing makes frequent and strong use of figurative language. (a ballpark figure /an estimate; running on empty/exhausted) linking phrases: Use...