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Academic Writing

What is academic writing?
Academic writing is impersonal. While the writer’s viewpoint might be stated, arguments are developed with evidence from books and experiments. Academic writing often uses the passive voice, uncontracted verb forms, subordination rather than co-ordination, impersonal rather than personal, and formal language.
Question for thought: Other than academic and non-academic, what are three other kinds of writing?
What is the passive voice?
The passive voice is a grammatical structure that enables the writer or speaker to place the emphasis on an action rather than the person or persons who performed the action. It is a useful structure in academic writing because it serves to depersonalize the action.
Question for thought: Which sentence uses the active voice and which one uses the passive voice?
  1. I conducted the experiment very carefully.
  2. The experiment was conducted very carefully.
What is an uncontracted verb? What is a contracted verb?
Uncontracted verb forms are those forms where the complete verb is spelled out. Contracted forms are those in which one or more letters are deleted and the verb is joined to another word. Academic writing uses uncontracted forms.
Question: Which are the contracted forms: did not, didn’t, I’m, could have, I am, they are could’ve, they’re.
What is co-ordination in a sentence?
Co-ordination is where two or more pieces of information are joined into a single sentence using a co-ordinating conjunction (and, or, but).
Task: What are the differences in meaning in these three sentences.
I have a brother. He lives in New York.
  I have a brother but he lives in New York.
  I have a brother and lives in New York.
What is subordination in a sentence?
Subordination is when you add extra information in a sentence. Subordination shows relationships. It can help you indicate which piece of information is more important.
Task: In the following sentence, underline the less important part. My brother, who lives in New York, is visiting Hong Kong.
What is personal and impersonal language?
Personal language involves the use of pronouns such as I and you. Although it is becoming increasingly common to see the use such words in academic texts, the use of the impersonal pronoun one is still generally preferred.
What is colloquial language?
Colloquial language means informal expressions usually only used between friends.
Task: Which is the formal and which is colloquial?
1. I reckon he’s going to be totally done in when he gets home.
2. I believe that he is going to be exhausted when he gets home.

 

Academic writing