The simplest type of academic writing is descriptive. Its purpose is to provide facts or information. An example would be a summary of an article or a report of the results of an experiment. While specific requirements may vary depending on the particular form of academic writing or the class or publication for which a work is produced, some characteristics are common to all academic writing.
While this is not an exhaustive list of all the possible forms that academic writing can take, it contains the most common types. Whether your goal is to pass your degree, apply to graduate school, or develop an academic career, effective writing is an essential skill. Specialized language or jargon is common and often necessary in academic writing, which generally addresses an audience of other scholars in related fields. It is difficult to find a simple definition of academic writing because there are many types and forms of academic writing, produced for a variety of reasons.
However, most academic writings share certain key principles intended to help convey information as effectively as possible. It's what students are expected to produce for classes and what professors and academic researchers use to write academic materials. Most scholars write texts intended for publication, such as journal articles, reports, books, and chapters in edited collections. The formal style used in academic writing ensures that research is presented consistently in different texts, so that studies can be objectively evaluated and compared with other research.
Academic writing follows the same writing process as other types of texts, but it has specific conventions in terms of content, structure and style. Whether you're writing a research paper, a thesis, or a conference paper, these tips can help you approach your academic writing tasks and projects from the right perspective.
