Introduction to Key Features of Academic Writing

Writing has a range of purposes. In academic writing, your purpose is to inform and answer questions using formal language that is clear and concise. Watch the below video to learn more about the key features of academic writing:

As a student at a university, your reader is often the person who assesses your work – it is your job to show them you can communicate your ideas and theories using appropriate academic language. To become a confident and effective academic writer, there are six features or ingredients you need to develop in your language. These are:

1. complexity;
2. formality;
3. precision;
4. accuracy;
5. objectivity; and
6. explicitness. 

Complexity

Because academic writing expresses complex ideas, it is inherently complex. The aim is to be clear and concise in your writing, removing ambiguity and clutter that could make it difficult for a reader to follow your argument. Depending on the topic at hand, the language, syntax and structure of your writing may end up quite complex, but this should never come at the expense of clarity of expression. Rather, the complexity of your writing emerges from the synthesis of the following elements:

• course and unit materials;
• thorough research;
• paraphrased evidence; and

• your original, critical responses to the above.

Formality

Key to formality in academic writing is using precise and professional language, along with accurate use of the technical terminology specific to your discipline or area of study. Be sure to have a thorough understanding of the language used and check the dictionary for definitions. (A dictionary will also distinguish between formal and slang words.) Your writing should be concise, clear and confident in its direction and structure, with little room for interpretation. To this end, craft direct statements with strong, accurate verbs. Remember, your writing will be interspersed with paraphrased statements and quotes from experts, so it needs to match this level of formality wherever possible. To achieve formality in your writing, avoid the following:

• casual language;
• colloquialisms or slang;
• cliches (such as 'the grass is always greener');
• contractions (for example, 'don't' should be written as 'do not'); 
• phrasal or two-word verbs; and
• rhetorical questions.

Precision

Precision in the context of academic writing refers to the careful and precise use of statistics, figures, demographic information and other forms of quantitative data. How precise you need to be depends on the context — 20-30 million people could be an extremely precise figure in a global context of 7.8 billion people. However, wherever possible, it's best to arrive at an exact figure. Most important, though, is to avoid vague statements such as 'a lot of people'; depending on the context, this could refer to fifty people or a million people. Furthermore, you should add specific demographic characteristics to figures because precision is not just about numbers.

An example of adding demographic information to figures could be: 1 million Australian women, aged 18-30 living in urban residential areas. As with all aspects of academic writing, homing in on the specifics will always make your argument stronger.

Accuracy

Accuracy, in this context, refers to the careful and economical use of language. In academic writing, you’ll encounter a lot of technical language specific to your area of study. It’s important to gain a thorough understanding of these terms and concepts before repeating them in your own work; remember, your assessor will know these terms inside out!

Similarly, you’ll encounter a lot of dense and difficult language in peer-reviewed journal articles. Difficult passages require careful re-reading and diligent note-taking; be sure to look up any unfamiliar words in a dictionary and only cite evidence you thoroughly understand.

Explicitness

In academic writing, explicitness means being very clear about how the different parts of a text, such as in your report or essay, are related to each other. This means in your introduction, for example, clearly signposting your main argument, the supporting arguments, and the order in which you will present them. The structure and direction of your writing needs to be laid out clear and explicitly from the beginning, like a roadmap. Unlike narrative fiction, for example, the structural elements of your writing should not take the reader by surprise.

The same applies to paragraph structure. There should be a clear and logical relationship between each sentence and the order in which they are presented.

Objectivity

To achieve objectivity, remember that academic writing is not about presenting your personal view – it is about using different kinds of research, combined with your own critical thinking skills, to present a considered, evidence-based argument. Whatever is included in your writing that is not attributed to someone else is assumed to be yours.

When writing, avoid statements such as “I feel that…” “I believe that…” “in my personal opinion…” In other words, avoid writing from a first-person perspective. Instead, make statements in the third-person and present arguments with evidence to support them.

Activity
In the paragraph below, identify one instance of each of the following: slang, cliché, contraction, two-word verb phrase and rhetorical question. We've highlighted some areas to give you a few tips. After identifying the errors, please complete the below quiz & discuss the alternatives in your class. Which choices were the most popular?

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