ACADEMIC WRITING

Posted by Beverly Peyton on February 25th, 2020

The act of writing is a powerful instrument of reflection. It is something that demands a lot, but that also gives a lot in return. Academic writing is a continuous exercise of revealing, of discovering, of being surprised, of committing; is to write, rewrite, elaborate, rework, sketch, correct, self-correct, write down, read, reread, do, redo.

ACADEMIC WRITING ELEMENTS

Summary.

It is an essay in which writing is addressed as word technology. Several characteristics of academic writing are exposed, especially those referring to research reports and informative articles of a scientific nature. Also, the composition process is explored, the blockages that arise during the writing are investigated and the style is conceptualized in terms of gender adaptation and particular language choice.

1. INSPIRATION OR WORK?

The writer is not a lightning rod in a storm of creativity. Most of the time invested in writing consists of a strenuous work that, apart from planning, the search for information and the development of ideas, involves filing rough edges, tracking the precise word, burnishing - just like the sculptor - rough surfaces, embed the appropriate link so that the words circulate smoothly between the phrases, add reliefs where it is necessary to change the rhythm of the text, specify meanings, silence choruses, expand ideas and dialogues, eliminate tangled paragraphs, correct distractions, and lightnesses.

To deal with the task of writing, according to Write Essay Today, sometimes it takes years of study, reading, notes, and notes, drafts, and corrections, to restructure paragraphs, always trying to achieve An optimal level of expression. This means that a long process of study and discipline is necessary to express itself correctly through the written word. 

2. WHAT IS WRITING?

It is a codified system of signs. Let us specify these three words of the statement: a system is a set of things organized and related to each other. A code is a combination of rules that shapes a message, and a sign is everything that is in place or representation of something, under some aspect or modality.   

Writing encourages the cultural and personal growth of the editor who must learn to work with words and ideas; This means that writing is activating a learning instrument. Since this activity resembles any complex task (since it is not a spontaneous ability to talk), the writer does not write the texts just as the magician pulls a rabbit out of his hat, but builds them based on sensitivity, Planning, reading, and experience. writing is gestating an enthusiasm that can last for several long weeks, and I say long weeks because you must have time to analyze, plan, write, rewrite, and above all, to channel the mind volatile.

3. WRITING AS TECHNOLOGY

Writing, printing and the computer are ways to technologize the word, to isolate or consign thought on a written surface. This technology of the intellect was the one that finally facilitated the domestication of the primitive mind so that what created the mind through the hand, ended up shaping societies. Many elements of today's civilization have their origin in writing: mathematics, history, laws, and science, among others. Writing as technology has enabled the current sociocultural development, although we see daily signs that indicate that we still live in the dark.

4. WRITING IN THE ACADEMIC FIELD

Scientific research and the publication of the scientific article are two closely related activities. Some people believe that projects end when the results are obtained when they are analyzed, when the work report is delivered or when the research is presented to academic peers. However, the formal and serious investigation ends with the publication of the article, only then does the work done become part of the scientific knowledge.

5. ON THE ACADEMIC ARTICLE OR REPORT

The scientific article is a written report that discloses for the first time the results of an investigation. These scientific articles published in academic journals integrate the primary literature of science. On the other hand, books and synthesis articles that deepen on a theme make up the secondary literature of science. Primary and secondary articles are publications of an academic nature, but only the first can be considered strictly scientific articles.

6. RECOMMENDATIONS TO TELL THE SCIENCE STORY

"Write clear who thinks clear", this phrase is a good starting point. Clarity should be reflected in the words, phrases, and paragraphs that we undertake. Which means that language must be used with a legibility criterion. This refers to the strictly verbal aspects that facilitate the understanding of the writing, such as the use of short words and phrases, specific language, illustrate with examples, resort to structures that favour anticipation such as declarative titles, subtitles, summaries of information and explanatory boxes. It is also necessary to use text markers to indicate the type of connection between the phrases or the function of a particular paragraph.

7. BLOCKS AT THE TIME OF WRITING

"Writing a text wrong is easy: the indispensable condition is not to be illiterate." There are many possibilities offered to blur the purpose of the manuscript, write convoluted phrases that cut your breath, build paragraphs as impassable walls that not even the sharpest reader could scale, hide the main idea almost until it disappears from the text, use words by groping, giving endless detours, misrepresenting, resorting to wildcard verbs that are useful for everything, using the inappropriate tone, not complying with the conventions that gender demands be ambiguous. All these possibilities emerge in the manner of ghosts when we get ready to write,

8. THE COMPOSITION PROCESS

Writing is a process of solving problems that must be faced with various strategies. Composing a text is distributing the parts of a discursive whole (whether it is a report, an article, an essay, a letter, news or a report) in such an order that they can constitute that whole. Thus, the composition is adequate planning based on the good handling of the linguistic code, to produce coherent and significant texts that find resonance in the reader. 

9. THE STYLE AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS

The style is defined in several ways: it can be special, which in terms of how to express concepts gives a writer to his works. It is also understood as use, practice, custom, fashion, or as the tone that a particular theme demands.

 The style is a formal peculiarity of the speeches, and the stylistic variety is possible thanks to the flexibility of the language that allows us to express an idea in various ways.

Style and syntax are two closely related planes.

10. EPILOGUE

We said at the beginning that the writer is not a lightning rod in a storm of creativity, because most of the time spent writing is a continuous and patient work whose goal is to achieve an optimal level of expression, in whose background there is always a clear thinking; indeed, writing is an orderly and correct way of formulating thinking. Now, when it is said that it is necessary to write correctly, the image of the nineteenth-century grammarian comes to mind, whose objective was to tend for the purity of the language, which was conceived as a closed system. Nowadays, what is right or wrong is not discussed so much, but rather it is about conserving the language unit by pointing out the abnormal uses of language.

In such a way, the university community has the delicate task of properly indicating the direction that language should follow. However, if we do not study the language and write by our effort, by our perseverance, dedication, and passion, it is better to convince ourselves that we will not learn to build a significant surface.