What Is Academic Writing?
Academic writing is a formal style of writing used in academic contexts. It differs from other forms of writing, such as journalistic or creative writing, because it is usually more formal and often requires research and evidence to support arguments.
There are different types of academic writing, depending on the task at hand. For example, an essay is a common type of academic writing, while a research paper is another popular type. There are also other types of academic writing, such as lab reports, case studies, and book reviews.
Academic writing often uses a specific format and structure. It usually has an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The introduction introduces the topic and provides background information. The body paragraphs develop the argument or main idea, using evidence and examples. The conclusion sums up the argument and often includes a call to action.
Academic writing can be challenging, but it is also rewarding. It allows you to share your ideas with the world and to make an impact on others. With practice, you can develop your own unique style of academic writing.
Can Academic Writing Be Fun?
The objectives for writing academic papers, on most occasions, are to test learned concepts and to set up platforms for encouraging the search for new information. As Braden (2013) writes, the pursuit of such objectives is often modeled in such a way that, depending on interests, can be entertaining or outright challenging. Although a number of students passionately indulge in the writing of their academic papers, the challenges, which ultimately affect most students’ commitment, arise from the fact that academic tasks are deliberately designed to be dull. The main reason for this is to encourage uniformity (Omar, 2019). This in turn makes it easier to judge students’ merit, especially when compared to other students’. As will be demonstrated herein, the dullness, which equates to boringness, is birthed by restrictive requirements, a common mismatch between the students’ and their tutors’ objectives, and the external academic pressures heaped upon students.
To begin with, academic writing is largely a dull exercise because of the many restrictive requirements demanded of students. This is the main reason why students prefer to ask for do my paper assistance instead of learning all the details and requirements towards academic papers. These often range from the word count to structure/order and the use of defined, technical terms. In the precepts of Omar (2019), such requirements often limit flair and expression. Basically, the restrictions function as obstacles to the completion of tasks mainly because they are distractions that ultimately obscure the imaginations that students may have had before committing to the completion of a task. On some occasions, they render unnecessary novel ideas that students may have considered for inclusion. On other occasions, they compel students to dilute their content with wordiness in an attempt to reach the stated word count (Dane & Rockmann, 2021). Interestingly, most of such requirements are secondary to the objectives outlined for the completion of a course and are, therefore, unnecessary.
Complementary to the above point is the fact that there commonly exists a mismatch between the students’ and the tutors’ objectives. This is oftentimes the consequence of the fact that most institutions do not care for the reasons for which students register for courses (Omar, 2019). As opposed to defining the objectives for the completion of a course on the basis of a student’s interests, institutions define their objectives on the basis of the need to get the students to master the information that their tutors will dispense (Braden, 2013). That means that tutors are often driven by principles that demand uniformity, given that it is such uniformity that can ultimately enable the measuring of progress made toward the mastery of information. The fact that most students’ interests are not accounted for dulls their passion, in the process rendering dull most academic exercises, including the writing of assignments.
Finally, there is the issue of academic pressures that are heaped upon students. These commonly include the need to record certain grades, compete against their peers, act by defined codes of conduct, and the need to please their tutors to get extra credits (Omar, 2019). The pressures can potentially birth mental illnesses. In an actual sense, a number of students are globally driven to suicide because of the mental illnesses that they develop because of the pressure of having to keep up with their courses’ academic demands. On other occasions, the pressures dull concentration and passion, both of which are important for maintaining interest in the completion of academic tasks. According to Braden (2013), the writing of academic papers has metamorphosed into a threatening event that a number of students are scared of. For this reason, it has become dull.
To Sum Up
In summary, it is evidenced that the writing of academic papers is dull. That is because, as an academic exercise: it constrains creative expression through the commonly applied multiple requirements; it comes with a glaring mismatch between students’ and tutors’ objectives; it heaps upon students additional academic pressure which, with time, dulls their passion and commitment. Interestingly, these are reasons that are birthed by the need to standardize academic writing so as to allow for the judging of the students’ academic development.
References
Braden, D. (2013). Writing is thinking, and learning to think need not be boring: Creative writing in EFL. Kaleidoscope, 5(1), 72-80.
Omar, Y. Z. (2019). Teaching Pedagogical Grammar in Context to Enrich English Language Learners’ Academic Writing. Online Submission, 2(3), 213-225.
Dane, E., & Rockmann, K. W. (2021). Listen up! Revitalizing our writing to stir our readers and supercharge our thinking. Academy of Management Discoveries, 7(2), 159-165.
