I don’t pretend to be an expert on academic writing, so I
hardly feel qualified to explain it to anyone else, let alone give tips on how
to do it well. Instead, I’ll attempt to
give myself advice before my first essay of the year, and maybe one of you will
find it interesting as well.
Dear self,
Best of luck on your first essay for the year! They say
first impressions are hard to change, but no pressure. In the hopes that this will help you knock it
out of the park, here are some important components of academic writing.
In academic writing the most important thing is to convey
your ideas effectively. “Entering the
conversation” involves connecting those ideas to existing pieces of work in
order to share how your perspective is unique and show what new thoughts you
can bring to the table. Academic writing
is not, as you formerly believed, merely an exercise to demonstrate what you
have learned. It involves showing how
what you’ve learned matters, and why people should pay attention to it. Ultimately, academic writing seeks to solve
problems and expand human understanding, so each writer attempts to build upon
the work of others to contribute their perspective to this overall goal.
An important part of this process is showing how your ideas
fit into the already existing conversation.
Writers use various “moves” to demonstrate this, by showing how they
agree, disagree, or otherwise respond to various sources they have used in
their research. From the templates found
in They Say/ I Say to the
sophisticated integration of personal anecdotes and supporting research found in
The Shallows, I’ve seen that there are
many ways to accomplish this. All of
them, however, use research as more than simply a way to back up one’s claims
(you know you do this, so make sure you do more this time). Research can be a launching point, a
disagreement to clear up, a reinforcement of one’s own experiences, a misconception
to address, an expert opinion to support one’s point, etc. For example, one common move is to say “most
people think _____, but according to ______ it’s really more like ______, and I
agree.” This type of move incorporates many different sources, in instances of both
agreement and disagreement. This enables
writers to establish their own opinion as well as how it fits in the opinions
of others.
In addition to establishing how one fits in with the
perspectives of others in the “conversation” of academic writing, it’s
important to remember who we’re talking to, our audience. Who we are trying to convince plays a large
role in how we craft our arguments.
First graders understand arguments with simple language, where scientists
require arguments with extensive evidence.
Audiences who already know about the topic may be insulted if it is
presented in layman’s terms, but those unfamiliar with the topic may lose
interest if lofty language is used. In
general, it’s important to know what your audience expects from you so you can
understand how best to convince them that what you have to say matters. Do they want to be entertained? Enlightened?
Amused? Do they need a problem
solved? How much do they already know about my topic? These are the sort of
questions to keep in mind throughout the writing process. Addressing these effectively will make your
writing much more interesting and convincing to your intended audience.
But all of these moves and considerations are only effective
when you have a good topic for your writing.
What do I mean by a good topic? I
mean a topic that is specific enough to be adequately covered by your writing
and that you can convince your readers is something they should care about (and
of course, you should care about it too, otherwise this step is much more
difficult). Once you have a general
topic, ask questions about it to figure out what angle you want to take in
addressing it. Evaluate these questions
to see which ones are worth pursuing. Then,
once you establish your perspective, keep asking “so what?” until you get an
answer that will make your readers care about it too. Make sure that your topic holds significance
with them, not just yourself. Doing this
will help you develop a specific problem, rather than a broad topic, that is
much more manageable to tackle in this type of paper.
Keep these principles of academic writing in mind as you
develop your essay so you can put your best paper forward!
Best wishes,
Me
P.S. Don’t procrastinate!