Academic Writing

Growing up, my mother would always ask my sister and me to proofread things that she wrote for her business.  I remember our most common remark was that she wrote “too fancy.”  She had a talent for making an email sound like the opening lines of a dissertation.  Over the years I’ve begun to pick up on this habit, and can no longer send an email without using clunky phrases like “attached please find,” “regarding,” or “confirm.”  The first Facebook message I ever sent included the phrase “Could you clarify please?” when someone suggested I friend a profile with a name I didn’t recognize.  When discussing word choice and genre, these embarrassing examples came strikingly to mind.

While the genres of email or Facebook messages don’t lend themselves well to my peculiar vocabulary, academic writing has proven to be much more up my alley.  In fact, heightened language is one of the most obvious hallmarks of academic writing, and I can’t seem to stop using it.  As I consider my upcoming research paper, I feel fairly confident I can achieve a paper that sounds very academic and has the necessary tone, but our recent discussions about academic writing have raised several more challenges of good academic writing.  

In addition to using words that make one sound intelligent, one has to actually make a clear, intelligent argument, including addressing alternative views, crafting the argument as a conversation with other academics, avoiding words that complicate simple explanations, and defining terms that may be specific to one’s discipline.  The last one, in particular, is a weakness of mine.  I’ve become so involved in my areas of interest that I sometimes forget much of what I take for granted is not necessarily common knowledge (you mean not everyone knows what gender performance is?).  Aside from this flaw, I can generally present clear, somewhat concise explanations that still use academic language. 

The biggest challenge I need to address, though, is framing my argument as a conversation with other views (including opposing views).  This is a relatively new concept for me, so when researching my topic I will attempt to specifically search for articles that contradict what I am saying.  That way I can address and rebut these counterarguments to strengthen my own position.

As I move forward with my writing this semester, I also need to practice the habits of mind from the Framework for Success, particularly persistence and openness.  The upcoming research project is a somewhat larger writing project, in both time and extensiveness, so persistence will be especially important.  I am often guilty of finishing an essay, revising it once or twice, and then never wanting to touch it again.  Even if I’m interested in the topic, I get easily tired of the paper and find it more difficult to continue making revisions.  This I need to work on.  Additionally, I need to continue developing the habit of openness in searching for alternative positions to the one I am arguing.  This will allow me to give opposing views a fair treatment, while also maintaining my own position.  I am sincerely convicted of my beliefs, but I want to ensure that conviction does not morph into closed-mindedness.

Through further practice of academic writing, I hope to become more adept at writing within this genre.  I have learned much about what this academic writing entails, and hopefully my attempts to master it will be more successful than my attempts to master email or private messaging.  Or at the very least, far less embarrassing.