There are three stages in producing an academic essay or report: planning, researching and writing up. In each of these stages there are a number of smaller steps.
Activity 4-1: Explaining the process of academic writing
The following passage explains the process of writing an essay. Read it carefully and complete the flow chart that follows.
The first step of essay writing is to decide on a topic, and prepare a schedule of work for the available time. Then the topic should be brainstormed and a draft outline prepared. Next, possible sources have to be evaluated critically and the most relevant selected, after which you can start making notes, using paraphrasing and summarizing skills. When you have collected enough material to answer the question, the first draft of the main body can be written from the notes, taking care to avoid plagiarism.
Subsequently you can write the first draft of the introduction and conclusion, ensuring that a logical approach to the title is developed. After this the whole draft must be critically re-read and revised for maximum clarity and accuracy. The penultimate stage is to prepare a final list of references, appendices and other items such as tables and figures. Finally the whole text should be thoroughly proofread before handing in the assignment on time.
What You should Know
As an example of advanced writing, academic writing can be defined as the type of writing used in an academic environment for a number of special purposes including doing research, writing reports, preparing term papers, reviewing books and articles, and completing theses and dissertations. Among the varieties of academic writing, research paper and report are the most common ones.
Academic writing usually follows a particular style. Here are some guidelines:
Be formal. Avoid slang e.g. cool, and language that is too casual e.g. pretty awful. Use full forms rather than abbreviations, e.g. does not, rather than doesn’t. Consider the use of nominalization rather than verb structures.