Annually thousands of different written works are done by college and university students worldwide. Most of those works can be called academic writing. It’s the kind of task students often find hard and time-consuming. But professors like to give such tasks for a reason. Academic writing is a great exercise to develop thinking and a lot of skills necessary for many professional activities. So, what works can be considered academic writing? They include different kinds of essays like compare and contrast essays (where the author compares usually two different things), cause and effect essays (where the author explains the effects certain event or action will have), persuasive essays (where the author tries to persuade the reader to accept his/her point of view on the issue) as well as laboratory reports, thesis, analytical papers, and several other kinds of work.
The Features of Academic Writing
Academic writing should be logical and clear as only this way you can explain your point on the topic. It also needs to be convincing because in many cases the written piece should prove that the provided arguments are true. To be successful in this you should also provide facts, data, or evidence, which should be collected scientific way. What is more, scientific writing has to be interesting. This may sound weird, as many think that a scientific paper is something dry, full of numbers and scientific terms. Good scientific writing should be involving and interesting.
Skills that Academic Writing Develops
It’s impossible to learn to swim without going into the water. We acquire both knowledge and skills only by doing. Academic writing is a good activity, but what skills can you get writing academic papers?
- This kind of writing develops critical thinking. To write a thesis or present arguments the writer needs to find and analyze a lot of information, choosing what is important to prove his/her point. Academic papers should be structured and this means that the author should think about how to structure all the materials he/she has collected. Later, while proofreading, the author has to apply critical thinking again to improve the writing.
- Academic writing helps you to gain new knowledge. And you not only read and learn about something new. The task of the paper usually requires you to interpret the facts and data, to stick to one of the existing scientific theories, and probably to criticize the other. Writing a paper develops your skills of self-education which is critical for any professional.
- Academic writing develops your communication and language skills. An academic paper should have good grammar and correct usage of special scientific language. Ideas or arguments, the author presents in his/her paper, should be understandable and well formulated. If you can write clearly, you will be able to speak clearly too. And this skill is very important for many different professions.
- Academic writing improves planning and time-management skills. As your paper is usually due to a certain date, you need to plan your work carefully and then stick to your plan to be on time.
- This kind of writing teaches you to conduct research. Usually, an academic paper requires an analysis of everything that is known on the topic. So, the author needs to think about where to find reliable sources of information or data and later analyze the existing theories and information he/she has found. In many cases, it’s also necessary to make some experiments or collect certain data himself. This is what research is about.
As you can see academic writing is not just one of the most favorite tasks given by college and university professors. A blogger Jim Smith from custom research paper writing service claims, “It’s a great tool that helps you to increase your knowledge on the issue”. And what is more, it develops several skills that are very important for being a professional. Just imagine a person, who has got a deep knowledge on the issue and can present his/her knowledge logically and in clear language; a person, who can conduct research and evaluate the acquired information; a person, who is never late with deadlines. Such a professional will be a wanted employee just everywhere. So, try to write your academic papers as well, as you can because it’s not only about grades, it’s about your becoming a great professional.
