ABOUT ACADEMIC WRITING

INTRODUCTION.

In the field of Academia, Academic writing involves writing and publishing across a broad set of genres and forms. The entire spectrum of academic writing also includes critical writing. The tone used academic writing is normally impersonal and dispassionate as it corresponds to the targeted audience who are usually informed and critical in nature  and as such the information contained in the prose should be based on factual facts that can either reinforce or challenge accepted concepts, theories, hypotheses, laws and arguments.

The scope of academic writing can extend outside the conventional world of 'the academy' and scholarly writing to include speeches, journalism, pamphlets, public engagements, blogposts, general articles, web pages and e-books.

DISCOURSE COMMUNITY.

The bulk of academic writing involves writing for a Discourse Community because the main aim of academic writing is to influence a particular discourse community. A discourse community is made up of individuals sharing a common mutual interests, beliefs and/or notions and its usefulness was clearly elucidated by James Porter in his paper entitled  Intertextuality and the Discourse Community which was published in 1986 in which he said that a discourse community “establishes limits and regularities...who may speak, what may be spoken, and how it is to be said; in addition [rules] prescribe what is true and false, what is reasonable and what foolish, and what is meant and what not”. As such, academic writing must follow the laid down guidelines and set rules.

Some of the discourse communities in the world of academy include the following:

1.        Medicine

2.      Law

3.      Psychology

4.      Films (Movies)

5.      General Forums

6.      Technology

7.       Sociology

8.      Philosophy

9.      Chemistry

10.    Physics

11.      Mathematics

12.    Writing

13.    Rhetoric and Composition

INTERTEXTUALITY.

Intertextuality refers to the combination of past writings (or proses) into original novel pieces of text. As such, Intertextuality is a critical element of academic writing as it establishes the fundamental linkage of ideas while simultaneously establishing the originality of a set of ideas and/or offering new perspectives. Intertextuality has been sub-categorized into presupposition and iterability.

ACADEMIC FRAMEWORK.

Another fundamental facet of academic writing is the academic framework. The academic framework does place into perspective accepted facts, laws, discourses and theories; and thereafter presents it in an explanatory manner to describe a point of view or perspective from which the remainder of the academic paper will be analyzed. According to Wikipedia:

Because of the established framework, the reader will logically understand the progression of the writer’s argument because the writer has legitimized his or her claim by citing an accepted theory (framework) and thus the reader will be directed towards a particular conclusion. When one uses an academic concept that has been accepted by the discourse community as a frame, this frame “forces you to offer both a definition and description of the principle around which your argument develops”.

The academic framework is established in a two-step process whereby the author first establishes a place (for or) in the conversation and then established the new or novel idea within accepted dictates.