An Outline Academic Writing

7/27/2019 An Outline Academic Writing

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Introduction

Academic writing is one important issue that are raising in academic environment,

especially among international students. When students are asked to compose academic

papers, it usually means they have to present their own opinion about, at least, a

scientific topic. In doing so, students have to read a lot of literatures and cite

appropriate ones in order to provide robust evidences to support their ideas. As

academic writing has many requirements including providing important evidences and

reading academic sources, in this essay, I explain key features, frequent problems and

the process approach of academic writing. At the end of this essay, I describe a plan to

effectively do academic writing for over 6 weeks.

Key FeaturesGood writing essays have some critical features in order to help academic scholars to

communicate their ideas appropriately and effectively. According to Gillet (2013),

features are including complexity, formality, precision, objectivity, explicitness,

accuracy, hedging and responsibility. Indeed, writing academic features are important

in order to present academic essays in factual, objective and formal ways.

Complexity is an important feature of academic writing. It means that academic essays

should use complex structure, grammar and vocabulary. As academic essays maycontrast and categorize a lot of factual information, it is needed to use some sentences

that more complex than that in informal or spoken languages. For example, in order to

combine two similar opinions and to explain ideas objectively, writers may use

subordinate clauses and passive sentences simultaneously.

A next feature of scientific writing is formality. Formality means that academic

scholars have to describe their ideas in formal languages instead of informal or spoken

languages. For instance, Dad may be used in spoken language but it should be

replaced by Father in scientific papers. If, as another example, any academic scholar

tends to use his own informal languages, other academic scholars who read his

scientific essay may confuse owing to his unknownly informal languages.

In order to provide information as exact as possible, academic writing should contain a

precision feature. A precision feature asks scientific authors to give information as

precise as possible to readers. Due to this, academic scholars should support their

academic essays with figure, table or graphto give clear information. Moreover,


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academic authors shall describe a concise magnitude of scientific matters in order to

give other academic scholars exact information. For instance, instead of saying the

earthquake is very big, a writer should write the earthquake is measured 7 .3 on

Richter scale. This is more concise and precise so that readers could get clear picture

about the earthquake or scientific issues that any academic writer mentions.

A primary objective of academic essays is to discuss a scientific idea so that those

emphasis on academic debates. This characteristics is widely called objectivity, in

which academic writers have to discuss intended academic issues instead of their own

personal matters.

Since academic authors intend to discuss academic issues, they tend to use signposting

words to combine or contrast some facts or ideas. These signalling words are directly

embedded in academic essays to help readers easily understand academic ideas

mentioned in academic literacy. Signalling word such as however, alternatively, owing

to and due to this, are few examples of these words. This feature of academic writing is

called explicitness.

To present clear academic opinions, academic authors must have robust English

literacy ability. This feature is known as an accuracy feature of academic literacy.Academic writers have to understand what specific words to use, in their particular

fields, in order to clearly present their ideas. For instance, academic writers whose

economics background should understand differences among money, currency, fund

and capital. If, for example, they do not understand specific differences among those,

they may confuse readers who read their scientific essays.

Another interesting feature of academic writing is hedging. It is also called using

cautious language. In scientific or academic environment, some facts or factual

information may be true for specific condition but not true for the other condition. In

turn, academic scholars should provide clear their stance about their claims. For

instance, instead of saying Big cities have terrible traffic jam, academic scholars

should say Most big cities in Asia have terrible traffic jam. In this case, there is a

possibility that a few big cities may not have terrible traffic jam, so that, the last saying

is a cautious stance as it states that most big cities in Asia have terrible traffic jam.


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When academic scholars explain their academic ideas, they have to provide strong

arguments or evidence to support their claim. In other words, academic essays have to

reflect authors responsibility to support their academic opinion. This feature of

academic literacy is known as responsibility. Academic authors must support their

claims with some evidences or factual information so that they can persuade and argue

readers that their claims are a robust opinion.

Frequent Problems

According to Sowden (2005) some international students have problems in doing

academic writing as they have differently cultural backgrounds. Chinese students, for

instance, do not cite other works that they mention in their work. The bilingual students

may not cite other research as other knowledge, in their own culture, can be supposedas public opinion (Sowden, 2005). Another example is Asian students are likely to

compose descriptive papers instead of critical papers as their cultural background are

not encouraged students to criticize other opinions (Sowden, 2005).

In addition, different styles among students first languages and English may cause

some difficulties when foreign students write academic papers (Al-Khasawneh, 2010).

For instance, some Arabic may have longer sentences than English that may influence

students when they write academic papers (Al-Khasawneh, 2010). In turn, language

background may hinder students academic writing progress.

The Process Approach

A main objective of the process approach is to give students a chance to exprience the

nature of writing such as pre-writing, drafting, evaluating and revision (Hyland, 2002 as

cited in Demirel, 2011). It is likely that students, who have experienced the process

approach, can follow the stages of the process approach in their daily academic life. In

turn, students can effectively write their academic essays as they may get useful

feedbacks from their peers and tutors.

In addition, another objective of the process approach is to reduce anxiety among

students, especially international students (Demirel, 2011). As there is interaction

among students, students may share their difficulties, so that scholars could write in a

less stressful way.

In order to increase efficacy of the process approach, students are usually asked toproceed some stages. Some stages are including prewriting, planning, drafting, peer


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reviews, revision and proofreading (Demirel, 2011). Prewriting is a stage in which each

students will write their outlines, especially about what their main ideas will be

explored further. In the planning stage, students may compose a timetable of their

writing progress. Following this, student can start to write their ideas in the drafting

stage. After finishing peer reviews, students should revise their essays and proofread

their writing before collecting theirs to their tutor.

The Plan for over 6 Weeks

According to Demirel (2011), a possible plan to write academic essays as follows:

subject selection, proposal writing, annotated bibliography, introduction section,

literature review, data collection, writing the results and handing the final paper to the

tutor. In addition, Whitaker (2009) points out another possible plan to conductacademic writing as follows: choosing a topic, thinking (brainstorming), doing

research, discovering your thesis, planning (outline), writing, revising, editing and

proofreading. Although both authors seems to have different stages for a writing plan,

their ideas can be grouped into following stages: choosing a topic, proposal writing (an

outline), research to find appropriate bibliography, building a thesis, writing and

finding feedbacks, revising and proofreading. These stages can be done within 6 weeks

or more as seen in the table 1.

Time Activities Notes

The first week Choosing a topic

The second week Proposal writing (an outline)

The third week Research to find appropriate bibliography

The fourth week Building a thesis

The fifth week Writing and finding feedbacks

The sixth week Revising

The seventh week Proofreading


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SUBTITLE BERJUMLA 8 KATA


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DRAFT OF ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Al Fadda, H. (2012). Difficulties in academic writing: From the perspective of King

Saud University of postgraduate students. English Language Training, 5(3), pp. 123-

130.

This source is credible as it was published in a peer-reviewed journal, English

Language Training.

Lack of academic literacy may be influenced by some internal and external factors.

Internal factors, for example, are including first language background, motivation and

lack of English skills. In addition, external factors are including different styles

between Arabic and English such as writing styles and alphabets. Lastly, the author

suggests that teachers and native English students may help Arabic students to increase

their English writing.

Al-Khasawneh, F, M, S. (2010). Writing for academic purposes: Problems faced by

Arab postgraduate students of the college of business, UUM. ESP World, 2 (28), pp. 1-

23.

This publication was published in a scholarly reviewed journal and it has been cited

nine other scholars.

The writer argues that Arabic students have some problems when they start to write

their academic papers. Problem sources among Arabic students are including weak

English foundation, environment issues and methods of English teaching.

Environmental issues includes limited opportunity to practice English, first language

styles and isolated environment. Moreover, problem sources in terms of methods of

English teaching are including teachers low proficiency in English, lack of writing in

academic world and using Arabic in English classes. Moreover, weak English

foundation are including grammar, spelling and referencing.

Badger, R & White, G. (2000). A process genre approach to teaching academic writing.

ELT Journal, 54 (2), pp. 153-160.

This essay is really credible as it was published in a peer-reviewed journal and has been

cited by more than 500 other scholars.

There are three approaches in teaching writing, namely, product approach, processapproach and genre approach. As each approach has weaknesses and strengths,

adaptation should take in order to cover its weaknesses. For instance, when a English

teacher implements the process approach, he or she may provide some inputs such as

appropriate articles and previous students works for her or his students so that the

process approcahs weak point of lack input can be covered.

Coffin, C., Curry, M,J., Goodman, S., Hewings, A., Lillis, T,M., & Swann, J.(2004).

Teaching academic writing: A toolkit for higher education. London: Routledge.

This book could be viewed a complete guide in teaching academic writing. For

students, this book can give students insights about writing assessment so that they can


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create well academic essays. Moreover, this book also describes different types and

samples of academic essays from different subjects.

Demirel, E. (2011). Take it step by step : Following a process approach to academic

writing to overcome student anxiety. Journal of Academic Writing, 1 (1), pp. 222-227.

This academic research was published online in a peer-reviewed journal.

This author claims that the process approach could reduce Turkish students when they

write their academic essays. Some issues that the most stressfull for students are the

complexity of writing rules or conventions, difficulties to find appropriate sources for

their papers and unfamiliarity with academic writing. The process approach could help

students in reducing anxiety since the process method gives students chances to interact

with other students and to practice academic writing frequently.

Gillet, A. (2013). Using english for academic purposesa guide for students in higher

education: academic writing. Retrieved on July 20, 2013 from http://www.uefap.com/

writing/feature/ featfram.htm.

This bibliography is important and credible as it is published in 2013 as a book and it

contains a lot of useful information about academic writing. Gillet (2013) points out

some features of academic writing such as complexity, formality, precision, objectivity,

explicitness, accuracy, hedging and responsibility.Indeed, writing academic features are

important in order to present academic essays in factual, objective and formal ways.

Sowden, C. (2005). Plagiarism and the culture ofmultilingual students in

highereducation abroad. ELT Journal Volume, 59(3), pp. 226-

233.doi:10.1093/elt/cci042.

The paper version of this article was published by Oxford University Press.

Sowden (2005) argues that international students may face some difficulties in Western

academic environment, especially in academic essays, owing to different culture. For

instance, a group of Japanese students refused to cite other works in their papers since

they think that knowledge they mentioned is public knowledge. Another example is as

most foreign students from Asia are seldom asked to criticize other scholars opinion,

they may face difficulty when they compose their academic essays, especially when

they are asked to do literature review or criticize other scholars papers.

University of Technology Sydney Library. (2013). Academic writing. Retrieved on July

20, 2013 fromhttp://www.lib.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/attachments/

page/Academic%20Writing%20Guide%20Part%201%20-20Academic%20Writing.pdf

This publication has been used a handbook of academic writing in the university.

This tutorial book contains a lot of information regarding with academic writing. In the

first section, the writer explains about important features of academic writing, then, the

next section tells about guidelines to prevent from basic English mistakes in writing

such as grammar, referencing, vocabulary, structure and writing styles. Moreover, this

citation also explains about some important characteristics of academic writing such as

summarizing, paraphrasing, reporting verbs, passive sentences, and formal languages.


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Whitaker, A. (2009). Academic writing guide 2010. City University of Seattle.

Retrieved on July 20, 2013 from

http://www.vsm.sk/Curriculum/academicsupport/academicwritingguide.pdf.

This publication has been used a handbook of academic writing in the university.

This handbook provides information on a complete plan to compose qualified academicwriting. According to Whitaker (2009), some plans in writing academic essays are

including choosing a topic, thinking (brainstorming), doing research, discovering your

thesis, planning (outline), writing, revising, editing and proofreading. Furthermore,

what students should do in each stage is clearly explained with simple guidelines and

examples.

Some features of academic writing can be categorized as basic features and additional

features. The basic features are including complexity, formality, precision, objectivity,

explicitness, accuracy, hedging and responsibility. The additional features

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An Outline Academic Writing