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You are here: Home / Academic Writing / An Introduction to Academic Writing

By Idrees Patel

An Introduction to Academic Writing

Remember those essays and letters you had to write in school? Some people hated writing them, but others liked doing it. Essay writing, letter writing, story writing and dialogue writing all constitute the term academic writing.

Problem was, academic writing didn’t allow much creativity. Topics were already given. You had to have an outline. You had to keep your voice formal and precise. You had to have an introduction, three paragraphs of body and a conclusion. You were not allowed to go off topic. You were not allowed to do anything unusual or unconventional.

And you wondered why you couldn’t write anything at all.

Today, let’s forget the pain of academic writing and instead make it a joy to write. Today, we will study what essays and letters are, and how to write them effortlessly and with fun. So let’s start!

Essay Writing

An essay means a short nonfiction composition. School essays are a select kind of essays – they have rules, dos and don’ts and so on. An essay has to be an attempt at putting down your thoughts on a particular subject down to paper in a logical manner. This was what many students were incapable of accomplishing or achieving. Why?

  • They hadn’t read enough about the subject, which resulted in them not knowing what to write about.
  • They hadn’t formed their opinions on the subject, or they hadn’t observed it yet.
  • They simply didn’t have an interest in writing about the subject.

These were all common problems. But once solved (and writing problems are simple to solve), essays can become a joy to write. All you need to have is:

  • An interest in writing.
  • Proper knowledge and mastery of voices (active and passive), tenses, other grammar, spelling and punctuation.
  • Prior reading of the topic.
  • Observation and curiosity in the minds of the writer.

That’s all. Once you passed this list, essay writing became easier for you. You now had an opinion about the topic. You could write about it. Language was not a problem now because you had mastered grammar. Readability was not an issue because you had mastered spelling and punctuation. You now had an introduction, body and a conclusion. You were on the right foot.

But did you need an outline?

As I’ve written before, outlining has its own advantages and disadvantages – and it rests entirely up to you whether you decide to use it or not. Think it hampers your writing process? Don’t use it! Think it improves the writing flow? Then do the opposite. Simply put, don’t force outlines on essays – try and experiment first.

The Length of an Essay

The famous five paragraph essay is quite short. Therefore, if you want to write on a subject in this format, you must make your writing concise. You must cut all the unnecessary adjectives, adverbs, generalization, and you must convert passive sentences to active sentences. By doing this, not only your writing will become shorter and concise, it will also be better and easier to read!

If you want to write longer essays, you may want to consult your teacher. Literary essays are typically longer than school essays. Learn the difference between them.

Essay Writing Tips

  1. You must have a well written introduction, one which draws the reader in and doesn’t let them go again. If you want to know how to write this, use quotes, proverbs, or whatever you like for a grabbing intro. You may find Writing Compelling Opening Chapters helpful (even though it’s aimed at fiction writers, you may get some useful tips).
  2. Your language should be simple and lucid, and not too informal. Some teachers recommend not using the word “I”, but it is not mandatory and it can actually improve some essays.
  3. You should keep a focus and write inside the topic given.
  4. End your essay with a great conclusion which sums it up. Don’t force it; write naturally and practise, and your conclusions will improve automatically.
  5. Don’t use technical words in order to sound professional. It just has the opposite effect.
  6. Write for an audience. If you are writing a school essay, this will almost certainly be your teacher. So you should address your writing style to something which is suitable.
  7. After having written the essay, you should edit and proofread it. It’s amazing how many errors you can find in this stage, and how much your essay shines after having corrected them.

Letter Writing

Letters are of two kinds – informal and formal. Today, the informal letter has been almost completely replaced by email (although it is still necessary to know how to write it), but the formal is still necessary. Read Letter Writing 101 for tips and tricks on how to write these letters. For informal letters, wait for part II of this article, where I will also address story writing and dialogue writing.

Effective Academic Writing

Even for those who hate it, academic writing is necessary and will remain so. Therefore it’s better to just learn to like it; learn to like writing essays. After all, who knows: you may just have some fun writing them. 🙂

Effective academic writing has this one characteristic: it is written for a purpose. You don’t want anyone to say “So what?” after reading your essay. Even you don’t outline, you must have a plan behind it, and you must know why you are writing it. It must have an idea, and it must have a focus.

You don’t need to have some degree in English to create effective academic writing, you just need to have an interest in writing, like I had. Academic writing came easily to me; in fact, I used to love writing essays and stories. My marks were always excellent, yet I didn’t have to learn them by heart or write an outline. I just wrote whatever came in my head, and maybe you can do the same.

Read Part II!

Do you have any academic writing tips and experiences to share? Anything to add to this article? Feel free to share them in the comments.

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Further Reading:

  1. How to Write an Essay — Part I
  2. Six factors to consider while writing an essay
  3. Use an affordable academic writing service to get help with assignments from the best writers
  4. An Introduction to Academic Writing – Part II
  5. How to Excel at Academic Writing – Five Tips for Success

Filed Under: Academic Writing Tagged With: academic writing, essay writing

Idrees Patel

Idrees Patel is a Bachelor of Management Studies graduate, and is located in India. His goal for Writers’ Treasure to make it a resource which provides in-depth and effective writing advice for writers.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Academic Writing says

    December 6, 2010 at 7:46 PM

    Very well written. Keep it up! I would like to add here that before crafting an essay, one must carry out a comprehensive research on the area and get a strong grip on it because this would smoothen the flow of ideas and words.

    Reply
    • Idrees says

      December 28, 2010 at 1:59 PM

      Yes, you should definitely carry out some research. But what if the topic is one that the author has never researched on before (like as in an exam)? That’s why we should observe all the more.

      Thanks for the tip, I appreciate it a lot.

      (By the way, your site is great!)

      Reply
  2. essay writer says

    March 28, 2012 at 2:57 PM

    Essay writing is an art and i must say about essay tips. Those 7 essay tips are really guide us how to write a unique and good essay.

    Reply
  3. uk-dissertation reviews says

    April 3, 2012 at 4:04 PM

    Very good writing tips. Must be follow if you want to write a good essay.

    Reply
    • Idrees says

      September 9, 2012 at 1:04 PM

      Thanks!

      Reply
  4. jim@Narrative essay thesis statement says

    July 18, 2012 at 4:48 PM

    I prefer long short essays to long ones. A five paragraph essay that is concise is far much better than a long essay that doesn’t hit the nail on the head.

    Reply
    • Idrees says

      September 9, 2012 at 1:11 PM

      Very true. Like they say, shorter is better. But sometimes you must expand it. The trick is to expand it without rambling. Keep commenting and thanks for the comment!

      Reply
  5. Self says

    November 16, 2013 at 3:09 AM

    I would like to thank you for the efforts you have put in
    writing this blog. I am hoping to see the same high-grade content by
    you in the future as well. In fact, your creative writing abilities has encouraged me to get my own site now 😉

    Reply
  6. Tim says

    March 3, 2015 at 3:01 AM

    Great post. Interesting infographic how to write an argumentative essay http://www.essay-profy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/how_to_write_essay.png

    Reply
  7. uk best essay says

    August 25, 2015 at 6:08 PM

    Mentioned tips is really helpful, but I want to add one. You must write about something you know very well. If you are not understand the topic, you should explore it and then write an essay.

    Reply
  8. Carlos Grady says

    December 7, 2016 at 1:55 PM

    It\’s hard to write an essay especially when you\’re not ready for it. These tips of yours can help a lot. Thanks mate! I will be looking forward to more tips and techniques from you. I am wondering if you have tips on how to write an essay.

    Reply
  9. fnaf says

    December 23, 2017 at 1:44 PM

    Thank you for posting such a great article!

    Reply
  10. John says

    September 19, 2020 at 8:22 PM

    Nice post!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. An Introduction to Academic Writing – Part II | Writers' Treasure says:
    July 26, 2010 at 11:57 PM

    […] Read Part I of this post. […]

    Reply
  2. Writing Tip: Use Vivid Description | Writers' Treasure says:
    July 31, 2010 at 11:16 PM

    […] – This applies almost everywhere, but not in exceptions. Is your writing project a scholarly or academic one? Law? Advertising? Then this advice does not apply to you; passive voice and filler words are […]

    Reply
  3. How to Write an Essay — Part I says:
    December 20, 2011 at 8:57 AM

    […] An Introduction to Academic Writing I wrote some pointers on how to write essays. Let’s face it, though, they were very basic and […]

    Reply
  4. Boredom and magnetic writing: mutual enemies says:
    April 14, 2014 at 11:49 PM

    […] making your writing compelling. Same goes for the opening chapters of fiction. Then you have other academic writing forms like letters, and you can make them compelling by being focused. Make formal letters short […]

    Reply

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    About Idrees Patel

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