
Types of Academic Writing
Since the beginning of civilization, people have been able to write down their thoughts and ideas and share them on paper. People use writing as one of the most common forms of communication to transmit and share their thoughts and feelings with one another.
Writing is one of the most extensively utilized techniques of communication. The written word began as a simple method of communication many years ago, but it has since developed into an intricate and complex art form.
Structure of Academic Writing
All the academic writings follow a specific structure throughout the content, but a generalized structure is also present, which is implemented in most of the writings.
- Description Of The Topic
- Investigation Of Issues/ Discussion
- Presentation Of Solutions/ Responses
- Summary
What is Academic Writing?
Academic writing is a type of article writing that tries to present a coherent and compact body of technical information to an academic audience. The audience for academic writing is typically students and professors.
In academic writing, facts and arguments founded on topics take precedence, along with maintaining a consistent tone of language and employing a well-balanced framework. Examples of academic writing include research papers, thesis reports, dissertations, and proposals for dissertations, among other things.
Types of Academic Writing
Several categories may be used to classify the various types of academic writing. Based on the approach, four categories can be used to classify academic writing. It’s also possible for certain writings to be a hybrid of all of these different styles.
- Descriptive
- Analytical
- Persuasive
- Critical
1. Descriptive Writing
Each piece of descriptive writing should work toward familiarising the reader with the topic at hand in order to achieve its purpose. It makes an effort to present all relevant information while sticking to the normal format and standards of academic writing.
This kind of writing, such as an official document of a person or a lab report, contains all of the required information but does so in an extremely condensed fashion, using very few words.
2. Analytical Writing
Analytical writing, as its name suggests, is focused on the analysis of specific data in order to have a better understanding of the issues at hand and to give solutions that are viable to those concerns.
In addition to offering a comprehensive comparison and assessing the pros and drawbacks of various solutions, it elaborates on the type of solutions and methods utilized in these solutions and examines the practicability of these solutions. The claims made in such publications are typically supported by statistical evidence, which can be presented in graphs, tables, and charts.
3. Persuasive Writing
The author’s opinions and viewpoints are two more types of content writing that can be found in persuasive writing. This writing style goes beyond simple analysis as it bases its argument on the reader’s acceptance of the author’s point of view as a premise.
This type of writing is called argumentative writing. The editorials, product reviews, and advertisements in the media tend to impact the readers’ attitudes.
4. Critical Writing
Critical writing, much like persuasive writing, is most frequently done in academics, such as at the graduate or advanced levels of the undergraduate curriculum. Although the goal of both critical and persuasive writing is to get the reader to see things from the writer’s perspective, persuasive writing goes further by presenting at least one additional point of view than critical writing does. After addressing this issue, the author will provide their viewpoints on the topic, including their reasons and interpretations, and then proceed to draw a parallel between them.
Conclusion
Depending on the reader’s perspective, Types of Academic Writing works can be roughly classified into diverse categories, many of which overlap. As we’ve seen, there is significant overlap across these various groups.