Pages: 6

When writers communicate with members of a disciplinary community, they present information in ways that meet the expectations and needs of their community of readers. Disciplinary communities (e.g., the sciences or humanities) differ not only in the way they present information but also how they use language: while organizational patterns are fairly easy for writers to see, the language patterns are not. This handbook explores the unique features of academic language because it is significantly different from the language used in conversation and non-academic texts.

Pages: 10

Since their inception in the late 1800s, handbooks have offered students and instructors an overview of the expectations—or standards—for ‘good writing.’ In the late nineteenth century, handbooks focused on mechanical correctness since that was considered the primary quality of good writing at that time. In the twentieth century, handbooks dedicated equal time to the process of writing and mechanical correctness, a reflection of the view that both writing process and writing product mattered. In the early 2000s, researchers determined that there is not a single standard of good writing but rather different standards that vary with the text’s purpose and discourse community.

Pages: 17

Dialects are varieties of a particular language based on the region where users reside (regional variation) or on the socioeconomic characteristics of the speakers (social variation). While this regional and social variation is based on speakers, there is another type of variation –register variation—based on situation. Academic English is a register—a variety of written and spoken language used in different disciplines; it is marked not only by discipline-specific terminology (the ‘jargon’) but also by specific language features that differentiate it from other registers, including the standardized variety of English.

Pages: 9

At the lexical level (the level of words, that is), academic writing has two unique characteristics: first, it uses discipline-specific terminology to express key concepts in the field. Second, it uses more nouns and adjectives, as opposed to conversation, which uses more verbs and adverbs. In other words, academic writing focuses more on entities (expressed by nouns) whereas conversation focuses more on processes (expressed by verbs and adverbs). Adjectives are also more common in academic writing as they allow writers to add detail and elaboration to nouns, thus creating complex constructions that pack a lot of information.

Pages: 17

Writers create longer sentences that include detail and elaboration in two ways: by combining two clauses as equals—which is not the common way in academic writing—or by making a clause dependent and connecting it to an independent clause. This dependency can be achieved in three different ways: by using a subordinating conjunction and creating an adverbial clause that provides detail to the verb; by using a relative pronoun and creating a relative clause that provides detail to a noun; by creating a complement clause that completes a verb, noun or adjective.

Pages: 22

Academic texts are typically dense and compact. This is due not just to the discipline-specific vocabulary used, but most importantly, to the structure of the sentences. Specifically, academic texts—especially science texts—consist of long sentences that do not always comprise clauses that have a subject and a tensed verb, but rather rely on non-tensed verbs. While tensed clauses provide explicit information to the reader regarding time of event and agent, non-tensed clauses do not; this creates a text that is more difficult to process but is also more efficient for expert readers since more information is packed in fewer words.

Pages: 14

Elaboration is an important characteristic of academic writing because it allows the writer to provide specific detail and make their meaning clear. Detail can be added in two ways: first, through dependent clauses, particularly subordinate clauses that modify verbs and relative clauses which modify nouns; second, through non-clausal ways, that is, words (adjectives, adverbs and nouns) as well as phrases (prepositional and appositive noun phrases) which also help writers balance elaboration with economy of expression. In particular, adding detail to nouns in non-clausal ways is typical of science writing.

Pages: 35

Punctuation is a continuum ranging from conventional (which is mainly based on syntax) to rhetorical (which allows writers to add an extra layer of meaning and emphasis). Writers can decide where to position themselves along the continuum but must always be mindful of the effects their choices have on their readers. If the punctuation choices are quite different from what readers expect, readers may become frustrated and even stop reading: they may decide that it’s not worth the effort to work out the information the text is aiming to convey.

Pages: 34

Writers draw on syntactic and lexical resources in order to create paragraphs that are cohesive and flow. They determine which element will appear first in the sentence (the theme). This element orients the reader and sets expectations about what will come later in the sentence. They also determine which information is familiar and thus belongs earlier in the sentence, which is new and belongs later in the sentence (after the new information), and which needs to be prominent and how to convey this prominence in a sentence. Writers also draw on lexical resources—such as pronouns—to allow a reader to connect the meaning of an element in a sentence to meaning in another sentence.

Pages: 18

Writers express their attitude towards the content they are presenting by using stance expressions realized in verbs (such as ‘claims’) adjectives (such as ‘possible’), and adverbs (such as ‘definitely’). Specifically, writers express two types of stance—epistemic, which relates to the writer’s certainty or doubt towards the content presented; and attitudinal, which relates to the writer’s attitudes, emotions and feelings. In addition to expressing their stance, writers also show their awareness of readers by using connectives, which help readers make connections across clauses and sentences, and by using questions, imperatives and first person pronouns to interact with readers.

Pages: 18

Academic writing is a conversation among participants in a particular discipline: members of this conversation expect writers to add to this conversation. Writers, who build on previous works and share in their texts the sources they have used to establish their perspective and create a credible argument, can use quotation, paraphrase or summary as a way to present their sources. When paraphrasing or summarizing, it is important to avoid patchwriting—weaving together the words, phrases and sentences of the original source; while patchwriting may or may not be considered plagiarism by an academic community, it can indicate incomplete understanding of the source.