C
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
O
M
学
大
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
C
O
O
学
M
国
大
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
O
C
O
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
O
O
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
M
学
M
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
学
学
M
学
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
学
大
国
As graduate students, you may face various writing tasks throughout your degree programs.
Naturally, these tasks may vary from one program to another. However, they may be similar in two
aspects. First, the tasks become progressively more complex and demanding the farther you go in
the program. Second, they need to be written “academically” though certain assigned writing in
some fields may require personal reflection and thus may be somewhat more informal. Actually
academic writing is involved with a variety of aspects, ranging from style to some sociological,
cultural, and rhetorical issues. Thus your “positioning” as a writer matters a lot in helping you
establish yourself as a competent member of your discipline. Understanding your writing strategies
is important in becoming a confident writer. Read the following possible writing strategies and
check whether each of them is effective to you or not.
1. Translating, if you use English as an international language
2. Spending a lot of time on gathering information or doing research and then quickly writing
your paper from your notes, data sources, or outlines
3. Referring to one or more “model” papers in your disciplines, noticing in particular such
matters as how the papers are organized, how phrases are used, and where and why examples
or illustrations are provided
4. Relying on a mentor (either native or non-native speaker) who “knows the ropes” and can
anticipate how a particular written text might be received by a particular set of readers or
reviewers, who may also be able to offer advice on which journal or conference a piece might
be submitted to and why
5. Relying on friends who are not in your field to help you with phraseology
6. Developing a sense of the anticipated audiences, particularly with regard to what needs to
be said and what does not
7. Recognizing the need for some stylistic variation and acquiring the linguistic resources to
achieve this
8. Finding useful phraseology from other, possibly published papers and using it to string your
ideas together
9. Constructing an appropriate author “persona”, so that you come across as a member of the
disciplinary community
10. Concentrating on making sure your sentence-level grammar is accurate because that is the
most important aspect of getting your ideas across
As you may already realize, academic writing is a product of many considerations: audience,
purpose, organization, style, flow, and presentation (see Figure 1).
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
大
大
大
O
C
M
O
O
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
国
中
国
中
国
中
国
大
中
国
大
中
国
中
An Approach to Academic Writing
C
学
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
C
C
O
O
学
M
国
大
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
O
C
O
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
C
O
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
O
O
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
M
M
O
O
C
M
O
O
C
O
M
学
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
学
学
M
学
学
M
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
大
大
大
O
C
M
O
O
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
国
中
国
中
国
中
国
大
中
国
大
中
国
中
Before you write, you need to consider your audience. The audience for most graduate students
will be an instructor, who is presumably quite knowledgeable about the assigned writing topic and
will have expectations with which you need to be familiar. Other possible audiences include advisors,
thesis committees and those who will review research you may want to present at a conference or
publish. Your understanding of your audience will affect the content of your writing. For example,
if you assume the reader is probably not familiar with the topic, you will provide a fair amount of
background information along with a clear definition of the process. And if not, background
information and definition will be shortened or even deleted.
Besides, audience, purpose and strategy are typically interconnected. If the audience knows
more than the writer, the writer’s purpose is usually to display familiarity, expertise and intelligence,
and this is a common situation for the academic writing. Then here comes the interesting question:
what strategy can you use to make a successful display?
Readers have the expectation that information will be presented in a structured format that is
appropriate for the particular type of text. Even short pieces of writing have regular, predictable
patterns of organization. You can take advantage of these patterns, so that readers can still follow,
even if you make some language errors. Academic writers employ a variety of organizational
patterns: external organization features such as chapters, sections, and paragraphs; internal
organization features such as problems and solutions, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, and
classification etc.
Also academic writers need to be sure that their communications are written in the appropriate
style. One difficulty in using the appropriate style is knowing what is considered academic and what
is not. For example, contrary to what your grammar checker might suggest, if you are describing a
procedure or process, you can and probably even should use passive voice in many cases.
Deciding what is academic or not is further complicated by the fact that academic style differs
from one area of study to another. For instance, contractions (e.g., don’t) may be used in Philosophy
but are not widely used in many other fields. Some authors often use informal elements such as
sentence-initial but; imperatives (as in the common expression consider the case of . . . ); and the
use of I. In the case of I, we see quite a bit of disciplinary variation. It is less commonly used in
Computer Science papers but is frequent in Philosophy.
Over the past two decades, there has been considerable interest in tracing similarities and
differences in academic language. Although many perspectives on academic style are available,
much of the advice is vague, conflicting, and often based on personal preference rather than research.
Actually good academic writers make many stylistic choices as they write. While you may prefer
to closely follow the stylistic conventions of your field, it’s also fine to seek ways to cross the
boundaries of convention, position yourself more strongly and create your scholarly identity.
Nowadays, the use of internet and online tools may also help you become familiar with commonly
used expressions or standard phraseology, typical of academic writing across many disciplines.
Another important consideration for successful communication is flow — moving from one
statement in a text to the next. Naturally, establishing a clear connection of ideas is important to help
your reader follow the text. In establishing a smooth flow of ideas, logical connectors such as
however or furthermore are adopted. Also, the old-to-new pattern of information may be established
by starting a text with some familiar information. For example, this/these + a noun can be used to
establish a good old-to-new flow of information:
C
C
O
M
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
C
O
O
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
C
O
O
M
学
学
M
国
大
中
O
C
O
O
学
M
大
国
中
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
大
国
中
C
O
O
O
M
学
国
大
中
C
O
O
O
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
学
M
国
大
中
O
C
O
M
学
大
中
国
大
国
中
C
C
O
O
M
学
大
大
国
中
C
O
O
学
M
学
学
M
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
国
中
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
国
大
中
国
大
M
O
O
C
O
M
学
学
大
国
中
中
Repetition and linking words and phrases can help a writer maintain flow and establish clear
relationships between ideas. （See Table 1）Besides, punctuation, a small but important issue, is
worthy of great attention in many general guides and style guides. We limit our discussion to a few
key points regarding semicolons (;), colons (:), dashes (—), and commas (,). (See Figure 2.)
Small errors in the language in papers written by non-native speakers such as mistakes in articles
or preposition usage are mostly acceptable. However, errors such as an incorrect homophone, basic
grammar errors, misspelled words etc. are generally considered less acceptable. Actually, if the flow
of ideas is good, small errors may not be noticed; when the flow of ideas is not strong, grammar
errors may be more pronounced. So it makes more sense to focus more on content and information
flow first and then tend to matters of grammar only after all other aspects of the paper are in good
shape. Consider the following questions in giving a good presentation of a paper: Does the
information flow in an expected manner? Does your paper seem to have been carefully prepared?
Does the language achieve grammatical accuracy? Did the spell-checker miss anything?
When you are familiar with the characteristics of audience, purpose, organization, style, flow,
and presentation in academic writing, you are ready to “position” yourself to start your paper
preparation.
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
国
大
学
M
O
O
C
中
intense competition for admission.”
大
O
C
M
O
O
C
O
M
学
大
国
国
大
while the number of places available has remained fairly constant. This situation has resulted in
中
国
中
O
C
O
O
M
学
“In recent years, the number of students applying to Ph.D. programs has increased steadily,
C
O
O
学
M
大
国
中
C
O
O
学
M
大
国
中
C
O
O
学
M
大
国
中
C
O
O
学
M
大
国
中
C
O
O
学
M
大
国
中
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
中
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
中
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
中
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
中
O
C
O
M
学
国
大
中
国
大
中
国
大
中
国
大
中
国
大
中
国
大
中
学
M
学
M
学
M
学
M
学
M
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
C
C
C
C
C
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
C
O
O
M
学
大
国
中
中
中
中
中
中
国
国
国
国
国
大
大
大
大
大
学
学
学
学
学
M
M
M
M
M
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
C
C
C
C
C
中
中
中
中
中
国
国
国
国
国
大
大
大
大
大
学
学
学
学
学
M
M
M
M
M
FIGURE 2 Punctuation
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
O
C
C
C
C
C