Academic Writing: Features - Accuracy
This page is part of a series that supports your academic writing development. The page introduces the general features of academic writing. Thereafter, it highlights the importance of accuracy in academic writing, explaining for students what accuracy means in the context of academic writing.
For Students:
In a sense, you recognise academic writing when you see it. You know, for example, that poems, breakfast cereal advertisements, and film screenplays are not examples of academic writing. However, if you are to become expert in academic writing, you will have to be able to do more than just, more or less implicitly, distinguish academic writing from other (non-academic) writing genres. Instead, you will need to begin to identify the qualities that are particular (albeit not necessarily unique) to academic writing and, with lots of practice, embed such qualities into your own writing. Academic writing, for example, is normally linear, cohering around a main argument. It avoids digression and repetition. It informs rather then entertains. And, it is written in a standard form of the language (in this case, the English language). Academic writing has a number of features. It is: formal, complex, objective, explicit, hedged, and responsible. It uses language precisely and accurately, as well as being organised and planned
What, then, do these features mean or look like?
Formality
Academic writing is relatively formal. This means that it tends to avoid colloquial words and expressions.
Precision
Academic writing is precise. If you were to write an Extended Essay (EE) in Economics, you would give facts and figures precisely. In a Higher Level (HL) Essay in English A: Language and Literature you would quote exactly from the work or text you are writing about.
Objectivity
Academic writing is objective rather than personal. Typically, it has fewer words that refer to the writer and/or reader. This tendency can vary somewhat from discipline to discipline (and sometimes within disciplines). Nevertheless, academic writing emphasises information and argument, avoiding subjective, idiosyncratic opinion. Because of this, academic writing tends to use nouns and adjectives, rather than verbs and adverbs.
Explicitness
Academic writing makes explicit relationships between parts of the text (such as an essay) and its argument. Academic writing must make it obvious to its reader how each part of the text relates to other parts of the text. Signalling words make these connections explicit.
Accuracy
Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. For example, in a subject like language and literature, metaphor and metonymy mean different things. While these differences are maintained beyond the subject-specific discipline, the differences are not always made clear in everyday language, where writers or speakers may not feel it necessary or useful to maintain the distinction. Academic writing, by contrast, compels the accurate application of vocabulary.
Hedging
In academic writing, it is important to be clear about your position on the subject you are writing about or the strength of the claims you are making. Different subjects do this slightly differently. In a subject like English A: Language and Literature it is not uncommon to express your understanding or interpretation of language and text with some degree of caution. Hedging is the name we give to this kind of caution.
Responsibility
Responsibility, quite simply, means providing evidence and justification for claims you make. For example, if you are writing about the protagonist of a novel, making the claim that he is mad, it is insufficient to simply say so. Textual evidence is required to support your claim.
Organisation
Academic writing is well organised. It flows obviously from one section to the next in a logical fashion. Often the organisation of your writing is determined by the conventions of the text-type you are writing. For example, in an English A: Language and Literature Paper 2 essay, it will be normal to include a thesis in your first paragraph that clearly states your position in response to the essay question or prompt you have chosen. From this, all else will develop, and it is in this way that organisation becomes established.
Planning
Academic writing is always well planned. If it is well planned, its argument will be obvious, avoiding deviation or repetition. Planning, of course, is more difficult in timed examinations. Nevertheless, all good essays require some degree of planning.
Let’s now look more closely at one of these features: Accuracy
For Students:
You are required to use academic English in your writing and speaking examinations in your English A Language and Literature course, you write in Paper 1, Paper 2, and (HL only) in your Higher Level Essay. You speak in your Individual Oral. Academic writing and academic speaking are not entirely the same thing. Typically, writing is more formal than speaking. Nevertheless, academic speaking is more formal that the kinds of speaking we do in most routine casual contexts. Thus, academic speaking and academic writing share many similarities. For example, in your Individual Oral, you should, to a greater or lesser extent, prepare not only your ideas, but also your language. Obviously, the language you use in your Individual Oral will be more formal than the language you use when discussing weekend plans with a friend. For this reason, in everyday classroom contexts, it is good practice to present your ideas with reasonable formality.
In both academic writing and speaking, it is important to be accurate, where a lack of accuracy is often more apparent in writing. It can be difficult, albeit not impossible, to return to and correct inaccuracies in spoken language. It is relatively more straightforward to return to and correct inaccuracies in writing. This is done through proofreading. A lot of the time, in writing, we are concerned with composition; that is, with the expression of ideas. It can be difficult, as we express our ideas to also be aware of transcription; that is, the language we use to communicate our ideas. Through proofreading, we have the opportunity to concentrate on transcription, and in so doing correct any errors we may have made. Proofreading is relatively straightforward in writing, for example, a Higher Level Essay or an Extended Essay, and it is recommended that you do this several times. Even in exam conditions – writing Paper 1 and 2 responses – it is important to leave around 10 minutes to proofread and improve the accuracy of your writing. In doing this, you will probably scan your writing for obvious errors. In longer pieces of writing, where time allows, proofreading can be more systematic. You might, for example begin by checking your verbs, then your prepositions, then articles, and so on. Of course, technological systems also support this!
For Students:
Below, you will find mistakes in each of the sentences. Try to identify them. Describe what is wrong, and write a correct or improved version. Share your ideas with at least one other student.
- The IB have annual exams which take place in May and November every year.
- Tamara is a former IB student who I have not seen in years.
- He is an IB teacher of English, French, and TOK, but he don’t teach any of them very well.
- It is felt that less IB students would miss the first lesson if the school day commenced at 9 o’clock instead of 8 o’clock.
- It is just possible that you are one of those people who has never heard of the IB Diploma programme.
- The United Nations celebrations showed our school community at it’s best.
- The TOK teacher should give a better response than that to I and to my friends.
- The Extended Essay is definately one of the hardest tasks in the IB Diploma Programme.
- The first really difficult task for the English A: Language and Literature students, was when they were asked to do guided textual analysis.
- McIntyre and Pruzinsky argues that the IB English course is a good preparation for studying literature at university.
- When we were discussing the importance of proofreading.
- Pruzinsky’s argument which advanced the earlier claims of McIntyre became commonly accepted among IB English teachers.
- In deciding on the best IB student award, the committee has not announced their decision yet.
- Pruzinsky determined that the main cause of student failure was because of inadequate prior learning.
- Students can fail their IB Diploma on certain conditions, i.e., if they do not score more than 24 points.
SUGGESTED ANSWERS:
- The IB have annual exams which take place in May and November every year.
Error: Is grammatical. Duplication of meaning.
Better: The IB have annual exams which take place in May and November.
- Tamara is a former IB student who I have not seen in years.
Error: ‘who’ is the object. It should be ‘whom’
Better: Tamara is a former IB student who I have not seen in years.
- He is an IB teacher of English, French, and TOK, but he don’t teach any of them very well.
Error: Is grammatical. ‘don’t’ should be ‘doesn’t’. However, it is (also) better to avoid contractions in academic English.
Better: He is an IB teacher of English, French, and TOK, but he does not teach any of them very well.
- It is felt that less IB students would miss the first lesson if the school day commenced at 9 o’clock instead of 8 o’clock.
Error: Is grammatical. ‘less’ is used for uncountable nouns. ‘fewer’ is used for countable nouns.
Better: It is felt that fewer IB students would miss the first lesson if the school day commenced at 9 o’clock instead of 8 o’clock.
- It is just possible that you are one of those people who has never heard of the IB Diploma programme.
Error: ‘has’ should agree with ‘people’.
Better: It is just possible that you are one of those people who have never heard of the IB Diploma programme.
- The United Nations celebrations showed our school community at it’s best.
Error: Punctuation. It’s = it is.
Better: The United Nations celebrations showed our school community at its best.
- The TOK teacher should give a better response than that to I and to my friends.
Error: ‘me’ not ‘I’ (an example of overcorrection)
Better: The TOK teacher should give a better response than that to me and to my friends
- The Extended Essay is definately one of the hardest tasks in the IB Diploma Programme.
Error: Spelling. ‘definately' should be ‘definitely’.
Better: The Extended Essay is definitely one of the hardest tasks in the IB Diploma Programme.
- The first really difficult task for the English A: Language and Literature students, was when they were asked to do guided textual analysis.
Error: Punctuation. The comma is not required, interrupting the run of the sentence.
Better: The first really difficult task for the English A: Language and Literature students was when they were asked to do guided textual analysis.
- McIntyre and Pruzinsky argues that the IB English course is a good preparation for studying literature at university.
Error: McIntyre and Pruzinsky is plural.
Better: McIntyre and Pruzinsky argue that the IB English course is a good preparation for studying literature at university.
- When we were discussing the importance of proofreading.
Error: Incomplete sentence.
Better: When we were discussing the importance of proofreading, we emphasised the need to write in complete sentences.
- Pruzinsky’s argument which advanced the earlier claims of McIntyre became commonly accepted among IB English teachers.
Error: Punctuation. Commas required to express (intended) meaning.
Better: Pruzinsky’s argument, which advanced the earlier claims of McIntyre, became commonly accepted among IB English teachers.
- In deciding on the best IB student award, the committee has not announced their decision yet.
Error: Grammar. Singular followed by a plural.
Better: In deciding on the best IB student award, the committee has not announced its decision yet. Or, In deciding on the best IB student award, the committee have not announced their decision yet.
- Pruzinsky determined that the main cause of student failure was because of inadequate prior learning.
Error: Duplication. ‘Cause’ = ‘because of’
Better: Pruzinsky determined that the main cause of student failure was inadequate prior learning.
- Students can fail their IB Diploma on certain conditions, i.e., if they do not score more than 24 points.
Error: Wrong use of ‘i.e.’ Use ‘e.g.’
Better: Students can fail their IB Diploma on certain conditions, e.g., if they do not score more than 24 points.