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Communication Skills Group Assignment

The document discusses the key features and stages of academic writing. It notes that academic writing is formal, complex, precise, objective, accurate and involves hedging. The stages of academic writing include prewriting such as understanding the assignment, researching sources, writing a draft, revising for clarity and flow, editing for mechanics and having it reviewed. It also defines summary as expressing the main points in fewer words, synthesis as combining information from multiple sources, and paraphrasing as using different words to express the same idea while incorporating evidence.

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Nollecy Takudzwa Bere
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177 views7 pages

Communication Skills Group Assignment

The document discusses the key features and stages of academic writing. It notes that academic writing is formal, complex, precise, objective, accurate and involves hedging. The stages of academic writing include prewriting such as understanding the assignment, researching sources, writing a draft, revising for clarity and flow, editing for mechanics and having it reviewed. It also defines summary as expressing the main points in fewer words, synthesis as combining information from multiple sources, and paraphrasing as using different words to express the same idea while incorporating evidence.

Uploaded by

Nollecy Takudzwa Bere
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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QUESTIONS

1. WHAT ARE THE FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING?

2 . STAGES IN ACADEMIC WRITING

3 SUMMARY, SYNTHESISE AND PARAPHRASE

Academic writing is the formal writing style used in colleges and universities. It is what students
are expected to produce for classes and what professors and academic researchers use to write
scholarly materials. ( A Rofii, F Murtadho, A Rahmat - Eleventh Conference on Applied…, 2019
-). Its features are explained below which include complexity, formality, precision, objectivity,
and accuracy.

FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING?

Complexity

Academic writing is more complex. It has longer words with varied vocabulary and
usually complicated grammar, compared to spoken language.( Akkaya, A. and Aydin, G.,
2018. Academics' Views on the Characteristics of Academic Writing). One of the
advantages is that it may be necessary if you are writing about a complicated idea, for
example in legal writing. The downside is

Formality

It is very explicit and provides the reader with all the information they need to understand
the meaning. In academic writing words and phrases are relatively formal. This means that
colloquial words and expressions should be avoided. For example the word “stuff”,” thing”
and “sort of”.In general, this means in an essay we should avoid abbreviated forms words
such as can’t, doesn’t, and shouldn’t. ( Hyland, K. and Jiang, F.K., 2017. Is academic writing
becoming more informal? English for specific purposes, 45, pp.40-51.)

Precision

Facts are given precisely. In other words, the used sources and the quality of the
information provided in a piece of writing should be reliable and precise.

Objectivity

In general, academic writing is objective. There are very few situations where personal
writing is tolerated whereby the writer or the readers are referred to. This means that the
main emphasis should be on the information to be provided rather than on the writer

Accuracy

Academic writing uses accurate vocabulary. Most of the words have different meanings, so
the writer should use the most accurate word to convey the meaning to the readers.

Hedging

It is a complicated feature of academic writing. Generally speaking, hedges help the writer
makes the necessary decisions about the choice of words and phrases that determines the
strength of a claim or a particular argument. It enables the author to devise a politeness
strategy where they can acknowledge that there may be flaws in their claims. Examples
include;

 Introductory verbs – seem, tend, look like, appear to be, think, believe, doubt, be
sure, indicate, suggest
 Certain lexical verbs – believe, assume, suggest
 Modal Adverbs – possibly, perhaps, conceivably
 That clauses – It could be the case that…, it might be suggested that…, there is every
hope that…
Figure 1.0 gives another example of how hedging can be applied.

Figure 1.0 shows how hedging can be applied in academic writing.

Responsibility

In academic writing, you have to be responsible for what you write and give evidence and
justifications for your claims.

Organization

Academic writing is well organized from one section to another

Planning

Academic writing is well planned. It is realized based on a specific plan and objective

2 . STAGES IN ACADEMIC WRITING

Stage 1:
Prewriting

 Make sure you understand your assignment


 Decide on a topic to write about
 Consider who will read your work
 Brainstorm ideas about the project, the subject, and how the idea can be organized

Step 2:

List places where you find information

 Do your research
 Evaluate your source
 Outlinene to help you organize your research

Step 3:

 Write sentences and paragraphs even if they are not perfect


 Create a thesis statement with your main idea
 Put the information you have researched into your essay accurately without plagiarising.
 Read what you have written and judge if it says what you mean.

Step 4:

 Read what you have written again


 Rearrange words, sentences, or paragraphs into a clear and logical order.
 Take out or add parts
 Do more research if you think you should
 Replace overused or unclear words
 Read your assignment aloud to be sure if it flows smoothly

Step 5:

 Be sure all sentences are complete by editing and proofreading.


 Correct spellings, capitalization, and punctuation.
 Change words that are not used correctly or unclear
 Make sure you are using the correct style formatting
 Have someone to check your work

Summary

This is a record in a reader’s own words that gives the main points of a piece of writing such
as a chapter of a book or a newspaper article. In other words, this is expressing the same
idea in fewer words.

Synthesizing
This is combining information from two or more sources. It can be defined as a written
discussion incorporating support from several sources of differing views. This type of
assignment requires that you examine a variety of sources and identify their relationship to
your thesis

Paraphrasing

This is using different words to say the same thing. A paraphrase offers an alternative to
using direct quotations and allows you to integrate evidence/source material into
assignments.
References

1. A Rofii, F Murtadho, A Rahmat - Eleventh Conference on Applied …, 2019


2. Akkaya, A. and Aydin, G., 2018. Academics' Views on the Characteristics of Academic
Writing. Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, 13(2), pp.128-160 .
3. Hyland, K. and Jiang, F.K., 2017. Is academic writing becoming more informal?. English for
specific purposes, 45, pp.40-51.

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