Ex. 4. Read the following essay. It explains the characteristics of effective academic writing. Then answer the Discussion Questions that follow

English Academic Writing

Academic writing is writing completed in a college or university setting for an academic audience consisting of professors, instructors, teaching assistants, and students. There are several features of English academic writing which make it of value for nonnative speakers to learn. Failure to master the rules for effective academic writing in this culture will affect the learner's success in a course. Effective English academic writing has three major characteristics. It has convincing content, clear organization, and effective use of the English language.

First, the writing task has convincing content. To begin with, the content is informative and thought-provoking. The purpose of academic writing is to convey knowledge and understanding of a topic in a persuasive, formal, and objective manner. Such writing is not too general. In order to be convincing, academic writers in Western culture are expected to use specific and logical details, examples, facts, statistics, and case studies to support generalizations. Overly general and illogical content is not well received by professors. Second, the support is relevant. That is, the support relates directly to the thesis, which clearly presents the writer's topic, purpose, method, and opinion in an essay; and topic sentences, which do the same thing for each developmental paragraph in an essay. Writers are taught not to digress by telling stories or making "by the way" statements, which are out of tone with the assignment despite attempts to be creative and entertaining. All of the sentences contain well-thought-out ideas and relevant supporting points. Third, although objective, academic writing can be creative in that the writer is able to demonstrate effective critical-thinking skills. The content, that is, has depth of thought. The writer effectively analyzes the information, interprets the facts, makes judgments, draws conclusions, summarizes, and defends opinions. Shallow writing is indicative of weak critical-thinking skills, and such papers, often described as "sophomoric," receive low marks. Finally, any writing task has a clear purpose, which helps direct the reader, the audience. This is because the writer has clear objectives and strong control of the content. The message is clear, logical, and to the point. Indeed, papers with strong, unified support which demonstrates effective critical-thinking skills are well received by professors.

In addition to being convincing, effective academic writing in Western culture is well organized according to certain patterns and rules which may vary from culture to culture. The general pattern is described as linear because of the direct relationship between generalizations and their supporting points. Academic papers generally have a deductive approach, in which the generalization is stated first and then supported by specific details, examples, and other kinds of support. Sometimes, however, academic writers use an inductive approach, in which the specific support is given before the generalizations. English academic writing is also organized on the rhetorical level. There are several classical patterns used: narration, description, definition, process, classification, comparison, cause/effect, and argumentation. The pattern chosen is the method by which the writer will convey the content. This involves learning the organizational cues for the patterns and ways to order the support with these rhetorical devices. The success of a paper depends on how well the writer handles these organizational principles.

Finally, good English academic writing demonstrates sophisticated use of the English language. First, academic tasks are clearly written at the sentence level. Organization is important not only at the rhetorical level; it is crucial at the sentence level. Disorganized sentences disrupt the flow of thought in a paper and interfere with the meaning of the passage. Frequent agreement errors, misspellings, incorrect punctuation, and other such problems also demonstrate lack of control of English and distract the reader. Second, style is important. Effective English academic writing demonstrates control over a variety of sentence types. In Western culture, complex and compound-complex sentences, which contain dependent clauses, are preferred in academic papers. Papers containing too many simple sentences and the conjunctions for, and, nor, but, or, yet,and so are considered boring and unimaginative. A wide vocabulary range is another characteristic of effective academic writing. Because information is conveyed in content words, weak (basic) vocabulary demonstrates weak thinking. Since effective sentence organization and vocabulary contribute to the content of a paper, writers who have a command of the English language are more convincing than writers who cannot articulate complex ideas.

In conclusion, if the professor's expectations are not met with regard to content, organization, and language, the papers may not be well received. Mastering the fundamentals of English academic writing will enable nonnative speakers to succeed in their academic studies. [777 words]

(Kaplan, Robert B., "Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercultural Education" Language Learning, 2006)