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The Nature of Writing

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English is now considered to be the world language of science, technology, and education. The knowledge of English allows professionals and researches to get access to the latest information in their fields and to effectively communicate with their colleagues throughout the world.

As far as our course is called "English Academic Writing" our task is to learn the way academic papers are produced. Writing is a complex process that requires a number of various skills. As research shows, its nature may be treated differently in different cultures and educational systems.

There exists an opinion that being able to write is a special talent. However, you can develop your writing abilities by following certain strategies and practicing various patterns.

As most Ukrainians (and not necessarily academics) know, our educational system is based primarily upon the non-written forms of knowledge acquisition, control, and evaluation. The only place in Ukraine where writing is explicitly taught is secondary school. There writing is viewed as a kind of verbal art that is assumed to be mastered in its 3 aspects – orthographic, grammatical, and stylistic. Teaching composition is traditionally a prerogative of the teachers of Ukrainian literature. Much emphasis is laid upon reading and producing grammatically and stylistically correct texts which have to evoke a certain aesthetic impression. At the same time structuring of the text, parameters of written communication, the context of situation, the purpose and message of the text are usually left unaddressed.

The attitudes toward writing and its teaching differ across cultures and educational systems. For example, in the United States writing has become a compulsory subject in all colleges. Such classes focus exclusively on composing and other writing skills rather than on the study of literature or the English language. The theoretical framework for such courses has been derived from the classical rhetoric that exists, according to Aristotle, to persuade. This phenomenon is understood differently in Anglo-American and Ukrainian authors.

Recent research has demonstrated that there exist certain differences in the organization and the ways of argumentation in academic writing of different languages and cultures. Such investigations have focused on the comparison of English and other languages, usually with a practical aim: to help non-native speakers to master the conventions of Anglo-American academic writing. For example, Chinese authors prefer indirect criticism, while English writers usually do not hide their attitudes. Finns pay less attention to the general organization and structure of their texts than Anglo-Americans. Ukrainian authors tend to avoid self-advertising, "eye-catching" features in their research papers. However, the writing style of one language and culture is neither better nor worse that the writing style of another language and culture: it is simply different.

The features characteristic of academic writing and relatively prominent in Anglo-American research texts are as follows:

1) intensive use of logical connectors (words like "therefore" or "however");

2) high degree of formal text structuring (i.e., division of the text into sections and subsections with appropriate headings);

3) tendency to cite and to include into the lists of reference the most recent publications in the field;

4) frequent occurrence of the phrases which provide reference to the text itself (e.g., "This paper discusses…");

5) tendency to follow a certain pattern of textual organization (e.g., problem-solution).

As for the Ukrainian scholars trying to write academic prose in English, they are to follow such useful strategies:

1) "lift" useful expressions from authentic English papers, combine them, add some of your own and use them in your writing;

2) pay attention to the organization and language of English papers in the leading journals in your discipline;

3) learn how the key parts of the academic text are typically organized and structured;

4) rely on assistance of your colleagues (working or studying in your discipline) – native speakers of English;

5) be always eager to rewrite and revise believing that the best way of mastering or improving writing (and not only in English) is to write as much as possible.

In general, such pieces of advice can be given to a writer of academic texts:

- use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation;

- write in an objective, neutral manner;

- accurately use the terminology of your discipline;

- ensure that your language is rich enough;

- write in an academic style, avoid colloquial language, jargon, and slang;

- arrange your ideas in a strict logical order;

- pay special attention to the introduction of your text;

- incorporate visual support (tables, diagrams, graphs) for your ideas;

- cite leading papers in your field;

- think of the general presentation (chapters, subchapters, paragraphs, etc.) of your text;

- pay special attention to the conclusion of your text.

 

Learning writing in the majority of cases is learning genres, that is developing knowledge of the rules of organization and the structure of integral texts. You must have already met this word, which originally came from French and has the meaning of "a kind of".

Genre is an event of communication, it is aimed at achieving certain communicative purposes. At the same time, genre may also be defined as a type of a written or oral text with a recognizable set of relatively stable features.

The most widely spread genres of English academic texts are as follows: summary, abstract, review, conference abstract, research paper, grant proposal.




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