There are many supporters of the opinion that it is not necessary to write correctly. Why learn skills that will only take extra time? Only those who are too lazy to try and make sure that the development of competently written speech will become the key to success in everyday communication say so. Anyone who wants to achieve career success must be able to communicate and write correctly, know the basics of writing business letters, navigate scientific vocabulary, and write reports with a clear structure.
Writing a paper requires knowledge of the subject and the ability to express your thoughts in writing. At this point, difficulties arise — you can be a good economist, but it will not help you write a high-quality academic text.
Many written works imply using a scholarly (aka academic) writing style. The characteristic features of this style are:
- Accuracy and concreteness;
- The absence of artistic metaphors;
- Many introductory and connecting phrases.
The composition and structure of scholarly writing are intended to develop one idea: the various parts of the essay should be connected logically, and the relationships between the various arguments should be clear.
Good scholarly writing is characterized by rich and expressive language at all presentation stages. The use of words and phraseological units must be precise and clear. Also, scholarly writing should consistently express your opinion on a given issue. It doesn’t matter what kind of opinion you expressed. The main thing is that it is correct and reasonably argued.
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Why Is Scholarly Writing Important?
Do you think scholarly writing has nothing to do with your future career? You’re not right! Scholarly writing develops your skills. Do you know who usually receives an invitation for a job interview? It is the candidate with the best resume and cover letter. So, you will need to demonstrate writing skills as soon as you get your high school diploma. Do you know who can count on career growth? It is an employee who writes excellent reports, memos, etc. Whatever career you choose, scholarly writing skills will help you succeed.
After all, people who can competently express their thoughts, critically analyze information, draw conclusions, give arguments to support their position, etc., will effectively apply these skills in research work, everyday life, and professional activity. Scholarly writing is a powerful tool for developing not only written but also oral speech.
8 Tips for Those Learning Scholarly Writing
There are some useful recommendations for those learning what academic writing is and how to master its skills:
- Take an academic writing course. When writing scientific papers, you can practice academic style, but studying in special courses is much more effective and faster. It is not necessary to go to classes. There are many distance learning programs that you can study at home. Also, you can ask for essay writing help from professional academic writers on SmartWritingService.com.
- Learn to write correctly, following all the rules of grammar. It is very important to follow all the grammatical rules. You can use the stylistic grammar guide. In addition to standard grammar rules, academic writing requires adherence to style standards. Special guides will help study them, which describe the rules for setting capital letters, formatting quotations and references, and lists of literary sources.
- Learn from examples. Regular practice and reading the scientific works of other scientists will help you quickly master scholarly writing. After reading a few articles, it will be easier to understand what scholarly writing is.
- Plan and train. You should start working on the text with preparation. It is necessary to draw up a plan and write your text according to it. It can be in outlines, a list, or a diagram. You can write a draft and then edit it until an excellent result is achieved. You can ask the help of the supervisor to check the work and indicate comments.
- Formulate the main idea and back it up with facts. There is a basic provision in any scientific work. It is the key idea. The work is built on it. The author formulates the statement and proves its correctness in the text.
- The text should be understandable. Examples from practice must support arguments. You should refer to other works on similar topics. Be objective, even if they contradict your conclusions. Always give links to sources and literature, and don’t plagiarize. Develop an author’s style and follow it. Also, don’t forget about the logic of the presentation — don’t “jump” from one question to another.
- In academic writing, it is required to follow a scientific or scientific journalistic style. Any details must be supported by references to the analyses of other writers working in this direction. You can’t use abbreviations without deciphering them, colloquial words and jargon, long and confusing sentences.
- Remember the most important thing: you can’t become a talented writer overnight. The principles of academic writing are intuitive, but you need to apply them day in and day out to get the hang of it! Even if you have not yet been given a specific task, don’t put off this work indefinitely. Pick a topic you like and try to write a short article.
All students are required to master scholarly writing. Otherwise, they will not be able to prove their suitability in the scientific field or the industry, demonstrate competence and skills acquired in professional development, and receive a well-deserved grade for the completed task.