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What Is Academic Writing? Definition, Types, and Examples
Academic Writing
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What Is Academic Writing? Definition, Types, and Examples

Want to reveal the hidden secrets of why you confuse academic writing with other formats? This article is what you are looking for.
What Is Academic Writing
Written by
Catherine B.
Published on
Mar 12, 2025
Table of contents
Academic writing is a paper developed by a student for coursework or by expert researchers to enrich the knowledge in some discipline. To qualify as an academic paper, the text must:
✔️ Target professors evaluating student works or scientific community peers;
✔️ Adhere to standardized style manual (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.);
✔️ Communicate insights and conclusions drawn from in-depth research.
What is meant by academic writing in general public understanding is usually more confusing, though. Some sources label any text written in a formal tone as academic. For quick and effective fixes with academic assignments, you can use the StudyPro academic AI tool. However, for long-term success in college, students need to precisely understand all academic concepts.
In this article, we will clarify all the confusion about academic writing and its characteristics.
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What Is Academic Writing

There are two main purposes of academic writing:
  • To train students in an educational environment;
  • To advance scholarly research for different disciplines.
The purpose of scholarly writing in higher education is to teach students the basics of researching, analyzing, critical writing, and clear information presentation. For example, by writing essays in a specific manual style, students learn to build argument structure and keep an eye on the clarity of their phrasing.
The goal of such a format in scientific research is to gain new knowledge and present new findings and conclusions to peers, with a general field advancement in mind. Scholars who research proposals and lab reports do so to add something new to what is already known in the field.

How to Improve Academic Writing Skills

The most common types of academic writing (meaning most commonly used ones) are the following:
  • Essays
  • Theses
  • Research papers
  • Literature reviews
  • Annotated bibliographies
However, to understand how different types of academic writing fit into the whole system, here is a more coherent classification:
✔️ Argumentative and analytical writing
The author develops a clear argument, analyzes evidence, and presents a reasoned perspective.
Examples:
→ essays (expository, argumentative, persuasive);
→ critical reviews (book reviews, article reviews, commentaries);
→ position papers.
✔️ Research-based writing
The author aims to overview and report the current condition of the whole discipline or a particular topic.
Examples:
→ research papers;
→ literature reviews;
→ case studies;
→ synthesis papers;
→ research proposals;
→ dissertations;
→ theses.
✔️ Technical and scientific reporting
The author aims to communicate the technical details of the research (for example, experiment methodology and numeral findings) or list existing scholarly publications and present them as a research project.
Examples:
→ lab and technical reports;
→ annotated bibliographies;
→ reference lists.
✔️ Reflective and personal writing
The author reflects and presents personal insights on a given source while maintaining academic rigor.
Examples:
→ reflective papers;
→ personal statements.

Academic Writing Is…These Key Characteristics

It is concise, unbiased, complex, objective, non-colloquial, well-structured, and accurate. It should include credible sources and should not allow the “I” pronoun in most cases. The number of characteristics is a mere illustration of the importance of clarity in academic writing.
How can students make sense of all the chaotic requirements? In the same way, AI writer technologies are trained to distinguish logical, structural, and linguistic characteristics. Below are some illustrative examples.

☑️ Objective And Informed (Logical Characteristic)

Academic writing style is bound to logic. Its purpose is to collect, analyze, categorize, and present information in the most unbiased way possible.
Specht Dought, head of the School of Media and Communication at the University of Westminster, gave a great explanation of objectivity.
He writes: “Well, academic writing seeks to reach objectivity. And in your essays your tutors often want to hear more about what you have read, rather than what you think. The problem is, they do want to know what you think, but sentences like ‘I think…’ are over simplistic, and so professors often ban the word 'I’ ‘and tell you to write only in the third person.” (Specht, 2019, p.101)
So, the objectivity criteria does not mean there is no author’s personality in scientific writing. There is the personality, which is the lens through which the collected material gains a new perspective.

☑️ Reliant on Credible Sources (Logical Characteristic)

Academic writing is emotionally detached. It allows little to no personal opinion except for reflective and personal writing formats.
  • For instance, journalistic feature articles or personal blog writing can use subjective perspectives, storytelling elements, and emotional appeal.
  • Writing for academic reasons avoids these means to remain unbiased, opting instead for scholarly databases, peer-reviewed journals, and official state sources.

☑️ Put Together (Structural Characteristic)

Academic writing puts collected objective information in a well-ordered manner so that all the logical connections are evident and easy to follow. For example:
  • _The author cannot randomly arrange facts, statistics, conclusions, and introductions to convey the collected precise information to the readers. They should adhere to precise logic in building up theses, arguments, supporting evidence, and deductions.
  • The whole work is to proceed through all steps, from the existing research overview to drawing conclusions on the matter.
  • The paragraphs should start with the thesis statement and end with thesis reinforcement.
  • The sentences should be easy-to-follow and only as much burdened with terminology as necessary. _

☑️ Clear and Precise (Linguistic Characteristic)

Academic papers must follow up the logical and structural requirements with corresponding rigorous grammar, vocabulary usage, and syntaxis levels. For instance, here are some rules reflecting this criteria:
→ _The author should clearly define concepts, know all logical relations between complex ideas, and avoid unsupported assumptions.
→ The format requires using one-meaning terms, avoiding demonstrative pronouns (like this, that, these, those), and adhering to third-person points in writing.
→ The author cannot use slang, wordy, overly complicated constructions unless necessary, and metaphorical language.
→ Academic papers must be written according to some manual (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.). Following the format ensures that the author uses commonly approved definitions of what clarity and accuracy mean.

Academic Writing Is Not…

In short, academic forms are not subjective, arbitrary-sourced, opinion-driven, chaotic, vague, colloquial, biased, or rhetorical. They are none of these things. It does not tolerate personal opinions as a solid basis for writing. You can not use storytelling or flowery language to express your ideas in academic formats.
However, let’s explore the particular examples to reference what academic writing is not.

🚩 It’s Not Personal

Academic formats avoid subjectivity only to meet their purpose — to be fact-checking assets for society. Science adepts cannot use personal opinions, emotions, and biased perspectives, but not for whimsical hypocritical reasons. They do so to dissect the truth from the false.
For example, “I believe that drinking green tea helps with weight loss." may or may not prove true in nutrition and biology studies.
We can only collect evidence pieces like "A study by Smith et al. (2020) found that green tea consumption is associated with a slight increase in metabolic rate." Based on these objective, numerical data, we can conclude the likability that green tea indeed helps with weight loss.

🚩 It’s Not Arbitrary Sourced

Academic writing cannot include random, unverified sources. Doing so degrades the very purpose of rigorous research to the level of playful rhetoric, with the goal of looking right rather than being right.
Therefore, you cannot use arguments like “Many people say that climate change is a major issue.” Many people also say that the Earth is flat, which is hardly a valid argument. You should collect and cite credible sources to write a paper either for a college assignment or for the academic community.

🚩 It’s Not Chaotic

Academic formats are not free storytelling pieces. The authors cannot play with readers to catch their attention with flashy clickbait headers or intricate reversed narration.
For instance, it is not recommended to start a paragraph with examples, facts, statistics, and quotes. The recommended order is to start with a thesis statement, which is one main thought for the paragraph, support it with arguments, and close with an idea-reinforcing sentence.
Of course, it is still beneficial for students and researchers to know how to write a story. The idea, though, is to use all available tools correctly and relevantly.

🚩 It’s Not Emotionally Charged

Academic writing does not use dramatic language or persuasive techniques. Facts need no persuasion; they are self-evident.
In particular, it is not the best choice to write, "It is absolutely shocking how governments ignore climate change!" Instead, one can write, "Recent studies suggest that government responses to climate change vary significantly (Brown, 2022)."

🚩 It’s Not Vague or Ambiguous

Writing essays or research papers allows no ambiguous terms that can be interpreted differently and no unclear sentence structures.
For instance, in the following paragraph, it is unclear what “this” in the second sentence refers to: “Several studies have examined the relationship between sleep and cognitive performance. This proves that individuals who sleep less than six hours per night perform significantly worse on memory tasks.."
“This” could mean conducting these studies leads to the main conclusion. Or it could refer to the results of some of these studies. Hence, the logical connection between sentences in the example is unclear.

What Are the 7 C's of Academic Writing?

The 7 C’s of academic writing is a framework that ensures a high-quality paper by checking out seven boxes. The writing should be:
  • Clear
  • Coherent
  • Concise
  • Concrete
  • Correct
  • Complete
  • Courteous
Here are the questions to understand whether your paper meets the 7Cs criteria:
Item
Questions
Clear
If read aloud, does the main paper message remain evident? Do you think someone unfamiliar with the topic will follow your train of thought? Did you use clear and precise language?
Coherent
Can you retell the whole work in short sentences without losing the logic of the argument?
Concise
Highlight all the parts of each sentence that refer to the action and the person or object performing the action. Now, are there any other parts that can be removed without significant meaning loss?
Concrete
Is each of your arguments supported with evidence?
Correct
Did you check your writing for grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes?
Complete
What was your goal for writing this piece? What will be the perfect sign it’s achieved?
Courteous
Is there any sign that someone can be offended by any part of your writing? If the answer is yes, fix that.

Do’s and Dont’s in Academic Writing

First, what are do's and don'ts in academic writing? Are they absolutely prescriptive or only advisory? Do’s and dont’s are rather advisory and depend on the content.
For example, one such “do” recommends using academic phrase structure like "It is widely acknowledged that...". However, the contradictory advice claims that such phrases are wordy and vague. It can recommend changing the constructions to a more fact-based “the N source reads…”.
The general rule of thumb is to apply the rules wisely, considering the purpose and audience of your paper. For more clarity, here are three unambiguous examples of “Do’s” and “Dont’s” in academic writing:
Do’s ✅
Dont’s ❌
Use terms where it’s appropriate to replace wordy constructions (e.g., use “subsequently” instead of “as a result of what happened earlier”).
Don’t opt for informal or overly technical language (e.g., "a lot of" instead of "numerous".)
Use active voice when possible (e.g., "The researchers conducted an experiment.")
Don’t rely excessively on passive voice (e.g., "An experiment was conducted by the researchers.")
Write concise sentences (e.g., "The results indicate a correlation.")
Do not use a few wordy constructions in a row (e.g., "It is important to note that the results show...".)
To be a better academic writer, you should do three things regularly:
→ Learn the rules of what makes good and bad writing;
→ Notice and collect examples of both whenever you see it;
→ Practice with the rules, examples, and your own writing.
However, the question of how to improve academic writing skills can be a bit more complicated than that. Here are some of the most practical tips for writing to progress from 0 to at least 80% efficiency quickly:
  • Master sentence structures (simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex);
  • Work on run-on sentences; learn proper punctuation (commas, semicolons, and periods);
  • Check your text for sentence fragments;
  • Perfect your usage of active and passive voice, learn the appropriate function of each (passive voice is only used when we don’t need somebody to do the action, like here);
  • Make it a habit to come through the whole text and cross out all redundancies;
  • Keep an eye on parallel structures ( for example, “She enjoys reading, writing, and hiking.”, not “She enjoys reading, writing, and to hike.”);
  • Replace redundant nouns with verbs (make a decision - decide);
  • Try only highlighting transition words like “and”, however,” “therefore,” and check whether they are placed logically;
  • Collect examples and practice a formal tone.
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Academic Writing Checklist

✔️ I am sure that I understand the assignment correctly. I checked the requirements, expected format, word count, citation style, and deadline.
✔️ I did a thorough evidence-based research. I used credible sources, took structured notes, categorized key elements, collected evidence, and came to logical conclusions before writing.
✔️ I have a clear thesis statement. It is specific, debatable, and research-driven.
My arguments are arranged logically. The thoughts flow smoothly between the arguments, and my ideas are backed up with factual evidence.
✔️ I have a clear outline. I distinguish between the introduction, body parts, and conclusion.
✔️ My introduction has all three major elements. It includes an engaging hook, a contextual background, and a clear thesis statement.
✔️ Each body paragraph is well-structured. Its topic sentences align with the thesis and are supported with examples.
✔️ The conclusion part summarises key points. It adds no any new information, only rephrases and restates the main ideas.
✔️ I checked out the 7 Cs of academic writing in my text.
I use proper grammar, syntax, and style. I avoid first-person perspective and descriptive writing. Instead, I adhere to academic style.
✔️ All citations are in accordance with the assigned manual.

Sum Up

Before you go, let’s recap - what is academic writing? It’s safe to say one thing: it is more than just following rules. It’s a disciplined approach to presenting knowledge with clarity, structure, and precision. From research papers to dissertations, it demands objectivity, strong argumentation, and adherence to formal style guides.
Taking notes on this article will equip you with the writing essentials you need in the first few years of college. It will not save you the time to learn these basics, though. StudyPro’s AI tools can do just that. Next time you feel frustrated with academic assignments, try them and check whether they’re worth your attention.

Frequently asked questions

Academic writing is a type of writing used in educational and research settings. It is formal, structured, evidence-based, and follows a set of rules enforced by one of a few manual styles.
An example of academic writing is a research paper on climate change analyzing recent scientific studies. Another example is an essay on the impact of post-COVID behavioral trends on society assigned by a college professor.
The term refers to a broad field, including dissertations, journal articles, case studies, literature reviews, and lab report formats.
Effective academic writing meets the purpose of the genre - to clearly, coherently, and structurally convey fact-checked information. Strong examples of such writing are easy to follow logically, structurally, and grammatically.
Sources:
Publisher, A. R. A. R. O. O. (2015, December 4). 8.2 How Can I Become a Better Writer? Pressbooks. https://open.lib.umn.edu/collegesuccess/chapter/8-2-how-can-i-become-a-better-writer/
Specht, D. (2020). The Media and Communications Study Skills Student Guide. University of Westminster Press.
How can I make myself a stronger writer? — University of Louisville Writing Center.(n.d.). https://louisville.edu/writingcenter/for-students-1/common-writing-questions-1/i-want-to-improve-my-writing-but-im-not-sure-where-to-start
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