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Academic
writing is conducted in several sets of forms and genres, normally in
an impersonal and dispassionate tone, targeted for a critical and
informed audience, based on closely investigated knowledge, and
intended to reinforce or challenge concepts or arguments. It usually
circulates within the academic world ('the academy'), but the
academic writer may also find an audience outside via journalism,
speeches, pamphlets, etc. Typically, scholarly writing has an
objective stance, clearly states the significance of the topic, and
is organized with adequate detail so that other scholars may try to
replicate the results. Strong papers are not overly general and
correctly utilize formal academic rhetoric.
This
article provides a short summary of the full spectrum of critical and
academic writing and lists the genres of academic writing. It does
cover the variety of critical approaches that can be applied when one
writes about a subject. However, as Harwood and Hadley (2004) and
Hyland (2004) have pointed out, the amount of variation that exists
between different disciplines may mean that we cannot refer to a
single academic literacy.[1] While academic writing consists of a
number of text types and genres, what they have in common, the
conventions that academic writers traditionally follow, has been a
subject of debate.[1] Many writers have called for conventions to be
challenged, for example Pennycook (1997) and Ivanic (1998), while
others suggest that some conventions should be maintained, for
example Clark (1997, p136).[1]
Discourse
community constraints
Constraints
are the discourse community's written and unwritten conventions about
what a writer can say and how he or she can say it. They define what
is an acceptable argument. Each discourse community expects to see a
writer construct his or her argument using their conventional style
of language and vocabulary, and they expect a writer to use the
established intertext within the discourse community as the building
blocks for his or her argument.
Writing
for a discourse community
In
order for a writer to become familiar with some of the constraints of
the discourse community they are writing for, a useful tool for the
academic writer is to analyze prior work from the discourse
community. The writer should look at the textual 'moves' in these
papers, focusing on how they are constructed. Across most discourses
communities, writers will:
-
Identify
the novelty of their position
-
Make
a claim, or thesis
-
Acknowledge
prior work and situate their claim in a disciplinary context
-
Offer
warrants for one's view based on community-specific arguments and
procedures (Hyland)
Each
of the 'moves' listed above are constructed differently depending on
the discourse community the writer is in. For example, the way a
claim is made in a high school paper would look very different from
the way a claim is made in a college composition class. [2] It is
important for the academic writer to familiarize himself or herself
with the conventions of the discourse community by reading and
analyzing other works, so that the writer is best able to communicate
his or her ideas. (Porter) Contrary to some beliefs, this is by no
means plagiarism.
Writers
should also be aware of other ways in which the discourse community
shapes their writing. Other functions of the discourse community
include determining what makes a novel argument and what a 'fact' is.
The following sections elaborate on these functions.
Misconceptions
regarding facts and opinions in the discourse community
It
is important for any writer to distinguish between what is accepted
as 'fact' and what is accepted as 'opinion'. Wikipedia's article Fact
misguides writers in their interpretation of what a fact actually is.
The article states that "A fact (derived from the Latin factum,
see below) is something that has really occurred or is actually the
case". But this is not how writers think of facts. Writing
professionals hold that, "In a rhetorical argument, a fact is a
claim that an audience will accept as being true without requiring
proof".[3]:76 Facts can be thought of merely as claims. The
audience can be thought of as a discourse community, and a fact can
suddenly change to become an opinion if stated in a different
discourse community. This is how writers within discourse communities
manage to present new ideas to their communities. Any new opinion
would need to be proven by making a rhetorical argument, in which the
writer would weave together what his or her intended audience will
accept as 'facts' in a way that supports his or her idea. Therefore,
knowing the intended discourse community is a very important part of
writing.
Across
discourse communities, what is considered factual may fluctuate
across each community. As Elizabeth Wardle and Douglas Downs wrote
in their book Writing about Writing,[3]:67 in reference to Margaret
Kantz's article "Helping students use textual sources
persuasively":[4]
A
key concept in this change is learning to recognize that facts aren't
so much inherently true statements as they are claims-that is,
assertions that most of a given audience has agreed are true because
for that audience sufficient proof has already been given. You, like
most people, would probably classify the statement "the Earth is
round" as a "fact." Its status as a fact, however,
depends on our mutual agreement that "round" is an adequate
description of the Earth's actual, imperfectly spherical shape. What
Kantz wants us to see is that what makes the statement a fact is not
how "true" the statement is but that most people have
agreed that it's true and treat it as true. Statements about which we
haven't reached this consensus remain claims, statements that people
argue about. Kantz's work here demonstrates why it's so important to
read texts-even "factual" works like textbooks and
encyclopedias-as consisting of claims, not facts.