irvin--what-is-academic-writing - What Is Academic Writing...

What Is “Academic” Writing?
1. College readers. 2. English language--Rhetoric. I. Lowe, Charles,
1965- II. Zemliansky, Pavel.
PE1417.W735 2010
808’.0427--dc22
2010019487

3
What Is “Academic” Writing?
L. Lennie Irvin
Introduction: The Academic Writing Task
As a new college student, you may have a lot of anxiety and questions
about the writing you’ll do in college.
*
That word “academic,” espe-
cially, may turn your stomach or turn your nose. However, with this
first year composition class, you begin one of the only classes in your
entire college career where you will focus on learning to write. Given
the importance of writing as a communication skill, I urge you to con-
sider this class as a gift and make the most of it. But writing is hard,
and writing in college may resemble playing a familiar game by com-
pletely new rules (that often are unstated). This chapter is designed
to introduce you to what academic writing is like, and hopefully ease
your transition as you face these daunting writing challenges.
So here’s the secret. Your success with academic writing depends
upon how well you understand what you are doing as you write and
then how you approach the writing task. Early research done on college
writers discovered that whether students produced a successful piece of
writing depended largely upon their representation of the writing task.
The writers’ mental model for picturing their task made a huge differ-
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