October 10, 2014
This post is born out of a writing assignment for my PhD course 'Focused Educational Studies". The assignment was a reflective piece on chapter 4 of Jesson et al.'s book " Doing A Literature Review". The argument I developed in this essay revolves around the difference between academic writing and free style writing . My point was that academic writing is usually messier and time-consuming. The kind of thinking and reflection that goes with this kind of writing makes it really a painfully time and energy-consuming task.
Academic writing is inherently critical in that the writer has to develop an argument, provides a logical path of reasoning , a body of facts, ideas theses and anti-thesis to defend or refute a claim. This process of argumentation is usually encompassed within a well-written language. The writing style here is an essential component that determines the validity and authority of the academic piece. Academic writing style is not something one can develop overnight. It requires a lot of reading and practice and this is probably why so many undergraduate and graduate students grapple with it.
For those of you keen on improving their writing style and developing a robust academic ( and non-academic) writing style, the book collection below is definitely a must read. These are books I have bought throughout the course of my graduate and PhD studies. I would highly recommend them for student researchers. Enjoy
- On Writing Well by William Zensser
- The Elements of Style by William Strunkand E.B. White
- Writing Down The Bones, Freeing The Writer Within by Natalie Golberg
- On Writing, A Memoir of The Craft by Stephen King
- How to Write a Book Review by Rebecca Graf
- Stylish Academic Writing by Sword, Helen
- Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Clark, Roy Peter
- A Canadian Writer's Reference by Diana Hacker
