Academic and Professional Writing

• Components of Academic and Professional Writing

  1. Context
  2. Message
  3. Language
  4. Purpose
  5. Audience
  6. Product
• Context

  • This refers to the situation where professional writing is performed.
  • It includes the following:

  a. people involved (i.e., the sender and the receiver)

  b. relationship between the people involved in communication

  c. time and place,

  d. and some possible interferences.
• Message

  • This refers to the content of your document.
  • It includes the main topic and the details that support it.
  • These details may be in the form of facts, statistics, testimonies, and observation.
• Second Level Purpose - is the reason why you want to inform or persuade your target audience
• Language

  • This refers to the channel used to convey the message.
  • It can either be visual or textual, formal or informal, verbal and non-verbal.
  • Note that you need to follow the standard form and usage of language in professional writing.
• General purposes of Academic and Professional Writing

  1. To inform - to make the audience understand a concept
  2. To persuade - to influence the readers to change their attitudes or actions
• Two levels of Purpose: general and specific
• Audience

  • This is the receiver of the message.
  • It can either be primary (i.e., the direct receiver of your document) or secondary (i.e., the indirect receiver of your document).
• Product

  • This refers to the output that you intend to produce after considering all the other components.
• Academic Writing

  • Is a type of writing produced by a student in an academic setting.
  • Its main purpose is to inform and persuade, not to entertain.
  • The most common types of include academic essays, book reviews, literature reviews, research reports, project proposals, position papers, and reaction papers.
• Academic Writing is impersonal and formal
• Two Forms of Academic Writing

  1. Impersonal - It usually uses the third person perspective and does not have a direct reference to persons and feelings.
  2. Formal - It strictly adheres to formal English and avoids word contractions (e.g. don't, shouldn't).
• 4 Components of Modeling

  1. Punctuation
  2. Spelling
  3. Capitalization
  4. Abbreviation
• Two Elements of any Academic Writing

  1. Citation
  2. Referencing