Writing an Academic Essay

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Academic writing is different from other forms of writing; it is distinctive, clear and concise. This essay will describe the factors that contribute to the credibility of an academic piece of writing, and incorporating them effectively into your own writing. In this essay I will further discuss the following three features to enrich credible academic writing; planning and drafting, critical writing and referencing and plagiarism.

With an abundant quantity of literature available, it is important to understand the factors that contribute to the credibility of an academic piece of writing. With the amount of literature available, especially with the Internet, making critical choices about what to read is the first step in in critical reading. A strong critical approach is required, in forms such as critical thinking, research and writing. Critical reading as part of academic study is a very active process (Wallace, 2006). It is essential that we take a critical approach to the reading of the journal or book, if we are to understand the worth of the work it reports.

To find out how reliable the material is you need to identify and evaluate the credibility of the source. Support literature, such as textbooks, encyclopaedias, handbooks and readers are typically a good place to commence research, developing an ability to learn about the required academic subject, whilst developing a strong knowledge base and understanding of the topic and allowing for an effective scaffolding process. ‘An additional type of literature review is the skimming technique, which you can really only undertake once you are familiar with a topic and have grasped the core assumptions, arguments and debates contained therein (Grix 2004 p 39)’. Front-line...

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