Academic language

How close is academic Writing to

High School Writing?
 What is academic writing?
 Academic writing is writing done by scholars
for other scholars
 Academic writing is devoted to topics and

issues that are of interest to the academic

community
 Academic writing should present the reader

with an informed argument

What are the characteristics of
academic language?
Use of academic words which are

◦ Formal:
 TV and the movies got more and more dependent on each
other in the 1980s.
 The relationship between television and cinema grew
increasingly symbiotic in the 1980s.
◦ Technical
 We treat sick patients.
 A telecaesium unit is used to provide external beam treatment
for patients with deep-seated tumors .
◦ Impersonal
 If we examine the statistics it is revealed to us that poverty and
ill health have a positive relationship.
 An examination of the statistics reveals that poverty and ill
health have a positive relationship.
 No use of…
 Contractions ( like isn’t, can’t, don’t etc.)
 Colloquial vocabulary such as
everyday words and phrases ( get out of hand)
phrasal verbs( get through it )
 figures of speech (time is money Or as wise as an
owl)
cliches ( opposites attract OR time will tell)
 idioms ( beat around the bush)
“run-on” expressions ( a.s.o OR etc. OR and so forth)
rhetorical questions ( Women earn less and own less
than men. Why is this so?)
Use of academic structures

◦ Nominalisations
Germany invaded Poland in 1939. This was
the immediate cause of the Second World
War breaking out.

Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 was the

immediate cause of the outbreak of the Second
World War.
 Extended nominal groups
 The major policy priority
 The practice of responsible government in

the UK.
 The establishment of the Union Club in

Sydney
 Use of passive voice

 Society has an Upper, Middle and Lower class.

 The Australian society can be categorised into

three levels: the Upper, Middle and Working
classes.
 Academic conventions
 Opinion is presented in objective and impersonal
style:

◦ Impersonal structures are used instead of personal

pronouns (I, you, etc.) to refer to yourself or the reader:

◦ Because only a few people have most of the power and money in
Australia, I conclude it is an unequal society.

◦ The inequality in the distribution of wealth in Australia is yet

another indicator of Australia’s lack of egalitarianism.
 Academic conventions
 Avoidance of judgemental or emotive
language:
◦ I am convinced by Caroll’s (1996) conclusion that
Australian architecture requires innovation, yet I
dislike the way he has ignored residential design
in order to reach this conclusion.
 The conditions are appalling and account,
to a large extent, for the terrible
morbidity statistics of this community.
Is the writer expressing personal opinion
or evaluation here?

In many radiotherapy centres where planning for external

beam treatments is performed by radiation therapists, the
treatment sheet and its calculations are independently
checked by staff from a different educational background,
typically a radiotherapy physicist. The benefits of this
practice were evaluated in a radiotherapy department with
two linear accelerators, one combined superficial -
orthovoltage unit and one telecaesium unit.
Academic conventions
 Opinion is expressed carefully through the
use of “hedging”, i.e modal verbs, adjectives
or adverbs to mitigate the assertion or impact
of a statement:

◦ There are problems we have to solve.

◦ There might just be a few insignificant problems we

need to address.
 Academic conventions
 Integration of (expert) evidence into writing
to support the writer’s arguments or claims:

◦ I think that girls do better at high school than boys.

◦ Girls are consistently outperforming boys at secondary school
level. For example, from 1990 to 1999 the mean female TER
ranking was 15% higher than the mean male ranking ( O’Day
1999: 67).