How Do Beginners Start Academic Writing?

Academic writing is an integral part of formal education for all students at the university or college level. Many students are a little bit worried about how to write a quality academic paper. I would say that there is nothing to worry about writing your academic research paper perfectly. Academic writing follows some specific roles and there are certain types and formats of academic writing. You just first need to learn them accordingly and then you can apply them in order to write standard and quality academic papers.

So, how do beginners start academic writing for the first time like you? Great! I am here presenting academic writing basics and guidelines step by step in detail. Go through the following section and follow to start academic writing. However, by practicing writing more and more, you can achieve mastery.

Basics for Beginners to Get Started Academic Writing

Academic writing means writing that communicates ideas, information, and research to the wider academic community. To get started in academic writing, you need to brainstorm, make an outline, research the topic, write the first draft, revise what you write, and proofread. I am breaking down these steps below.

1. Brainstorming

You may be given a topic or you have the option to choose a topic. In this context, you must be clear about what is assignment or research topic asking you to do. Write down everything you know about the topic. Think about what you feel is most interesting to you. Choose the strongest one, you will need to narrow your topic to clearly focus on the topic. For example, your broad topic is Environmental Protection. Then it could be Environmental Protection in India. Precise the topic more clearly. The topic finally would be Environmental Protection in the Ganga River. This topic is clear and specific.

2. Make an Outline

In the next step, you need to make a comprehensive outline of your writing. Outline means the plan showing the essential tasks of writing you need to perform from beginning to end. How to study the topic and collect data, analyze and present them in a structured way, what materials you need to study, where you will find the existing literature to review on this topic, what you will write in your first draft, a checklist of the features of academic writing, and finally, write down the format or make a print.

3. Research on Topic

Then go to the library for serious study. Collect all the existing materials, research papers, and literature, and study them deeply. One thing to keep in mind here is that the more you read about the topic and the deeper knowledge you gather, the better your academic writing will be. In this case, there is no other course instead than a detailed study of the topic. A lot of reliable data from authentic sources is needed to present your topic. As a result, you have to study the subject in-depth and you have to discover its essence.

4. Write First Draft

Now you write the first draft. When writing a draft, make sure that everything comes here according to your outline. Write down the details here. Remember that this is a draft on which you can subsequently add, edit, or delete something you think is not necessary before the final writing. Write down all your knowledge about the topic. Keep in mind that your writing must be in accordance with the format of academic writing. The format of academic writing is a bit down in this post you can check when you feel during your writing.

5. Review

Now review everything you have written. Check everything carefully if there is anything left in your writing. Whether there is a proper overview in the introduction, whether the presentation of your writing is formal? Make sure all the data and information are presented correctly. Check out the critical points of view of the writing. Make sure that you have applied the data presentation method properly. Review what topic want from you are presenting precisely and exactly. Review here means you make sure that everything you are presenting properly and formally.

6. Proofreading

And finally proofreading. It is better to proofread your writing by a professional proofreader. It is good even if you do proofread. Check out the quality of writing, the application of words to sentence structure must be perfect. Appropriate wording should be ensured according to the relevance of the context of the topic. The use of unnecessary ‘extra words’ should be avoided. In your writing, there will be no sentence or word that has no meaning. Proofreading will ensure the quality, meaning of the word, sentence structure, and there is no grammatical error.

Features of Academic Writing

In general academic writing follows the following features.

  1. Structured
  2. Evidenced
  3. Critical
  4. Precise
  5. Balanced
  6. Objective
  7. Formal

Academic Writing Format

The most common recognized format for presenting an original research paper in the social science or applied sciences is known as IMRD, an initialism that refers to the usual ordering of subsections:

  1. Introduction (summary of the topic and objective of the study).
  2. Method (Assumptions, questions, procedures described in replicable or at least reproducible detail).
  3. Results (Presentation of findings; often includes visual displays of quantitative data charts, plots).
  4. Discussion (Analysis, Implications, Suggested Next Steps).

Other common sections in academic documents are:

  1. Abstract
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Indices
  4. Bibliography
  5. List of References
  6. Appendix

In the end, I am pretty confident that beginners can start academic writing just by following this post effectively and successfully. And why the more delay? Let’s get started with your academic writing right now.


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