Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Content in Academic Writing


Drafting Essay: Content
The content of an essay is precisely focused on one issue.  It should have a clear point—thesis—and it should assert the viewpoint on an issue—in the body paragraphs—in a way that is both logical and valid.  Often, ethos, logos, and pathos are used in academic writing to strengthen the argument being made, but in the end, clear, assertive, and logically flowing content is what will persuade an audience to your side.


QUESTIONS
ELIMINATE QUESTIONS
Inexperienced writers will often include questions in various places in a writing.  This serves as a way for them to generate their topic.  However, this is not supposed to be done in the finished product.  A mature writer will ask questions and come up with the answers to those questions in an outline or early draft. 

By the time the final draft is in its formation, all questions are removed from the paragraphs and only focused, guided sentences remain, letting the audience know the author’s exact viewpoint…instead of having the author ask questions so that he can find his viewpoint.  Therefore, it is important for you to eliminate questions from your final writing pieces. 

If you want to ask yourself questions during a Brainstorming session or when creating the first version of your outline, this is fine.  However, by the time you turn in an outline to your instructor, there should be no questions in the content.  Afterall, you would have to eliminate them on the next stage of writing—the rough draft—anyway, or you might forget and leave them in accidentally.  Asking questions—of yourself—is a great way to start gathering your ideas on a topic.  Once you begin putting the content into an outline or draft, though, questions should be eliminated so that there is a clear focus and direction.  For additional information about questions in writing, visit this link: https://learnessaystrategies.blogspot.com/2019/10/eliminate-questions.html.

Image Location

Language Choice
Good writers are concise and precise, weeding out unnecessary words and choosing the exact word to convey meaning. Precise words — active verbs, concrete nouns, specific adjectives — help the reader visualize the sentence. Good writers use adjectives sparingly and adverbs rarely, letting their nouns and verbs do the work.
SLANG
ELIMINATE SLANG
Slang is language that is being modified in the current culture and is not part of Standard English clarity rules.  This means that not everyone will understand idioms, colloquialisms, jargon, oxymorons, or lingo.  Furthermore, they are not concepts that will always make sense or be as precise as Standard English.  Clichés are one form of slang that can become confusing to readers based on overuse and under-comprehension of the phrase and therefore must be removed form academic writing.  Be sure to eliminate all slang terminology from your writing.  For more information on slang elimination, visit this link: https://learnstandardenglish.blogspot.com/p/slang.html.

CONTRACTIONS
ELIMINATE CONTRACTIONS
Academic writing strives to write as closely to Standard English as possible.  This means that ‘real words’ from the English language are what will be included in your content.  You will not use slang or abbreviated words—such as contractions—when crafting academic writing.  Contractions are created when two real words have been modified to make one shortened word consisting of most of the letters from the original words, with an apostrophe filling in the space for missing content.  For example: I did not go to the store today might be alternately written as I didn’t go to the store today.  When writing informally, contractions may be considered acceptable; however, in formal writing, academic writing, contractions must be eliminated to maintain the highest level of academic writing. For additional information about contractions, visit this link: https://learnessaystrategies.blogspot.com/2019/02/formal-writing-voice.html.


WEBSITE LINKS
Learn more about essay STRUCTURE: https://learnessaywriting.blogspot.com/
Learn more about essay CONTENT: https://learnessaystrategies.blogspot.com/
Learn more about essay FORMAT: https://fgc-enc1210.blogspot.com/
Learn more about STANDARD ENGLISH: http://learnstandardenglish.blogspot.com/






Content created by J. Dick
For additional helper sheets, visit one of the main sites below
For Educational Purposes Only, © 2019






JDick13@liberty.edu




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