What is Academic Writing?

This article talks about writing in college and several aspects to it that are vital in order to write at a college level. It first talks about myths about writing and one of the myths that caught my attention was “Myth #6: The Five Paragraph Essay.” During middle school and high school, I always thought the length for an essay should be five paragraphs but now . Another myth that I have encountered was “Myth #7: Never use ‘I’.” I agree that this myth has always existed and I have always kept this “myth” in the back of my head every time when it comes to writing. The author then talks about the extra step academic writing takes in college and how it becomes more difficult. College requires you to enhance your research skills and research information in depth. It also requires you to be able to read and comprehend difficult literature, which includes separating fact from opinion and making conclusions/interpretations. I think this part of academic writing is very important because your ability to fulfill this task will dictate how well you do on your paper. Another part of the article that seemed important to me was the discussion about making an argument and making an analysis. I agree with the author’s statement about arguments, which is that its purpose is not to win the argument, but it resembles a conversation between two people and that it’s just a case of having a better understanding of an opinion. With the case of analysis, I have always been confused. I struggled with analysis during high school but this article summarized analysis very well. It divided analysis into three parts: Be open minded to several answers, identify important parts of the topic, and look thoroughly into these parts and have them all relate to each other. By reading this article, I have a better understanding of what’s asked of me when it comes to academic writing and how to approach it.