Academic Writing part 1 – Introduction
Academic writing
Introduction:
Before talking about academic writing, it is important to start our article in some words about academic English. What is academic English?
According to English language specialists in the most deep-rooted universities in our world, English writing is the variety of English language that we use to share, read, and write a scientific research. And because science does not belong to one single country or community, we use academic English to reach a wide, general, and academic audience from all over the world in an attempt to persuade them to the importance of the question of our research and answering this question.
For a long time, writing has become the cornerstone of any knowledge transport process, especially in the field of science, which requires careful, understandable, and discussable content targeted for universal community.
Thus, academic writing is clear, concise, focused, structured and backed up by evidence. Its purpose is to aid the reader’s understanding and debating. It has a formal tone and style, but it is not complex and does not require the use of long sentences and complicated vocabulary. Shortly, it is the simplest, yet most meaningful way of writing.
Example: “Academic writing must have clearly written sentences. It must also have clearly written paragraphs. Clear sentences are short, to the point and have both subject and predicate. Clearly written paragraphs give main ideas in a topic sentence, supported by other sentences. They must have coherence. This is, each part of the sentence must be logically related and show the links between sentences.”
Commentary: Unfortunately, this paragraph deals with two main ideas. They are main ideas because both of them are supported by other sentences (e.g. ‘Clear sentence are…’ and ‘Clearly written paragraphs give…’). Mixing up main ideas means that the reference words get confused and the idea being talked about can get mixed up.
Improved version: “Academic writing must have clearly written sentences. Clear sentences are short, to the point and have both subject and predicate. Sentences also need to have coherence. This is, each part of the sentence must be logically related. Further, academic writing must also have clearly written paragraphs. Good paragraphs give main ideas in a topic sentence, supported by other sentences. Paragraphs also must have coherence. This is done by having clear links between sentences.”
Academic writing is utilized in different types of documents, including: books, essays, research papers, theses, and other such materials. These documents must be authentic, objective, and must only use highly-trusted resources so that the concept discussed earns approval and consideration. Therefore, writers are also warned to use an impersonal, disinterested tone of rhetoric.
Educational comprehension has many fields, as with academic texts. Each field has concrete and subject-oriented sources. When it comes to medicine, the field that relates directly to human well-being, it is crucial to differentiate between the abundant sources of medical information (ranging from websites that share medical myths and outright fake information, to peer-reviewed articles published by agencies that have years of experience in the medical field). That is why in this article we discuss the best resources that you can use.
Resources:
Writing in the sciences | Stanford Lagunita
https://lagunita.stanford.edu/courses/Medicine/SciWrite-SP/SelfPaced/about
This course teaches scientists to become more effective writers, using practical examples and exercises. Topics include: principles of good writing, tricks for writing faster and with less anxiety, the format of a scientific manuscript, and issues in publication and peer review.
PubMed
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed
At the top of the list comes PubMed, a medical research database that stores biomedical literature from life science journals and online books. It uses MEDLINE database, and is one of the biggest archives of medical and health-related information online published by investigators and professionals of multiple areas of the medical field. You can surf the site for free, however, some articles require payment to access the full text.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar has become one of the richest sources of information since the time it was launched in 2004. It is a hub of scholarly literature comprised of articles, theses, books, and research papers from a variety of professional societies and universities. One of the top attributes of this tool is that it gives you the ability to keep up with recent developments in the area of research of your choosing. Unlike PubMed, Google Scholar is not restricted to biomedical articles. Rather, it has a wide set of articles in various specialties and sciences.
Medscape
Medscape counts as an enormously valuable source of medical information. It is credible, up-to-date, and rich with profitable articles and papers regarding health, drugs, and medical news. One can type in the name of the subject he is searching for and the site generates results sorted by relevance, showing all types of documents related to one’s search. This can be either an article or a research paper from various medical journals. The best thing is that all articles are free, full text, and picked by Medscape professionals to ensure the best quality.
Academic writing is structured research written by scholars for other scholars. It addresses topic-based research questions of interest to anyone who is seeking factually-based, objectively-presented information on a particular topic. It communicates an idea clearly and effectively.
That is why in this article we discuss the best resources you can use to know and learn more about academic writing.
SAMS Education Committee
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaheL1Z3SRGLWEXF-AWbUDQ/featured
SAMS’s Education Committee and network of doctors in the United States and beyond connect and collaborate in order to help give Syrian medical professional opportunities to expand their knowledge and experience. SAMS provide you a great opportunity to increase your information about academic writing by attending an online course consist of 12 lectures.
Mastering scientific and medical writing: A self-help guide by Silvia M Rogers.
It is a concise guide for writers to improve the clarity of their writing. This book supplies valuable practical tips on all of the major aspects of writing including spelling, punctuation, grammar, quoting, avoiding discrimination and plagiarism. The readers can put their learning into practice by an excellent set of exercise at the end of the book.
The University of Arizona
https://www.youtube.com/user/Arizona/featured
You should subscribe this channel on Youtube which contains many reliable and valuable videos. They are most appropriate for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, staff, and junior faculty members and they can take your hand to transform ideas into publishable papers.
