Outlines of academic writing

Academic writing issues are sometimes disregarded by some discourse communities which need to apply academic conventions in intellectual contexts. As Myles (2002) argues, “[a]cademic writing requires conscious effort and much practice in composing, developing and analyzing ideas”(p. 1). As a result, writing of this type must be fostered and trained agreeing on one the possible writing styles. In this article, the American Psychological Association (APA) style will be used to research some of the key aspects of academic writing.
The use of quotations is an extremely important resource so as to show a substantial level of research as well as a great deal of credibility. Analysing Myles (2002), it seems that direct quotations reveal different perspectives and voices to the reader. For instance, when citing Kutz, Groden & Zamel (1993), Myles (2002) states that the nature of academic writing often confuses students, “particularly those who bring with them a set of conventions that are at odds with those of the academic world they are entering” (p. 2).
Omissions and insertions are also considered useful techniques of acknowledging sources. When it is a need to adapt other authors’ voices to the context in which new ideas are developed, omissions and insertions of paragraphs, words or letters play a fundamental role. According to Pintos & Crimi (2010), an omission is “used in writing to indicate that a part of the original text has been omitted within a quoted passage” (p. 22). To cite an example, in Myles’s (2002) article, an omission is appreciated when she cites Mc Laughlin (1988) commenting that transfer errors can occur because “[L]earners lack the necessary information in the second language or the attentional capacity to activate the appropriate second-language routine” (p. 7).
Taking into consideration different structures of introductory phrases is also a key point in examining linguistic aspects of academic writing. Particularly, Pintos & Crimi (2010) define introductory phrases as “expressions composed by the source and the main idea.” (p. 21). Therefore, if Myles´s (2002) article is considered, it is possible to cite a variety of structures such as “The Flower and Hayes (1980, 1981) model focuses on (...)” (p. 2); “According to the researchers (...)” (p. 3) and “Schumann (1998) argues that (...)” (p.7) among other examples.
In-text citations cannot be ignored when studying academic writing features. Short and block quotations either using direct or indirect writing are found throughout Myles’ s (2002) article. For instance, an example of a short paraphrased quotation could be “[i]n structuring information, the writer uses various types of knowledge, including discourse knowledge, understanding of audience, and sociolinguistic rules (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990)”( p. 6). Although there is a considerable variety of quotations, paraphrasing seems to be the most common since Myles’s (2002) attention is not focused on years of publication or authors, but on valuable ideas.
Similarly, the use of reporting verbs show a management of the diverse academic writing strategies that Myles (2002) uses so as to depict a detailed picture of her own ideas. Thus, she utilizes diverse verbs in structures such as “ In fact, Bereiter and Scardamalia criticize (...)” (p. 3); “[t]he authors discuss (...) (p.3) as well as “O’Malley and Chamot have differentiated (...)” (p.7). As previously mentioned, through Myles’s (2002) writing, it can be noticed her unambiguous concepts and fluency of ideas through varied language.
Broadly speaking, Myles’s (2002) work seems to show a clear scenario of an interesting piece of writing following academic conventions. Scrutinising her article may motivate the correct understanding of APA style so as to improve academic writing in the context of different fields. All in all, the fact of analysing and developing ideas should be organised neatly and orderly for the correct interpretation of messages in a variety of discourse communities.

Reference

Myles, J. (2002). Second language writing and research: The writing process and error analysis in student texts. TESL-EJ, 6, 2, 2002. Queen’s University. Retrieved October 2010, from
from http://www-writing.berkeley.edu/TESl-EJ/ej22/a1.html.

Pintos, V., & Crimi, Y. (2010). Unit 3: Academic writing. Retrieved September 2010, from
http://caece.campusuniversidad.com.ar/mod/resource/view.php?id=7392