• Academia •
Academic Writing: To Write or Not to Write? «Although this process could be hard, there are certain recommendations that can help us succeed in writing an essay.» Angie Tatiana Gutiérrez Galvis
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ave you ever felt overwhelmed before starting an essay? Creating this kind of document is not easy for us as students, and their development may result exhausting and challenging given the implied process. As stated by Hind Al Fadda (2012), “writing in English […] is particularly difficult for English as a second language (ESL) graduate students, who come from non-Anglicized linguistic and cultural backgrounds” (p. 123). This is because as ESL students we lack vocabulary and the logic that writing these texts needs; therefore, we must face several stages in the process of academic writing that could be defiant to us. Producing an essay requires reading, writing, and researching skills to create a well-developed work; we need to have drafts, adjust to the requirements of the genre and respect rules when citing, along with other essentials. However, the most critical time is when we start elaborating the text and numerous doubts emerge. Although this process could be hard, there are certain recommendations that can help us succeed in writing an essay. Feeling confident and comfortable as well as handling the topic we choose comes first. Indeed, academic writing requires careful research and a great deal of reading. This may lead us to frustration because investigation and perusal can be tedious; hence, when we choose a topic, we do 6
Licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas con énfasis en inglés y francés
the things that we understand and handle. Another solution is to look for appropriate “Therefore, when choosing our tosources, so our ideas pic, we should feel confident with it can be supported. It is so that external factors do not hinimportant to know that der our process.” research must be done carefully and thoroughly. For this purpose, as previously mentioned, reading is imperative not narrow it. This might be a when researching. First, problem when we write the argu- when writing any academic text, ments since they are not straight- exploring different sources with forward. As stated by Al Fadda the aim of reading will provide (2012), academic writing may us with the knowledge, proficienbe influenced by several factors cy and skills we need to support like emotional matters, anxiety, what we know. These competencand educational subjects such as es “namely Reading, Writing (…) writing style, grammar, mechan- are stated to be the basics for the ics, and language literacy. There- success of any college student. fore, when choosing our topic, we (…). Reading/Comprehension should feel confident with it so that external factors do not hinder our process. It is also important to have some knowledge about the content we will develop throughout our text so that the theme is interesting, feasible and easy to research. For this aim, we must “be honest about how much ownership [we] can claim over the ideas formed (…), and the opinion expressed” (Bristol Business School, 2006, p.3). Choosing a topic should rise, not only Untangle your writing process. Taken from: from our preferences and https://library.soton.ac.uk/sash/academic-writing knowledge, but also from
