Want to know what are the academic writing steps? Then you need to read this blog which will provide you with all information.
The elements of good academic writing are effective planning, composition, and revising.
Despite the fact that everyone’s writing process is a little different, there are five basic stages that may be used to assist you to organize your time when creating any form of material.
What are the steps in academic writing? Follow these 5 Steps to find out.
Step 1: prepare for writing.
Before you start writing, you must first decide what you want to write about and undertake the necessary research to back up your choice.
Creating a topic suggestion
If you need to come up with a topic for an assignment on your own, think about what you’ve learned thus far in class—is there anything that has piqued your interest, pricked your attention, or even perplexed you? Topics that have left you with extra questions are wonderful since they can be addressed more thoroughly in your written work.
The extent of your subjects will vary depending on whether you’re writing an essay, a research paper, or a dissertation. Choose anything that is neither too broad to be covered in the allowed words nor too narrow to allow you to say much.
Concentrate on a single argument or question that you’re responding to. For example, a good essay topic could be boiled down as follows:
Carrying out the Required Research
Once you’ve chosen a topic, you’ll need to find acceptable sources and gather the data you’ll need for your paper. This method has different steps based on your topic of study and the size of the assignment. The following elements could be included:
• Finding primary and secondary sources through research.
• Paying close attention to the texts that are required (e.g. for literary analysis).
• Obtaining data through the application of relevant research methods (e.g. experiments, interviews or surveys)
Take meticulous notes while researching, as this will aid you in writing better essays in the future. Keep track of the authors’ names and titles, publication dates, and relevant quotations from your sources, as well as the material you received and your initial analysis or interpretation of the problems you’re trying to solve.
Step 2: Make a strategy and a rough outline.
In order to transfer the information as quickly as possible, it is necessary to follow a logical structure, especially in academic writing. It’s a lot better to plan ahead of time than it is to try to figure out your framework after you’ve already begun writing.
Before you start writing your paper, a well-thought-out essay outline is a terrific way to organize your thoughts. This should help you figure out which of the main topics you want to focus on and how you’ll organize them. Although the plan should be finalized, it’s fine if the structure changes during the writing process.
Use bullet points or numbers if you want to make your structure obvious at a glance. Even if your material is brief and lacks headers or subheadings, it is beneficial to summarise your arguments in each paragraph.
Step 3: Write a rough draft of your essay.
It’s time to create comprehensive first draughts once you’ve gained a thorough knowledge of your structure.
At times, this can be a non-linear process. For instance, it’s best to start writing with the main body of the text and keep the introduction for later, when you’ve gained a greater knowledge of the subject you’re introducing.
Use your outline to help you organize your thoughts as a foundation for your writing. Each paragraph should have a clear main point that connects to your overall argument. Make sure there are no mistakes in your work.
To see how a paragraph is put together, move your cursor over the sections of the example, which is taken from a literary analysis essay on Mansfield Park.
An example of a paragraph.
Mrs. Norris, yet another figure in Mansfield Park who epitomizes moral performance, is another example. She is characterized as someone who knows “how to dictate liberality to others: but her love of money was equally as big as her passion for directing,” as she is presented in the narrative with disdain (p. 7). Her self-perception as “the most liberal-minded sister and aunt on the face of the earth” is unaffected by her dishonesty (p. 7). According to her spouse, she is concerned with appearing charitable, but she is unwilling to make any personal sacrifices to attain this goal. As a stand-in, she stage-manages others’ altruistic endeavors, never admitting that her ideas do not necessitate putting her own time or money at risk. The author explains how morally upright behavior can be reduced to a stage performance, and how doing good is less important than appearing good for a character.
You should start a new paragraph whenever you go from one topic to another. Use proper transition words and phrases to show the connections between your ideas.
At this point, the idea is to complete a draught as rapidly as possible rather than making everything perfect as you go. You’ll be able to see where you need to make adjustments once you have a whole document in front of you.
Set the first-draft deadline for yourself that will give you enough time to revise, edit, and proofread your work before the final deadline. For a longer document, such as a dissertation or a thesis proposal, you and your supervisor may agree on individual chapter deadlines.
Step 4 : Rewrite and revise your work
It’s time to take a close look at your first draught and see if there are any places where you can improve. Redrafting entails drastically expanding or decreasing the amount of content in a document, whereas revising entails structural changes and argument reformulation.
Examining the very first draught
It’s difficult to look at your own writing with a critical eye. If you attempt to evaluate your work shortly after completion, your viewpoint may be slanted in either a positive or bad direction.
It is recommended that you leave your work alone for at least a day or two after finishing the first draught. If you return after a break and examine it with fresh eyes, you’ll see things you wouldn’t have noticed before.
You’re generally concerned with larger difficulties at this stage of writing a review, such as shifts in your arguments or changes in your writing structure. Starting with the most essential issues saves time because improving the grammar of something you’re going to cut out anyway is pointless.
Right now, you’re looking for the following:
• Arguments that are difficult to comprehend or unreasonable.
• Areas were providing information in a different order would be more effective
• Sections that demand additional information or explanation.
• Completely unrelated passages to your main issue of disagreement.
For example, in our study on Mansfield Park, we would recognize that a more direct examination of the protagonist Fanny Price would improve the argument, so we’d strive to fit it into paragraph IV.
For some tasks, you may receive comments from a supervisor or a peer on your initial drafting. Pay attention to what they say because their ideas will usually help you figure out which parts of your work need to be improved.
The steps of rewriting and reworking are crucial.
Once you’ve figured out where changes are needed, start with the most important ones first, as they’re more likely to have an impact on the rest. This phase may comprise the following procedures, depending on the requirements of your text:
• Making changes to your general argumentative stance.
• Rearranging the text’s paragraphs.
• Removing text from the document in chunks.
• Adding more text to the page.
You may need to bounce back and forth between writing, redrafting, and rewriting for numerous draughts until you have a final draft that you’re happy with.
Consider what kinds of adjustments you can make in the time you have. Keep in mind that if you’re short on time, you don’t want to leave your text in a sloppy state in the middle of redrafting, so focus on the most important changes first.
Step 5. Proofreading and editing the final draught
Specific issues such as clarity and sentence structure are addressed during editing. Proofreading comprises a thorough examination of the text in order to detect and rectify typographical errors while also maintaining stylistic consistency.
During the editing phase, grammar and clarity are verified.
You want to make sure that your wording is comprehensible, succinct, and grammatically correct during the editing process. You’re looking for the following things:
• There are some grammatical mistakes.
• Uncertainty in phrases.
• Repetition of ideas and redundancy
Proofreading for minor grammatical and typographical problems
The first thing you should look for when proofreading is errors in your text:
• Spelling errors and grammatical errors
• There are a few words that aren’t there.
• The use of confusing terminology.
• Errors in punctuation
• Excessive or inconsistent whitespace.
Make use of your word processor’s built-in spell check, but don’t expect it to catch every mistake. Read your text line by line, looking for any trouble spots highlighted by the software as well as any additional flaws that the software may have missed.
You are free to choose which standards you will follow until you are given specific instructions on these subjects. The most important thing is to consistently adhere to a single standard for each issue. It is not permissible to use a combination of American and British spellings in your article, for example.
Aside from that, specific instructions for topics like formatting (how your material is presented on the page) and citations will very definitely be given to you (how you acknowledge your sources). Always pay attention to the instructions given.
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