A Quick Guide to Start a Career as an Academic Writer
Many new fields of jobs have emerged in the last few years. These have enabled people to work outside of their traditional fields. Many people are drawn to the arts or literature because they are not gifted in medical or engineering. Many opportunities have opened up for such individuals in recent years. Content writing has become one of the most demanded services in recent years. Despite the fact that content writing encompasses a wide range of disciplines, the most promising sector of content writing is academic writing. But it isn’t such an easy field. It requires long hours of research to make one article. Writing a single article can take days.
What is Academic Writing?
Academic writing is a form of non-fictional writing that is backed up by facts and researches. It is a sophisticated writing style used in academic institutions or academic publications.
The Purpose of Academic Writing:
The main purpose is to inform, to describe a theory or an idea in simplified terms but with the use of formal and intellectual language. It is also done to persuade people to approve of your idea or theory by explaining why it is correct
Different from other writing styles:
The main difference is that academic writing is in a formal language. Therefore, Casual language is avoided in this. Secondly, it is objective, unlike other forms of writing which can be written from a personal point of view. It is fact-based and research-driven while other writing styles don’t necessarily revolve around facts and researches.
Eliot Colla explains this difference:
Academic writing you have to get right. Fiction you have to get plausible. And there’s a world of difference
Importance:
Above all, academic writing is a means of communication between those who know as well as those who want to know. It is a means to share information in a specific field of study. Not only that, academic writing forces you to think critically. It makes you develop a way of communication that others understand. It makes you think critically. You go through all perspectives and point-of-views to understand a topic. As a result, this opens up your own window of perspective and makes you more open to the views of other people.
As Khalid Talib says:
Writing is the light of imagination playing over shadows of thoughts
Types of Academic Writing:
Although academic writing is a field of content writing, it has further types, differentiated by the purpose of the writing. All of the following falls under the category of academic writing
1. Critical:
This type involves researching different views about researches where those views are based on strong evidence. However, these views can both be positive and negative.
2. Analytical:
This is a form of descriptive writing where you need to organize the contents of certain research into proper groups, tables, or paragraphs. Besides, most academic writings are in analytical form.
3. Persuasive:
Persuasive writing is basically analytical writing with the addition of your own point-of-view. However, your point of view about any research or topic must be fact-based. Therefore, personal biasness without any evidence or fact as a base is not acceptable in persuasive academic writing.
4. Descriptive:
This is the most basic form of academic writing. The only purpose of descriptive academic writing is to provide information. Hence, it is solely for describing research or a fact.
The Features of Academic Writing:
1. Intricacy:
In order to have a flourishing career as an academic writer, you must know you to be intricate with your words. Academic writing is supposed to be intricate. Similarly, it must involve details of the topic you are working on.
2. Responsibility:
Academic writing includes taking the responsibility of only delivering facts to the readers. Likewise, Any statement that is not backed up by evidence is not acceptable in academic writing.
3. Formal language:
The main feature which draws the line between academic writing and other forms of writing is the use of formal and academic language. Other types of writings don’t have to adhere to this rule but in academic writing, it is a must to always use formal language.
4. Impartiality:
There is a sense of impartiality in this form of writing. Therefore, your personal views and opinions cannot be a part of your writing. Academic writing is not affected or swayed by one’s personal views on a topic. On the other hand, it is purely based on facts and researches.
5. Clarity:
One of the main features of academic writing is that it should be clear and concise. It should not be written in a perplexing way. Rather, it should be easy to understand. There should be clarity in what you’re trying to explain.
6. Correctness:
Academic writing revolves around being correct. Hence, it is based on Proven evidence and facts. There is no room for assumptions or suggestions. On the contrary, Every single statement must be backed up by facts.
7. Hedging:
Also known as cautious writing, hedging means to tone down your views and opinions about a topic in such a way that it avoids any form of backlash. Since academic writing is based on facts, putting in your own opinion can trigger hate from people having a different opinion.
What you need to become an academic writer:
If you want to kickstart your career as an academic writer, you must focus on these skills. In short, these skills will define your worth as an academic writer
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Adaptability:
You must be able to adapt according to different topics.
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Critical-thinking Skills:
You must develop such thinking skills which allow you to understand a topic from all points of view.
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Determination:
Since this work can be tedious and may take many hours, you must have the determination to research and know everything about a topic
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Persuasion:
You must have the skills to persuade people to understand what you’re explaining in your writing.
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Social perceptiveness:
You must know about the social values and norms to know how to make people connect with your writing.
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Writing Skills:
You must know how to explain something using your words only. In other words without writing skills, it will be hard for you to make a good name for yourself.
Do’s and Don’ts:
During your career as an academic writer, make sure to keep these do’s and don’ts in mind to avoid any hit on your repute as a writer.
Things to do |
Things not to do |
Use formal language | Don’t use informal or casual language |
Use non-personal language e.g it | Don’t use personal language e.g I, you, etc |
Use proper, complete sentences to state your point | Don’t use numbering or bullets until it is a report |
Be objective | Don’t give you suggestions or opinions until asked |
Be summarizing | Don’t repeat sentences |
Make sure your point is clear | Don’t be confusing |
Provide references to anything that you haven’t written/researched yourself | Don’t plagiarize |
Proofread and look for grammatical errors | Don’t assume that the spell check will point out every grammatical mistake |
Use full form of the verb, e.g they are, do not | Don’t use verb contractions e.g they’re, don’t |
Earning Prospect of Academic Writing:
The Career as an academic writer has been shown to grow up to 8% by 2026 from 2016. Meanwhile, with the expansion of the academic world, there is great demand for academic writers and researchers. In 2016, the mean annual pay of writers was $61,240. Half of the academic writers earned less than this value while the other half earned more. On the contrary, the academic writers in the top 10% had an annual wage of $118,640.
earning prospects
Where can you Land a Job as an Academic Writer?
You can decide whether you want to be an academic writer as a side-job or want to pursue a proper career in it. After deciding that, you can either sign up on online sites which will provide your service to other people or you can work in an institution. The top rates sites for academic writing jobs are Upwork, iWriter, FlexJobs, BloggingPro, Guru, and Freelancer.com
This was a short guide to tell you what you need to know about starting your career as an academic writer. Remember, you must have the determination to excel. Since this line of work is quite popular, there is a lot of competition. But that doesn’t mean you should lose heart. Rather, keep working on your skills and you’ll surely achieve your goals.
If you want services in other fields of content writing, or want to see works of trained professionals, check out the research branch.
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