Demystifying Academic Writing (genres, Moves, Skills, And Strategies)

Accessible and informative, this book is designed to enhance the capacity of graduate and undergraduate students, as well as early career scholars, to write for academic purposes.

Informative, insightful, and accessible, this book is designed to enhance the capacity of graduate and undergraduate students, as well as early career scholars, to write for academic purposes. Fang describes key genres of academic writing, common rhetorical moves associated with each genre, essential skills needed to write the genres, and linguistic resources and strategies that are functional and effective for performing these moves and skills.

Fang’s functional linguistic approach to academic writing enables readers to do so much more than write grammatically well-formed sentences. It leverages writing as a process of designing meaning to position language choices as the central focus, illuminating how language is a creative resource for presenting information, developing argument, embedding perspectives, engaging audience, and structuring text across genres and disciplines. Covering reading responses, book reviews, literature reviews, argumentative essays, empirical research articles, grant proposals, and more, this text is an all-in-one resource for building a successful career in academic writing and scholarly publishing.

Each chapter features crafts for effective communication, authentic writing examples, practical applications, and reflective questions. Fang complements these features with self-assessment tools for writers and tips for empowering writers. Assuming no technical knowledge, this text is ideal for both non-native and native English speakers, and suitable for courses in academic writing, rhetoric and composition, and language/literacy education.

Preface

Section I Unpacking Academic Writing

Chapter 1 What is Academic Writing?

Chapter 2 Linguistic Features of Academic Writing

Chapter 3 Skills and Strategies for Academic Writing: Part One

Chapter 4 Skills and Strategies for Academic Writing: Part Two

Section II Writing Academic Genres

Chapter 5 Writing a Reading Response

Chapter 6 Writing a Book Review

Chapter 7 Writing a Literature Review

Chapter 8 Writing an Argumentative Essay

Chapter 9 Writing an Empirical Research Article

Chapter 10 Writing a Grant Proposal

Section III Maximizing Success in Writing and Publishing

Chapter 11 Building Capacity for Academic Writing

Chapter 12 Writing for Scholarly Publication

Appendix A Survey of Academic Writing Needs

Appendix B Checklist for Self Assessment of Academic Writing

Zhihui Fang is the Irving and Rose Fien Endowed Professor of Education in the School of Teaching and Learning at the University of Florida, USA.