Academic writing is an essential part of engineering education. In this module EG1471, I had the chance to do academic writing before I can really do so. I found that my writing style is not really good enough for writing a good academic essay. In short, the writing style of this form is serious and critical.
Sometimes, I find that my writing style is not as “professional” as I hope. One of the reasons is that I tend to use vague words or phrases. For example, I wrote this sentence in my draft of writing assignment 2: This give buffer for the scientists and researchers to invent more ways to protect the environment before they can be applied in the developing countries. The problem lays on the pronoun “they”. What does “they” refers to? Is it the scientists, the new technology, or the CCS which is mentioned before? Although this looks trivial it does affect the style.
I also feel that my essay is not enough convincing. The main problem is that I do not include necessary details and information in my essay. I think this is because what I did before for writing English essays is just practicing for exams. It is alright for essays in the exams for having no citation and some statistical facts as we have no access to the resources in the exam hall. However, a good academic essay must have strong and convincing facts, details, and preferably some citations from the reputable sources. This makes the essay to have more impact on the readers. I will try to improve my writing skill from these aspects.
Besides, I realize that a lack of vocabulary has become a major problem when I’m trying to write academically. The words I used sometimes are too unspecific, which eventually lead to a vague style of writing. This can and can only be improved by reading more.
I am trying to read more articles in English not only for improving vocabulary, but also my reading speed. I have to read faster so that I can skim through something long winded and extract useful information. This definitely helps my writing too.
Hope that my effort will make writing academically an ease for me in a short future.
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1 comment:
The problems you identified (lack of specifics, pronoun reference) are common in the writing of all students. Few bother to try to correct them.
You have done well to find the errors in your own writing. Being able to see what you need to work on is essential to improvement.
Good luck!
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