Academic writing or scholarly writing is nonfiction writing produced as part of academic work in accordance with the standards and disciplines of each academic subject, including: Reports on empirical fieldwork or research in facilities for the natural sciences or social sciences, Monographs in which scholars analyze culture, propose new theories, or Develop interpretations from archives, as well as undergraduate versions of all of these. Though the tone, style, content, and organization of academic writing vary across genres and across publication methods, nearly all academic writing shares a relatively formal prose register, frequent reference to other academic work, and the use of fairly stable rhetorical moves to define the scope of the project, situate it in the relevant research, and to advance a new contribution. Academic writing often features prose register that is conventionally characterized by "evidence...that the writer(s) have been persistent, open-minded, and disciplined in the study"; that prioritizes "reason over emotion or sensual perception"; and that imagines a reader who is "coolly rational, reading for information, and intending to formulate a reasoned response." Three linguistic patterns that correspond to these goals, across fields and genres, include the following: a balance of caution and certainty, or a balance of hedging and boosting; explicit cohesion through a range of cohesive ties and moves; and compression, or dense noun phrases to add detail rather than more dependent clauses. The stylistic means of achieving these conventions can differ by academic discipline, which helps explain the distinctive sounds of, for example, writing in history versus engineering or physics versus philosophy. Biber and Gray suggested that there are significant differences with regards to complexity in academic writing in humanities versus science, with humanities writing often focused on structural elaboration, and sciences, on structural compression.

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Related concepts (4)
English studies
English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which is a distinct discipline. An expert on English studies can be called an Anglicist. The discipline involves the study and exploration of texts created in English literature.
Academic authorship
Academic authorship of journal articles, books, and other original works is a means by which academics communicate the results of their scholarly work, establish priority for their discoveries, and build their reputation among their peers. Authorship is a primary basis that employers use to evaluate academic personnel for employment, promotion, and tenure. In academic publishing, authorship of a work is claimed by those making intellectual contributions to the completion of the research described in the work.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to present topics objectively based on historical, scientific, and empirical information. However, some non-fiction ranges into more subjective territory, including sincerely held opinions on real-world topics.
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