Writing of an Essay as a Form of Communication - Report Example

Running Head: Written Communication Your name Course name Professors’ name Date Introduction As a form of communication, essay writing at the tertiary level is considered a complex exercise since it requires a specific writing course. To understand vividly essay writing at the tertiary level, it is vital to begin by defining academic writing then proceed to discuss its structure and organization. In attempt to comprehend complexity of writing an essay at tertiary level, standards to be fulfilled in an essay will be covered. Thesis statement: Writing an essay at tertiary level is an extremely complex process to a teacher and students. Academic Writing According to Thaiss (2006), academic writing is classified as any writing that serves the purpose of meeting the needs of education at a tertiary level. Most educators visualize academic writing as a student’s response to an academic assignment or a professional writing that is to be published for use by other academics. In the same vein, academic writing is done by scholars to be used by other academics. Writing at tertiary institution falls under academic writing since a student is in the midst of several other scholars and is required to read, think, argue, and write in certain ways. Academic writing further lays emphasis on issues that are of great interest to academic community. A writer is obliged to research on a relevant and appropriate topic before conducting any writing (Kiniry, 1990). This is effectively done by consulting a tutor. The writing should go beyond personal response to tackle issues that are useful to readers. An academic writing should therefore help a reader to understand well a topic. Finally, an academic writing should be informative. For an academic writing to be enlightening, a writer is obliged to carryout intense research with a view of establishing a gap in knowledge. This goes a long way in establishing what is known about a subject then determining own thoughts on the same issue. A situation where a paper fails to inform or rather argue, do not satisfy the ideals of a tertiary level writing. Structure and Organization of an Essay In terms of structure, an essay has four main parts including introduction, main body, conclusion, and reference lists (Maclellan, 2004). The aim of introductory part is to provide a background for ideas that will be addressed in the main body. Approach to the question, understanding of the question, and the content to be covered is covered in the introduction. The second part of an essay is the main body where a writer demonstrates skills in selecting, organizing, interpreting, and analyzing material that are applicable to the question. Where conflicting and controversial ideas are encountered, the writer should handle all relevant issues equally. A writer is therefore supposed to organize ideas in a logical and coherent structure. The argument should be consistent, while ideas are linked together from the start to a logical conclusion. Each paragraph contains a subject matter and supported by argument and analysis. In this section, ideas of other writers are included and necessary reference made to avoid plagiarism. Conclusion is the third section of the essay, which brings together ideas that were examined in the main body. This is a summary of the essay and the writer reflects back at the main points. The conclusion is succeeded by the reference and bibliography that is a list of everything read for the assignment. Reference list is usually presented in alphabetical order of author’s surname. Explicitly, the reference contains author, date of publication, title, edition, place the material was published and the publisher’s name. The most complicated component of writing a composition is building a succinct and logical structure. It is possible for students to research on a specific assignment but fail to organize ideas in a logical and coherent manner as required by standards at a tertiary level. This deficiency of ideas progression has a negative impact on overall essay. Even so, this is remedied by allocating sufficient time to plan an essay before writing it down. As opposed to wasting time wondering what to write after the each paragraph, planning an essay makes this easy as ideas flow throughout from the start to the end. After pinpointing the subject or rather area to be covered, it is prudent to break it down into sections and subsections. The essence of subdividing the subject area is to guide during research process, note taking, and eventual stage of writing the essay (Maclellan, 2004). This stage of subdividing the essay further ensures that all intended are covered and no point is left out. The final part during an essay-writing task is review, which can bring about outstanding rewards with respect to content and presentation. At this stage, a writer examines whether content is organized and follow a logical manner. This helps in providing adequate response to a question while deducing gaps in content, incorrect information and shallow analysis. Spelling and grammatical errors are checked in the review stage with the help of word processor. This review stage as well forms a learning process where a student finds time to reflect on what has been written. To ease remembrance during an exam, review of an essay commits the subject to memory. Standards and complexity of an Essay Persistence, open-mind, and discipline: Essay writing calls upon a writer to give clear evidence of persistence, an open-mind, and discipline. The concept of discipline is important in tertiary level since it enables a learner to explore knowledge deeply so that new knowledge is generated. Education at tertiary level mainly entails research and exploration of new knowledge and skills. One specific aspect of tertiary writing is the academic requirement to conduct background reading. Academics are usually harsh on those scholars who are not prepared to talk formally about the subject of writing and those writing fail to pay attention to the subject of study and reflectivity in thoughts (Maclellan, 2004). Even though standards for professionals and introductory students vary, novice learners can be penalized for shallow reading and for deficiency of careful reading with respect to the subject area. In a narrative like an experimental report, persistence and disciplined study can be demonstrated. Dominance of reason over emotion: The second standard that should observed when writing an essay is dominance of reason over sentimental or physical perception. A writer is more often seen as an intellectual thinker and a user of reason. Nonetheless, emotions and sensual stimuli exist in an academic writing simply because of human dependence on sensational awareness, detection of deference in appearance, sound and the external environment. Additionally, the arts and humanities are existence owing to writer’s ability to articulate sensual appreciation. In any academic writing, senses and emotions should be controlled and dominated by reason. As a demonstration, political think-tank may receive motivation from passion for a specific system of government and anger towards opponents but the discipline of political science requires a writer to exercise care while analyzing competing issues. Another example is a sociologist who accounts for a personal experience in destitute and family dislocation. In this circumstance, a writer must not be submissive to emotional appeal but step back and analyze the situation in the context of other people’s experiences. In doing this, academic writer gains ability of evaluating a subject in a rational manner. To control emotion, scholars are required to avoid impressionism e. g mere expression of opinions. In a personal experience essay, a writer should assume analytical persona that reflects on and appraises a narrative (Kiniry, 1990). Rational writer searching for information to devise a reasoned response: The intention of an academic writer is to earn respect from intelligent readers for his analytical ability. It is therefore important to avoid gaps in research by anticipating reader’s objections and addressing them adequately. Briefly, all academic essays are argumentative since a writer makes effort to anticipate potential objections from a teacher or other readers. Moreover, the quality of an academic writing is affected by the social-cultural difference among scholars. The aforementioned standards of writing an academic essay may appear simple but are complex to teach and even observe in any writing. More often, undergraduate students feel that teacher’s reactions to their writing are baseless or rather motivated by personal or social differences. On the contrary, comments from a lecturer are motivated purely by qualities needed of an academic writing. How to handle complexity of an essay After carrying out an analysis of the structure and organization of an essay and the standards, there is clear evidence of complexity given the requirements and interplay between approach to writing and the content of writing. Some students may find essay writing an easy task since the communication expected at the tertiary level match with student’s primary discourses. According to Ivanic (1997), students from traditional backgrounds will have to switch to academic discourse and this comes with a price, which is a loss of self. Globalization and technological changes have also brought about increased diversity in writing activities. This clearly demonstrates how essay writing can be complex to a teacher and the student. Plenty of time is required for any writer to prepare before starting an essay-writing task. Successful completion of an essay depends on the time allocated and effort applied in researching information and resources needed for a subject. This becomes even complex given divergence in cultures and social economic background of students. Issues such as family sickness, remoteness from campus and work lives affect students in essay writing. There is apparent evidence that today’s students perform poorly as they try to meet competing demands of the school and work. This affects directly development of literacy skills. Conclusion This essay began by giving a succinct definition of academic writing. Concisely an academic writing is supposed to generate new knowledge. The paper then progressed with a discussion on the structure and organization of an essay, which illustrates its complexity. To complete successfully an essay, enough time should be allocated for planning. The standards of a tertiary essay have also been discussed with a view of bringing to light dynamics in an essay. Reference Ivanic, R. (1997). Writing and Identity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kiniry, M., & Rose, M. (1990). Critical Strategies for Academic Writing. Boston: Bedford Books. Maclellan, E. (2004). “How Reflective is the Academic Essay?” Studies in Higher Education, 29(1): 75-89. Thaiss, C., & Terry, Z. (2006). Engaged Writers, Dynamic Disciplines: Research on the Academic Writing Life. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, Heinnemann. Read More