What is Acdemic Writing? Draft 1

After reading the article by Lennie Irvin, I felt writing isn't that complicated at all. There is no secret how to write better. Even the author admitted he was a terrible writer in his freshman year in college. As Irvin mentioned in his article, "Your success with academic writing depends upon how well you understand what you are doing as you write and then how you approach the writing task". I find this article useful to me, because this article teach us writing strategies. This article includes strategies of how to write college essay, closed or semi-open writing assignments, or open writing assignments. Also, this article talks about the myths of academic writing. As a result, this article provides us the pros and cons of academic writings. 

The cons of writing college assignments to most students are the myths. Irvin discussed couple myths about writing in his article and they are most common concerns to college students. First, the “Paint by numbers” myth is the common concern by writers. They often struggle the rules and steps of writing. Second, most writers start their writing when everything figured out. As Irvin noted in this myth, writing is different than sending fax. The first draft should not be perfect, and we can always come back to fix the problems. Third, the most important myth is “Some got it; I don’t—the genius fallacy”.  Irvin mentioned in the article that we are human and we are not naturally smart. We all born without any knowledge of writing skills, but we learn all the writing skills as life goes on. People think they can’t write because they are not good at writing is a lame excuse. If we try our best in any writing assignments, we can all produce a good piece of writing. Next, the five paragraph myth is the most common concern by most people. I remember I was taught in high school that a good essay must have five paragraphs. They must have one introduction, three bodies, and one conclusion. I believe in college writing, most professors look for the quality of the writing. Sometime a three paragraphs essay is better than five paragraphs essay if the contents are satisfy the requirements. Finally, the one that strike me the most was "good grammar is good writing". Irvin confronts the myth by saying writing is more than about grammar correctness. He noted to the readers that writing with good quality is better than quantity or grammar correctness. These are the common myths that we all experienced before. Irvin mentioned all the strategies we need to get rid of all these myths.

Closed writing assignment is a kind of writing that present with two counter claims. They are mostly yes or no question and our task is to present a good support for the claim. Usually good supports to the yes or no question include evidence, and they are not just simply a yea or no answer. Sometime closed writing assignments are not just simply yes or no answers with good supports; there might be chances that the answer could go either way. A closed writing assignment must include a well developed thesis statement. As Irvin noted in the article, a good thesis statement is “I believe Hamlet’s unhinged mind borders on insanity but doesn’t quite reach it”. Instead, a bad thesis statement would be “In my opinion, Hamlet was mad”.

Semi-open writing assignment is a kind of assignment that deals with analysis. This assignment is different than closed assignment, because the answer is not simply yes or no answer with supporting evidences. Usually college professor gives you a topic and our task is to analyze the topic. I like the strategy of how to write semi-open assignment, because most college writing assignments are deal with analyzing certain topic. I also like the idea of avoiding summary of the topic, because most professors don’t accept summary.

Open writing assignment is I found one of the harder assignment over other types of writing assignments. In my opinion, open assignment have to deal with reading a material and full understanding of the material. The assignment must include a clear thesis and clear supporting evidence. As Irvin mentioned in the article, most college students struggle with this type of assignment. They struggle with open writing assignment, because they are not familiar with the given topic or given material. They often struggle with choosing side, make clear claim or well develop supporting evidence.

The most important thing that I learned from the article is courtroom analogy. The analogy describes every college writing assignments must have arguments and evidences. Especially writing a research paper or persuasive paper, they must have clear evidences to back up arguments. Irvin mentioned in the article that every writer are like lawyer making case at a trail that the defendant is not guilty, and the professors are like jury who decide if the defendant is guilty or not guilty. When I was taught in high school, the evidences for the arguments must be reliable sources. We were banned to research on Wikipedia and other .com websites. We were encouraged to do research on database, interview or use the government and educational websites. We were graded on the sources that we used on research, and how we use the resources to back up arguments. We were graded on the quality of the thesis statement. As a result, what I learned in high school about research paper complement the same idea as Irvin’s analogy.

I’m glad to read Lennie Irvin’s article “What is Academic Writing”; I learned useful information on different types of college writing and myths about writing. As Irvin mentioned in the article, these myths are not true and they can only hurt our college career. The most memorable myth that I remember is “Some got it; I don’t—the genius fallacy”. Most famous writers are not born with gifted talent of writing skills. Most of them write in their entire life and practice every day. I believe most people can write with just little bit of practice each time. There are tricks that Irvin mentioned in the article that we can use on college writings and they make our college life easier.