Post 187: Different kinds of Academic Writing

Different kinds of Academic Writing 

There are 4 kinds of Academic writing: Descriptive, Analytic, Persuasive, and Critical

These are listed in the order of difficulty from simple (Descriptive) (This would be the Understanding and Knowledge levels on the Bloom's Taxonomy), then Analytic (Analysis), Persuasive (Synthesis) and Critical (Evaluative).

Descriptive Writing <The Descriptive essay)

In Descriptive writing, the purpose is to provide facts or information where you are asked to summarize an article or provide a literature review for your capstone paper or when you describe the results of an experiment.

Bloom words: Identify, Report, Record, and Summarize

Possible Assignment: Definition Essay, or Summarize an article or Do a Literature Review or Do an article review.

Analytic Writing

(Description of facts + the ability to reorganize facts into groups, parts, types and relationships)

Typical essay rhetorical structures would be Classification Essay: Different types of students at UCLA, Different types of couch potatoes, groups of fish in the Atlantic Ocean, Types of professors at a university, Different Ethnic Groups in the US)

You can also write a Comparison/Contrast essay: Living in Los Angeles vs Living in NY, Living in the city vs living in the country, Chinese food vs American food, 

Bloom words: Analyze, Compare/Contrast, Relate and Examine

Possible Assignment: Classification Essay or Compare/Contrast Essay on a topic in your field.

Persuasive Writing (The Position Paper)

(Description + Analytic + Your point of View)

In persuasive writing, you want to convince the reader of your point of view by using claims supported by facts and evidence.

The most common kinds of persuasive writing is an argumentative essay, writing a recommendation, or providing your interpretation.  Write a position paper is a kind of persuasive writing.

At AMU where I taught for 12 years, all the department heads were asked, 'In your department, what is the most common type of essay written in your department?" The department heads said, "The Position Paper and the Critical Paper." So in the Writing Across the Disciplines English class, students are taught how to write a Position Paper and a Critical Paper.

Bloom words: Argue, Evaluate, and discuss

Possible Assignment: Position Paper on a topic from your field/ Academic Research paper. or Powerpoint Presentation where you take a position on a topic in your field.

Critical Writing 

(Description + Analysis + Your point of view + Another Point of view) 

Critical Writing is when you are able to convince the reader of your point of view by providing an opposite point of view and being able to rebut the opposite point of view to strengthen your point of view.

Or you are able to disagree with somebody else's point of view by rebutting somebody else's paper to get readers to agree with your point of view.

When I designed the Writing Across the Discipline class for AMU, I added the Counterargument paper as the last assignment to differentiate it from the Position Paper which merely takes a position while the Critical Writing paper also adds another point of view.

When a student can evaluate the core concept of a topic by the end of the class, this means that the student has mastered that core concept and has made that topic his own and knows how to relate this topic to his/her life by agreeing or disagreeing with the core concept. Just like Understanding, Memorization, Identification is the first level of cognitive learning, evaluation, reflecting and critiquing, encoding, embedding, are the last and most advanced levels of learning so a Evaluation essay should be the last writing assignment in a Writing Across the Discipline class.

Bloom words: Disagree, Debate, and Evaluate

Possible Assignment: Write a Critical Essay with a Counterargument Paragraph on a topic from your field.