Current Students The Learning Centre During the study period Academic writing

Academic writing

Academic writing involves more than just putting words together. It also involves critical thinking and following a clear and logical process. This skill improves over time.

5 stages of writing for assessments

1. Pre-Writing:

Start by reading to gather literature and organise it.

Explore pre-writing activities to generate ideas for your assignment. What are the common themes and evidence in the literature? How could you use these to support your own ideas?

Essay Writing Basics Video 3: How to Read Research

2. Drafting:

Make a writing plan, which could also be in the form of a mind map or dot points.

Focus on writing a very clear thesis statement and topic sentences and content rather than perfect sentences.

Essay Writing Basics Video 4: Constructing a thesis and essay plan

Using your plan and notes from the literature, to plan the content of each paragraph and then begin your first draft.

Essay Writing Basics Video 5: Paragraph Structure Basics

3. Revising:

After writing your first draft, check and revise. Use a grammar checker or a service like Studiosity to review your work. As a friend or a Peer Advisor to check if your ideas make sense and your logic is clear.

4. Editing and Proofreading:

Editing focuses on addressing style, grammar, and redundant information. Based on feedback from others rewrite your sentences to be clearer.

Proofreading involves checking grammar, spelling, and references. Some ways to proofread include examining tenses, punctuation, word endings, vocabulary, spelling, and word order.

5. Submit your work to LearnJCU

Ensure you upload your document to LearnJCU before the due date and time. Complete the authorship declaration in LearnJCU, then submit.

The Declaration reads:

Declaration and Statement of Authorship -- This assessment is my original work and no part was copied/reproduced from any other person’s work or any other source (including artificial intelligence), without appropriate attribution. This original work adheres to assessment rules including group assessment. I have not submitted any part of this assessment previously (or concurrently) to, nor been awarded a grade in, any other subject or course.

See the Academic Misconduct Procedure for more information.

Examples of Academic Writing

To view the formatting requirements and common features of an academic essay, view this annotated student paper.
To view the formatting requirements and common features of a business report, view this annotated student paper.