Deeper Reading: “What Is Academic Writing?”

“What is Academic Writing” written by Lennie Irvine can be found here.

In this essay, Irvine aims to provide an in-depth explanation of all of the things that academic, college-level reading and writing are. You, a first year college student, are his audience. His purpose is to demystify the expectations that you will face in both your Composition courses (English 100, 100, and 102) and other writing-based courses. To achieve that purpose, he discusses some of the ways in which college reading and writing may be different from the writing that you have done previously. He outlines some myths about what writing is and what writers do. He defines typical genres of writing that you will be asked to produce in college and offers strategies and suggestions for approaching writing assignments in a critical way.