The Differences between Academic Writing and Email Writing

by Lisa Weinberger | More from this Blogger

30 Jan 2006 06:11 PM

With communication being a text message away, there are positives and negatives about the new trend of fast finger communication. Besides using our fingers to type out messages from anywhere in the world at any time; what are the differences between academic writing and email writing?

Although from the title of this blog, you probably don't need me to explain the differences as once made aware of it, many students realize the differences. But for the fun of it, I'll go through a few of the common mistakes.

1) Academic writing follows certain formats. For instance there is APA (American Psychological Association, http://www.apa.org/) or MLA (Modern Language Association, http://www.mla.org/). These formats are used when writing papers where citations are and are not used. 2)Citations are used when writing a research paper. These should be inserted throughout the paper when a thought, idea, or fact is not the writer's own but someone else's.

For example: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish (Dr. Seuss, 1).

Since this is not a unique thought, I must GIVE the credit to the author, Dr. Seuss.

In email or text writing, many times students will quote songs or television shows and even, dare I say it, BOOKS! Obviously when a friendly email is being written, none of us use citations and write, "Have it your way (Burger King)." We just use the phrase within our text conversation without giving credit to the original author.

Academic writing does not use slang or abbreviate words. One of the first educational blogs touches on this subject already.

Some great books to consider reading about writing are Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing or NY Times writer David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316776963/002-6593060-9892032?v=glance&n=283155 ), a collection of short essays that anyone would get a laugh from.

For more information about writing skills, visit www.NCTE.org.

Learn more about Lisa Weinberger

Lisa Weinberger began her career as a teacher and private tutor 15 years ago, and has taught preschoolers to adults. Lisa spent 4 months in Israel teaching English to Israeli students.

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