Three Academic Writing Styles | Essay, Journal Writing, Book Report

Last Updated on July 15, 2020 by Ayla Myrick

When you get to college one of the most important skills necessary to have is to be able to properly write an academic paper. This skill encompasses many different techniques to produce papers that explain or display your knowledge in a certain subject of study. If you go in to the university system with this one skill learned and practiced well, you will be able to focus on other specific areas of study. That is why knowing the different categories of academic papers is such an important skill to have. Although you may be capable of getting by with minimal knowledge of academic writing, it is unlikely, and best that you learn it well so that your studies can be focused somewhere more important.

The Essay

The essay is the most basic and most commonly used form of academic writing. It is a narrative that presents a set of your ideas for the review of your instructor or professor. There are different forms of essay that you may run into. One form is called an informal essay. These essays are not as theory- or thesis-drawn as a general essay, and require more explanation of the process of your study or understanding. Another form of essay is the thesis-driven essay. These essays range in difficulty because of the many variables that can accompany them. A basic thesis-driven essay is a paper in which you state your thesis and spend the rest of the paper supporting it through research and explanation. The much dreaded dissertation written by doctoral candidates and reviewed by their professors is essentially a large thesis essay. Luckily for doctoral students, there are people and companies who specialize in providing dissertation help.

Journal Writing

Journal assignments can be the simplest or the most complicated writing assignments given to students. Most of the complication with the assignment is how open ended the project can be. This can cause people who write with a certain layout in mind to have a hard time with journals. The key to being able to successfully write in a journal is to disregard proper formats of writing. Journals are meant to be a more introspective and creative process, driven by ideas, inspiration and introspection. This style of writing is meant to be free-flowing and not properly organized and structured.

Book Report

Hopefully, by the time you get to the university level, you have gotten the chance to exercise your skills for book review essays or book reports. These are very particular in college and require a bit more research into the book that is being reviewed than their high school counterparts. In a book report, you want to make sure that you have three sections: the summary, the interpretation, and the conclusion. With these three sections formatted into your book report, you will be well on your way to correctly submitting the report.
Academic writing is a skill that takes a little work and practice to perfect. The sooner you get it squared away, the easier your university life can be.

Ayla Myrick