“What is Academic Writing?” Response

The essay “What is Academic Writing?” by L. Lennie Irvin is focused on the meaning and expectations of academic writing in college. This essay will be extremely useful for this course because it provides helpful tips on how to improve writings and essays, such as what the professor expects, how to communicate within a piece of writing, and different researching techniques. This essay will also be helpful to look back on when we have writing assignments in our class. It also provides common myths and mistakes people use while writing. I can relate to most of the common myths of writing, especially myth number four: “some got it; I don’t-the genius fallacy”. I have never felt confident in my writings because I have a hard time putting my thoughts into words. I also find it difficult to communicate my tone, as explained on page six. Most of the myths listed are what was taught in elementary school when we first learned how to write an essay. Many people, like myself, have been using these elementary strategies for all of our writings because we had never been taught differently. I agree with the author in that one of the most important parts of an essay is the evidence you provide to support your argument. It is very important to know and understand the topic you are writing about, which can help you build strong and supportive evidence. Overall, this essay was very informative and I will use it as a reference to improve and mature my writing style and technique.