Academic Writing

Whether you're writing at an undergraduate or graduate level, academic writing is different than writing for a professional or personal audience. Please see the resources below for information regarding the characteristics of academic writing. 

Introduction to Academic Writing (37:11 video)

This video will provide you with an introduction to academic writing. The video will start automatically in browsers where autoplay of audio is enabled. If the video doesn't immediately begin, click the pause button and then click play.

While the video is playing, click "Menu" to navigate through the presentation or see the transcript. If you would like to return to specific sections of the video, please see below:

1. Introduction (0:48)
2. Qualities of academic writing (8:02)
3. Four types of academic writing (4:31)
4. What is critical thinking and how can it be demonstrated? (7:18)
5. Creating a document plan (14:34)
6. Conclusion (Review, provide feedback on the presentation, and contact the Writing Centre 1:59)

Click on Introduction to Academic Writing (PowerPoint) if you would like the slides from the video; the transcript is available via the slide notes.

Essay-writing:

• How to write an undergraduate-level essay
• How to write a graduate-level essay
• Types of essays
  • See this section of the Writing Centre website for information and resources on writing reflective, expository, argumentative/persuasive, and analytical/compare and contrast essays
• How to write a good argumentative essay: Logical structure (YouTube video - Kevin deLaplante)
• Writing an argumentative essay (Daniel Kies, College of Dupage)
• Writing an analytical essay (Daniel Kies, College of Dupage)
• Two approaches to writing a compare/contrast essay

Other types of academic writing:

Please see the sections of Academic Writing (scroll further down on this page) and the links below for more information about different types of academic writing. Please keep in mind that your instructor may have different expectations than those expressed in these resources. If you have any uncertainties regarding what's expected of your work, please speak with your instructor.

• Annotated bibliography:
  • What's an annotated bibliography? (YouTube video, Brock Library)
  • Writing an annotated bibliography (Deborah Knott, New College Writing Centre)
• Book review:
  • "Writing book reviews" (The Writing Center, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; provides general information about writing a book review for an academic audience)
  • "How to Write an Academic Book Review" (Dr. Wendy Belcher; gives information and suggestions of how to approach writing a book review that the author intends to publish in a book or journal)
• Case study or case study report:
  • Case studies (Cengage Learning)
  • Case study report (University of Guelph)
  • Guidelines for writing a case study analysis and the annotated example (Ashford University)
• Conference poster: How to design an award-winning conference poster (Tullio Rossi via LSE Impact Blog)
• Conference presentation: Effective conference presentations  (YouTube video; video transcript; Texas A&M University Writing Center)
• Dissertation:The no-fail secret to writing a dissertation (Dr. Theresa MacPhail via Vitae)
• Lab report: Lab reports (University of Waterloo)
• Research paper/project: Project planner (SAGE Research Methods; requires RRU login)
• Research proposal: The perfect proposal (YouTube video; Texas A&M University Writing Center)
  • As suggested in the video, visit Theses and Projects for RRU examples.
• Summaries:
  • Summarizing (Leora Freedman, University of Toronto)
  • Five keys to writing effective summaries (Southern Illinois University Writing Center)

To search for additional information, please visit WriteAnswers and search the FAQs. If you're a RRU student, you can also use the WriteAnswers contact form to send your questions directly to the Writing Centre. We'll send you a private reply as soon as we can, which is typically within one business day of receiving the message.