The Meanders of Academic Writing. Some Tips to Undergraduates

Abstract

Writing-composition requires an ongoing practice that entails more than the mere mechanics of juxtaposing words that, at its best, goes no further than obeying the rules prescribed by grammar. The new technologies of communication, so much used nowadays, don’t always provide good written samples which could be an alert to the sober reality that arises from this context. Means are therefore not enough. Eventhough messages are dependent on those means, it is important to allow young students to experience different language registers since university will claim a kind of writing – academic – which should respect both specific rules and a kind of structure conditioned by its own internationally established norms. This text aims at giving some hints to students who are new to academic writing in hopes this will enable their future texts to come closer to what the scientific community expects, given that this is the same community which will evaluate them and that students themselves will surely want to integrate.