Learn Academic Writing Techniques is a Must

Being a student means preparing yourself with various campus habits. One of the skills that students must have is writing academically. Because when someone has a student status, he will often meet multiple references such as journals, books, reports, scientific papers, essays, and others.

In the welcoming event for International Class Students (International Program) of Communication at the Universitas Islam Indonesia (UII), Masduki, a doctor and lecturer from the UII Communication Department, shared and introduced the world of writing in the academic space. He delivered his material entitled “Basic Academic Writing in Higher Education” or Basic Academic Writing for Higher Education. The welcoming of new students to the International Program class, held in the Audiovisual Room FPSB UII, was held on Monday, 10 November 2022, with the theme “Creative and Adaptive Youth.”

In presenting his material, Masduki compared academic writing with traveling writing. He gave an example by opening two sites with the keyword ‘Borobudur.’ One article is entitled “How to visit Borobudur in Indonesia.” While the second article is entitled “World History Encyclopedia: Borobudur.” Masduki invited students to learn more about academic writing.

Academic Writing Characteristic

Some important characteristics of academic writing are formal, analytical, clear, concise, accurate, objective, precise, and critical. The process of academic writing also takes significant effort, such as long analytical processes, observations, managing ideas, and presenting illustrations related to certain themes, so they are easy to understand. In addition, an important characteristic of academic scientific writing is its critical and precise nature. Precision means writing based on accurate data and information. Frequently, in academic writing, writers use literary, scientific terms. In this case, Masduki suggests using words that are often used daily. But if forced to use academic scientific words that lay people do not commonly understand, the writer must explain, “Explain specialized words if they can’t be avoided,” said Masduki.

Before closing the material, Masduki asked the participants to practice writing short paragraphs, both academic and non-academic. Participants were trained to be able to write short sentences. “Make sure you write short sentences. That means sentences are under 20 words,” explained Masduki.