Question:
When it comes to academic writing what are some of the key challenges that this style or writing presents? How is professional/academic writing different from writing in the work place or technical writing? Scan the library, preferably “JSTOR,” for examples of the above on “Gun Control” topics and explain.
Answer:
One of the key challenges of academic writing is being able to communicate the message as effectively as possible. In academic writing, it is a challenge to craft the words and the structure of a writing work so that it can be understood by a particular set of audience (Fonseca, 2017). This task becomes very problematic, if one is to make an academic writing about the specific laws related to gun control to audiences who does not have a background in law. This problem becomes more pronounced if the piece of writing is to be read by two or more groups of people coming from different academic background. Another challenge is presenting the information in a manner that there is smooth flow of ideas. In writing academic papers, such as theses, it is a common scenario that diverse information needs to be collated and organized so that they make sense to the reader - they also need to focus to a certain topic.
There are other writing styles that are similar to academic writing in terms of the level of difficulty in arranging information. One of these writing styles is called technical writing. What differentiates these two styles is that academic writing usually collates data and then arrives at a conclusion. An example of such is the study conducted by Kwon et al. (1997) entitled, “The effectiveness of gun control laws: multivariate statistical analysis,” which collected data from survey respondents, analyzed them, and finally made conclusions regarding the data. Technical writing, on the other hand usually aims to instruct an individual or an organization to do something, or explains something. It can be described as a “how to” style of writing. An example of this is the paper written by Zimring (1975) entitled, “Firearms and federal law: The Gun Control Act of 1968.” The paper details what is contained in the Act as well as how it is implemented in the in the federal and state level.
References
Busch-Lauer, I.A. (2002). Technical vs. academic writing in English – Any difference for non-native writers? Retrieved from https://asp.revues.org/1454
Fonseca, A. (2017). Technical writing vs. academic writing. Retrieved from http://classroom.synonym.com/technical-writing-vs-academic-writing-3774.html.
Kwon,I-W.G., Scott, B., Safranski, S.R. & Bae, M. (1997). The Effectiveness of Gun Control Laws: Multivariate Statistical Analysis. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 56(1), 41-50.
Zimring, F.E. (1975). Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968. The Journal of Legal Studies, 4(1), 133-198.
