Academic writing––what's the harm?

The last time I wrote an academic essay in my “own language” was also the last time I felt interested in academic writing. It was in grade-school, and I had just learned about the five-paragraph essay format. I failed the essay.

Academic writing is the bane of a student’s creativity. Many find that they have also experienced losing their voice when learning the language of academic writing, which in turn eradicates all form of artistry, attentiveness, and authenticity in a paper. Students go from unique individuals with boundless imaginations to writers trying to fit into the mold of an elitist club, prioritizing results based on the reader rather than themselves, which in this case is the teacher giving out the grade.

Before kids received grades, higher levels of creativity in all aspects of childhood, from art to games to even writing, were noticeable. This is observable in almost all children—most likely even in yourself. But as a child enters grade-school and begins to learn the language “in a context beyond himself,” he will lose that creativity as he is locked into the mold of academic writing.

David Bartholemae in Inventing the University observes that “you enter [discourse communities] from a point of privilege” that ultimately excludes those who don’t speak the language of the academy. Students write what wants to be heard. Bartholemae finds such writing to be faultless. Structuring around a reader is the work of an “expert writer.”

The truth? It’s difficult, restricting, and—for lack of a better term—boring.

Academic papers follow a structural style. A specified language. A pre-existing skeleton that needs to be filled with flesh and blood. Bartholemae says that students have to “learn to speak our language” and “invent the university by assembling and mimicking its language.” While having that structure is important for learning to write academically, it eventually becomes a plague to students when it’s time to start developing a voice.

Up to this point, students have forgotten what it’s like to even think in their own language. They write papers they would otherwise never read.

Another concern stems from students becoming automated.

During the learning process, a class of students generally have to write about the same topic. While learning to write, it’s not a bad exercise. But per the strict guidelines for academic writing, wouldn’t all of the students’ papers end up sounding the same, or at the very least resemble a sort of robotic, pre-programmed output? Having any sort of deviance from the standard can result in a lower grade. Writing in a language interesting or natural to the student rather than the reader is due to their incompetence at basic writing. If anyone can read it, it fails.

It’s as if there is one right way, one right answer, one right English (Standard English, of course), and one right approach. Otherwise, it fails.

Fortunately, there is a way to avoid failing an academic paper. If the writing fits “appropriately” into a professional setting in the restraints of a specific subject, it passes. If the writing is padded with fluffy words and scholarly jargon, it passes. If the writing conveys what the reader wants to see, it passes. If the writing is something the writer would never read, it passes.

Otherwise, in all other cases, especially if the writing is creative, it fails.