Academic Writing

Genres in academic writing

Introduction

Students are asked to write many different kinds of texts. Depending on the subject, these texts could be essays, laboratory reports, case-studies, book reviews, reflective diaries, posters, research proposals, and so on and are normally referred to as genres. These different genres can be constructed from a small range of different text types.

Bruce (2008) calls these various texts cognitive genres, but I have called them Rhetorical Functions: see: Writing Functions.

Here, we will pull together these different functional text types to show how the larger genres (or part genres) students are expected to write can be constructed from these shorter functional texts.

But, first it isa important to to decide which genre is required. Which Genre?

1. 1. Essays – Writing Essays
   2. Reports – Writing Reports
   3. Case Studies – Writing  Case-Studies
   4. Research proposals – Writing  Proposals
   5. Book reviews – Writing  Reviews
   6. Brief research reports – Writing Brief Reports
   7. Literature reviews – Writing Literature Reviews
   8. Reflective writing – Writing Reflections
   9. Introductions – Writing Introductions
   10. Research methods – Writing Research Methods
   11. Research results – Writing Research Results
   12. Research discussions – Writing Research Discussions
   13. Writing conclusions – Writing Conclusions
   14. Research abstracts – Writing Abstract
   15. Research report titles – Writing titles
   16. Research dissertations & theses – Writing Dissertations & Theses

See: Genres in Academic Writing