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Walden University Writing Center

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Welcome to the Academic Writing Community!

Friday, August 31, 2012 7 comments

Rachel Grammer
By Rachel Grammer, Writing Consultant

Recently, as I sat staring at the blank computer screen, I felt myself shrinking from the keyboard. I knew what I wanted to write in this email to the director of my department, but I also knew that it had to be different than the one-sentence emails with emoticons that I shot off to my colleagues frequently. I struggled to find the words that meant precisely what I wanted to say, and I started to feel that familiar self-talk creep in: I must be incompetent or incapable. I’ll never learn how to navigate this world of corporate language.

It is times like these when I have to remind myself of the truth: It’s not a deficit in me. It’s a new discourse! And I’m not alone.

Discourse is another way to describe the way we speak and write. When I talk to friends on the phone (with a few of those long Minnesota Os thrown in), that is one area of discourse. When I sit down to write a formal letter to my supervisor, that is a different area of discourse. In fact, linguists classify these areas as discourse communities in order to show that environment or context changes our use of language. It’s similar to switching between languages. However, you don’t have to be bilingual to be in multiple discourse communities at once. In fact, within a day people usually navigate among many discourse communities and communication contexts: home vs. school, elders vs. peers, speaking vs. writing, and so on. 

We are all born into discourse communities and we often define ourselves by them, but some must be learned. For example, as I entered the world of overseas teaching, I had to learn how to communicate in a particular bilingual discourse community of Turkish- English speakers. Another such learned discourse community is that of academic writing.

While your dialect, accent, or native language may not match that of academic writing, the good news is that you are not alone: No one speaks a standard language by nature, so everyone has to learn the discourse of academic writing! And once you master it, you can choose to span more than one linguistic community at a time.

So the next time you feel that academic language is stifling your true language, remember to take a step back and let yourself breathe. You’re not alone! It’s not an attack on your identity or any deficit in you—you are simply entering into a new discourse community, and your peers are all there with you. To meet some of these peers, “like” the Writing Center on Facebook.
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7 comments :

  1. AnonymousJune 9, 2014 at 9:57 PM

    Thank you for sharing your experience. I have found myself I that position as I have started my MSW program. I have not received my APA book yet and have found it to be quiet a challenge as well as utilizing the information in the readings to sound professional without losing the reader.

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    Replies
    1. Walden Writing CenterJune 10, 2014 at 7:49 AM

      Thanks for sharing your experience, too! It can be a challenge to maintain a scholarly tone and clarity for readers. While you wait for your APA book to arrive, you might find some of our APA resources helpful:

      APA blog posts: http://waldenwritingcenter.blogspot.com/search/label/APA

      APA section of our website: http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/APA.htm

      APA webinars: http://writingcenter.waldenu.edu/415.htm

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  2. academic writing tipsDecember 2, 2014 at 8:14 AM

    I have gone through the post and some of the points are really valid and I would say that native language may not match that of academic writing, the good news is that you are not alone as there are so many people having such issues and that need to be resolved.

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    Replies
    1. Dr.Patricia Chinwe Onuoha-PhDSeptember 3, 2016 at 10:52 AM

      I am so happy to go through the information on the Academic Writing Community Page presented by Rachel Grammer.
      All she discussed were well assimilated and are daily life experience.
      But,the good news is that you are not alone in the discourse community and no one is born with a perfect capability of speaking standard language by nature and one can span more when he/she masters the language in the discourse community.
      Thank you Rachel Grammer for your encouraging write up in this community page.

      Patricia Onuoha

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    2. Walden Writing CenterSeptember 3, 2016 at 4:34 PM

      Thank you for your kind words, Patricia. I will certainly pass along your thanks to Rachel herself. And thank you for your keen observations about the nature of writing. It is indeed something to be practiced, and with that, hard work can lead to impressive results.

      Best of luck on your journeys.

      -mgp-


      Delete
  3. ai creativity bloggersNovember 23, 2019 at 8:04 AM

    Amazing comments to going forward in to the improvements ;
    Greatful

    ReplyDelete

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