Response to the Swales Reading

Before reading the Swales reading, I have not much thought about such details necessary for academic writing. In other words, I thought keeping grammar rules while maintaining the basic format of an introduction, a main body and a conclusion would be enough to form a good writing. I did not consider it as an approach to academic writing to include such elements as audience, purpose, organization, style, flow, and presentation. (p.7)

However, while reading the article, I began to realize how important those elements are. Especially, among the considerations, my understanding of audience reminds me of the fact that when I write I should know whom I am writing an article for and that depending on the target group the way I write should be shifted. Secondly, the purpose of academic writing is not to show how deeply my emotion or passion is involved but to display familiarity, expertise and intelligence. (p.8)Thirdly, the article insists that we should be able to organize information following problem-solving process. The four steps of the process are expected to make the presentation more persuasive. (p.12) Fourth, the importance of style was also stressed because academic writing is a formal presentation. For example, as attending a funeral service or a wedding ceremony without wearing a formal suit is considered inappropriate, informal presentation with common phrasal or prepositional verbs, for example, is naturally considered nonacademic.(p.15) Finally, in terms of flow and presentation I agree that it is important to maintain a natural flow throughout the whole writing process and to avoid simple mistakes such as incorrect homophone, basic grammar errors, and misspelled words since they make the presentation less acceptable to the audience. (p.29)

In short, the overall description of an appropriate academic writing is considered very useful, informative and practical. With the understanding of the explanation, I think I should be more careful when I write in order to make the writing more academic and knowledge-based.