Business 101 & 102 Business 101 & 102 Online Support Modules - ARCHIVED Business 101 & 102 Business 101 & 102 Online Support Modules - ARCHIVED |
Academic and professional writing
Introduction
To succeed at university and in your future business career, you need to develop skills in finding and evaluating information as well as writing and communicating your ideas and opinions.
A challenge that many students face when they first arrive at university is that they need to quickly build a clear understanding of the nature of academic and professional writing.
In your courses you will produce many types of written assignments, including essays, business reports, and perhaps even a dissertation or thesis if you progress on to postgraduate studies. All of these will have clear requirements and accompanying sets of rules and practices.
Your writing at university will tend to:
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Example of a scholarly article [view/annotate inline]
Academic literature is published in a structured form. This example of a published academic article illustrates this structure, showing the standard features of title, author, author's affiliation, abstract, and in-text citations. In most cases an academic article will also include a reference list at the end of the article.
Thinking as a scholar
To write in an academic style you build on the ideas of others and ensure that you acknowledge those ideas by citing and referencing. By doing so, you are adhering to the principles of academic honesty.
Academic writing is writing done by scholars for other scholars. Are you a scholar? Yes! Now that you are in the University of Auckland Business School you are part of a community of scholars. As a student, you will be engaged in reading, thinking, and forming opinions, arguments and insights on business topics that are of interest to other scholars.
A scholar needs to know what has already been researched and what other scholars have written about, so they read the literature - articles and books written about a subject. In this way, a researcher or scholar can see how their own ideas fit in with what has been written before about a topic, and perhaps disagree, and add their own thoughts and insights to the ideas and opinions of others.
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Academic or professional writing
In your business studies you will learn how to write essays in a scholarly fashion where you will be using the ideas and research of others in an ethical and honest manner.
You will also learn that the skills you will develop in writing scholarly essays are also relevant to professional business practice. For example, in your future business career you may be writing business reports or making business decisions where you will again need to use ideas and research of others in an ethical and honest manner.