The heterogeneity of academic writing

On looking more closely at examples of academic writing across disciplines, it becomes quite clear that each discipline has its own special norms and customs when it comes to text and information structure. To some extent, this is true also for grammatical and lexical aspects. No doubt, the aforementioned norms stem from a long, historical process in which disciplines follow ontological and epistemological traditions and ideals.

Hyland's schematic distinction between the more comprehensive disciplinary domains, as he calls them, offers a general, and perhaps predominantly general view, but a view which at the same time is problematic. To say that some disciplines belong to a more hard or soft domain obscures the fact that a subject within a discipline can have one foot in each camp. Hyland emphasises the fact that the distinction should be seen as a continuum rather than a unidimensional scale. If nothing else, the continuum serves as a background to understanding the existing variation and heterogeneity in an academic community.

Various disciplines and their subjects are more or less strongly linked to the different knowledge criteria presented in the table above. This also has repercussions on the writing in these disciplines. If there is variation in the way knowledge is constructed, we can also expect to see a variation in how this knowledge is reported in writing. One clear example of this variation can be seen in the preference for different text types that disciplines and subjects exercise. Indeed, students of mechanical engineering, for example, will differ from students of comparative literature, political science and biochemistry, in the types of academic texts they are normally required to write. The following example comes from Coffin et al. (2003), showing what genres and text types are favoured in different disciplines, covering both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Similarly, in a survey carried out in the UK, Nesi and Gardner (2006) investigated what text types and genres were used as university assignments. The survey shows that a large variety of text types were used across disciplines, for example essay, report, laboratory report, book review, case study, and marketing proposal. To see the full list, click on the link below.

Commenting on the wide range of text types reported in Nesi and Gardner (2006), Etherington (2008) points to the fact that only learning the standard essay format is not sufficient. She also emphasises that the text type report can be differentiated widely, as seen in the use of report, laboratory report and project report.