Investigating the Features of Academic Writing in Research among Undergraduates

Abstract

In academic settings, academic writing is a specialized style of writing that adheres to specific rules and guidelines. As noted by Smith (2019), it is characterized by a formal and unbiased tone, precise terminology, and adherence to established norms. This study aims to explore two aspects of academic writing: the use of hedging and the frequency of personal pronouns. To facilitate future research, a mini-corpus called the "Academic Writing in Research Corpus" (AWRC) is introduced. This corpus will serve as a valuable resource for investigating the patterns and tendencies related to hedging and the use of personal pronouns in academic writing. By exploring these aspects, the study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the linguistic characteristics of academic writing, providing insights into the ways in which authors employ hedging strategies and the role of personal pronouns in scholarly discourse. The findings will contribute to future research endeavors in this area. The study focuses on undergraduates from the Faculty of Law at General Sir John Kotelawala Defense University. The research design involves collecting proposal writings from this group as representative samples. The collected data will be processed and analyzed to quantify the frequency of hedging and personal pronoun usage. A comparative analysis will be conducted to compare these usage patterns across different proposals. Statistical techniques may be used to determine the significance of any observed differences. This research design will provide valuable insights into the frequency and patterns of hedging and personal pronouns in research writing by undergraduate students.