1. Define the term "style" in academic writing.

Style in academic writing has to do with the language, the tone, the grammar and the vocabulary that the writer uses when he or she is writing an academic text and what type of language that is appropriate when writing that kind of text type. There are several features that characterize the style of academic writing. It is for example important that the language that is used is formal, that the things that the writer writes are written in Standard English and that the texts are explicit. It is important for the author to choose words with a precise meaning as much as possible and at the same time tentative in his or her writing. It is also important that the text is objective.

2. Formal writing

” Climate change is also likely to affect water quality and quantity in Europe, and hence the risk of contamination of public and private water supplies (Miettinen et al., 2001; Hunter, 2003; Elpiner, 2004; Kovats and Tirado, 2006). Higher temperatures have implications for food safety, as transmission of salmonellosis is temperature sensitive (Kovats et al, 2004; Opopol and Nicolenco, 2004; van Pelt et al. 2004). Both extreme rainfall and droughts can increase the total microbial loads in freshwater and have implications for disease outbreaks and water quality monitoring (Howe et al., 2002; Kistemann et al., 2002; Opopol et al. 2003; Knight et al., 2004; Schijven and de Roda Husman, 2005).”

Extract from IPCCs report Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability

(http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch12s12-4-11.html)

Informal writing

"FAITH EVER MORE: THE MELBOURNE SLAM RALLY

godDAMN i could not have had a more awesome day.

i just came home from a random surprise Melbourne dinner with fucking mike patton and the entire reunited Faith No More.
all incredibly down-to-earth, inspiring guys. i sat next to roddy bottum and we had great talks about bands and music and what it’s like to leave and re-unite again.they weren’t at the rally; they’re in town for their own shows & for soundwave (my nemesis festival!), but i literally bumped into a mutual pal (well, our promotor-in-common, michael gudinski, not SO random)

and he invited me out with them.

we ate delicious vegetarian chinese….

….my plans in life have officially collapsed. and you know what? i’m fucking fine with it.

when huge street protests and vegetarian chinese dinners with amazing people call, you FUCKING GO. you GO."

Extract from Amanda Palmers blog (http://blog.amandapalmer.net/)

The two pieces of text that can be seen above are examples of formal and informal writing. The first text, which is a report about the climate change from IPCC, is an example of a text written in formal language. The second text is a text from a blog with a text written in informal language. There are of course a lot of differences between these texts. For example one can find differences in:

1. Vocabulary. – The formal text uses a more formal vocabulary than the informal text. A sentence like ”i’m fucking fine with it”, found in the informal text, would not be appropriate to use in formal writing

2. The writer’s opinions- the formal text is objective, while the informal text is subjective. The formal text deals with clear facts, without the authors’ feelings involved in the text, while the informal text has a lot of the author’s feelings in it.

3. Contractions- the formal text uses no contractions such as weren’t or they’re, which occurs several times in the informal text.

4. Grammar. - Also the grammar differs between the texts. In the informal text sentences without a capital letter in the beginning of the sentence or in proper names occurs several times, while lack of capital letters is something that does not occur in the formal text.

3. My own examples of one formal and one informal text

Formal writing

That people in Sweden today should be treated equivalent despite of their sex is something that most people agree on. Despite this fact there are still a lot of areas in society where people are treated differently because of their gender. One of these areas is the labour market were equivalent job assignments performed by men and women still are valued unequal in forms of salaries.

Informal writing

I think it’s very important that we treat girls and boys at the same way. I also think that Sweden is quite good at doing it, but at the same time i don’t really believe that we’re there yet. I mean, men and women still have different salaries, is that equal? But this is not only about salaries, there are more things to talk about. How come in certain occupations there are almost only men who are working, and in others only women? And how come fathers still doesn’t get to stay home with their newborn children as much as mothers do?