Transition to American Academic English

General-to-Specific Strategy

American academic essays have three underlying assumptions which may not be part of your culture.

Destination

A good essay plans on getting somewhere. It is not a set of random ideas or a circle; it plans on moving toward a conclusion.

1. Smoking causes bad breath and yellow teeth.
2. Smoking has been linked to a variety of heart and circulation problems.
3. Smoking is a main cause of lung cancer and has been linked to several other cancers.
4. Therefore, smoking is bad for a person's health.

We generally move from the less powerful point to the most powerful, so we would not write it this way: (1) Smoking causes several fatal cancers, (2) Smoking is a major cause of death due to heart disease, and (3) Smoking gives you yellow teeth.

General-to-specific

That general statement, "Smoking is bad for a person's health," was supported by three statements which are somewhat specific, but they are still generalizations. The movement is always from a generalization to specific evidence to prove the point:

1. Smoking causes bad breath and yellow teeth.
   1. Narrative about bad breath
   2. Oral hygiene quotation from article about smoking
2. Smoking has been linked to a variety of heart and circulation problems.
   1. Congestive heart failure
   2. Atherosclerosis
   3. Peripheral vascular disease
3. Smoking is a main cause of lung cancer and has been linked to several other cancers.
   1. Bladder cancer
   2. Pancreatic cancer
   3. Lung cancer
   4. Thirteen other cancers known to be caused by smoking
4. Therefore, smoking is bad for a person's health.

Voice of the author

When you are writing an academic essay, you are taking the position of an authority on the topic. Your task is to inform the reader, so some approaches do not work very well:

• Wishy-washy: In the essay above, you have done the reading and have come to a conclusion about smoking, so you are abandoning your task when you say, "Some think smoking is bad for you, and others disagree, but who am I to draw a conclusion?" Take a stand and support your point.
• Reporting the opinions of others: That smoking essay will depend heavily on clinical research, but your role is to do some thinking on your own. When you simply report what someone else has said, you are not doing any thinking, so you are not participating in the work of the university. We expect you to learn to think.
• Preaching the word: Academic essays are not intimate personal communications. They always take a step back from that kind of closeness, so the smoking essay should not end with "Therefore, you need to stop smoking right now! You should never buy another one of those disgusting objects! What will your family think when you die a terrible death from smoking?" For one thing, the writer does not know whether the reader smokes. For another, most academic readers would feel this to be a violation of their personal space and a change in the basic purpose of writing.