| Writing an academic paper remains a difficult, trying, and intimidating task for many students. This is unfortunate because much of the course subjects a student will take while in a university requires paper writing as an academic exercise. In the same manner, expressing one's self well in writing is frequently a critical ability in the professional community. Although eloquence and knowledge in composition are prized skills in any industry, writing an academic paper demands even more expertise. With academic writing, one need not only develop the ability to express one's self in words, but also the ability to conduct research from a continuously widening range of sources in order to select and decide which among the relevant morsels of data are actually the most relevant. The writer must be able to properly provide his/her own observations, discussions, and conclusions. Nonetheless, academic writing does not simply constitute the expression of a person's own opinions alone, but more importantly, it likewise calls for the expression of facts already established by others juxtaposed with one's logical opinions and conclusions based on the research. Sometimes, a course may require more than writing one's observations in contrast to ideas from other writers. Subjects such as Philosophy, Literature, Humanities, History, and Politics often require students to develop a claim through a thesis statement based on an idea which is not readily apparent but would need critical analyses and even the use of assumptions that do not have wide acceptance. |