Creative writing can be broadly defined as the pursuit of artistic ends through the writing. There are endless possibilities that come under this, such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and several others. This translates into several ways for your beliefs, thoughts, and messages to reach a larger community.

As a writer, it is critical to note that it is both, your toolbox and your final product that ultimately determine the quality of your writing. Your toolbox includes the skills, strategies, and the styles that you employ which have an impact on the form your final text will take. It can be argued that this is, to some extent, true of writing in any discipline.

While it is important to be creative in all that you write, it is equally important to keep in mind that not all techniques and styles are suited for all writing assignments. The development and demonstration of these skills is a necessary step; therefore, though you have some room for experimentation, it’s important to follow the assignment. This is where writing as an art form can be truly appreciated.

However, this then raises the question: what is academic writing?

Academic writing is a formal writing style used in colleges and universities. It’s what students are expected to produce for classes and what professors and academic researchers use to write scholarly materials. But sometimes, high-schools also require academic writing style in certain classes.A simple academic writing definition is hard to come by because there are many types and forms of academic writing, produced for a variety of reasons.

Different types of academic writing include:

• Abstract
• Annotated bibliography
• Academic journal article
• Book report
• Conference paper
• Dissertation
• Essay
• Explication
• Literary criticism
• Research paper
• Thesis

These writing forms overlap in terms of:

• Formal tone
• Precise language
• Point-of-view (POV)
• Research focus
• Organisation
• Source citations.

But this still doesn’t answer the question: Are they important for school students?

Academic writing will help you to accumulate a lot of useful skills that will be helpful not only in work but also in life, particularly to think and to reflect. In the course of writing academic work, you do not just rewrite someone’s thoughts, you form your own opinion after extensive research, presentation, and formulation.

While preparing to write academic work, you also conduct research, observe events, and focus on any object. This includes:

• Form skills in registering sources used for writing quotes
• To master different methods of generating ideas
• To adhere to the chosen topic, in order to reveal and substantiate it
• Stylistically correctly build sentences and use words, and most importantly,
• The impact on students for their long term success!

Apart from this, it was seen in a 2010 study that academic and creative writing are skills that are grounded in the cognitive domain. They involve learning, comprehension, application and synthesis of new knowledge. They also encompass creative inspiration, problem-solving, reflection and revision that results in a completed manuscript. 

From a student’s perspective, writing may instead be a laborious and even dreaded exercise of attempting to place thoughts on paper while developing mastery over the rules of writing, such as spelling, citation format and grammar. But it is important to keep in mind that with practice, everything becomes easier to write and even becomes exciting!