Academic Writing Notes

We're starting this year by studying academic writing. The first topic in this unit is understanding the difference between formal and informal writing and knowing when to use them.

Here's the handout: Academic Writing Notes and Practice

The first part of the handout requires you to watch a short clip and take notes about the differences between formal and informal writing. Click here to watch the video.

The next pages contain several practices on the topic. There's a list of informal words (like wanna and gonna) and you're supposed to write down a formal version of these words.

For example:

• wanna = want to
• brung = brought

After that, there are some practice emails to write in formal writing. Remember that if you are writing an email to an adult female and you don't know whether or not she is married, you can address her as "Ms." in writing.

Here are the notes you need to finish the MLA Formatting pages: