A Detailed Review on the Book From Inquiry to Academic Writing- 4th Edition

A student fond of research and academic writing skills must read the book ‘from inquiry to Academic Writing’. This book will not only help students succeed in college academic writing tasks but guide you in the professional life too. The academic writing challenges aims to prepare students for future publications. Publications act like a ladder in the aspect of research vocation. The more you follow the academic writing guide, the more research contributions you will have. For all those students who are passionate about developing a research career, expert advice matters a lot. From inquiry to Academic Writing collected the experts writing guidelines for you. It also presented outstanding strategies for academic writing, and thinking difficulties.

About the book:

College students who are unaware of the academic writing culture face many challenges. They have different thinking, reading, and writing attitudes as well. Often the research assistants also face difficulties in the introduction, and justification of research methods. So Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky, in this book, tried their best to cater to the academic writing problems. Currently, From inquiry to Academic Writing is the best step-to-step guide for redirecting students’ thinking, and writing ways.

From inquiry to Academic Writing develops extensive interdisciplinary debates. These debates not only lift academic career of the students. But they also make them all-rounders in other tasks outside the college's premises. In different Editions of this book, Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky highlighted great skills or habits. These are necessary for improving academic writing. But in the latest editions, they further added the new digital aspects of academic writing challenges as well.

Author’s background

Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky are authors of the book ‘From inquiry to Academic Writing’. Stuart Greene completed his PhD in English literature. He is an English professor (associate) at Notre Dame in African studies. His area of specialisation is related to ‘intersection of race, achievements and poverty in government schools’. He was awarded with a National Council of Teacher’s English Richard A. Meade reward for Making Race Visible. In short, within most of his publications, the area of interest roams around race, and poverty-related social issues.

The Co-Author of ‘From inquiry to Academic Writing’ is also a renowned personality. Like Stuart Greene, April Lidinsky also completed PhD in English literature. She is also an associate professor at the Indiana University South Bend. Her area of specialisation is women studies. April Lidinsky’s writing career explicates her multitasking abilities. These pertain to the following;

• Writing pedagogy
• Creative nonfiction
• Film
• Women’s autobiography

April Lidinsky and Stuart Greene are colleagues at Notre Dame’s writing program. Based on the writing style/research, the authors of this book won several awards.

Content Review

As described earlier, inquiry to Academic writing is a step by step guide to academic writing. Like all other editions, the 4th Edition also considered first-year students as the subject. This book covered all academic writing inquiries in 19 well-structured chapters. The opening chapter is Starting with Inquiry-Habits of Mind of Academic Writers. Are you a beginner and want to know the fundaments of academic writing? Then read the habits of academic writers. This chapter of the book explains the essentials of academic writing with the help of examples. The three most useful concepts in this chapter include the following;

• Steps to Reflection
• Steps to Drafting
• Steps to Revising

Further, chapter 2 proposed another approach to becoming a good academic writer. It related the readers with the writer as well. Chapter 3 guided the summarisation and paraphrasing steps too. Chapter 4 presented ways of establishing argumentative analysis (AA). AA is important in argumentative essays. It also helps in presenting controversial research findings. Chapter 5 encountered the students’ research questions drafting ambiguities. Chapters 6 and 7 gave detailed notes on thesis types with ways of finding credible sources. Chapters 8, 9, and 10 included the academic aspects of research synthesis, ethos to logos, and image to text guidance.

In rest of the book, editing, formatting, and proofreading guide are the most practiced aspects. Chapter 11 cited rules for effective introduction to conclusion writing techniques. Whereas chapter 12 dealt with the proofreading and editing issues. In chapter 13, you will get ideas for redirecting your interviewing approach. In the remaining chapters, Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky introduced interdisciplinary approaches to subject-related academic writing problems. The sub-titles for the remaining chapters included the following;

• Chapter 14: Education
• Chapter 15: Sociology
• Chapter 16: Media studies
• Chapter 17: Psychology and Biology
• Chapter 18: Sustainability and Environmental studies
• Chapter 19: Economics

The act of introducing interdisciplinary differences in academic writing techniques is the best part of this book. This approach makes it different from other academic writing guides.

Also Read This: 5 Best Career Paths To Choose After Graduation

Reviews:

No doubt, this book discussed the academic writing principles from scratch. This book is both comprehensive, and well-written. This is because it summed up the core writing steps from a simple essay to a thesis draft. But in my opinion, it lags in some points. Like it’s a little expensive. Because a majority of entry-level academic writers cannot afford it. Still, there are some points where provided data is not sufficient. We recommend adding additional reading material in this step to step guide.

The critical reading and writing tips in this book are very useful. But the most frequent complaint about it relates to over-complication. The use of high-level vocabulary reduces its engaging power. Students also need to frequently consult the dictionary while taking notes from it. The over-complicated exemplary models made task planners more difficult than usual. Perhaps, the book would become more practical if it contained simpler phrases, or examples.

As a whole, a majority of the readers reviewed this book by four stars. Amazon recorded an overall 4.2 out of 5 rating score for this book. The public likes and dislikes ratio defines the success of publishers. Hence, after reviewing From inquiry to Academic Writing- 4th Edition, it can be deemed effective in providing academic writing help to the students. Still, the teachers can also get help from this cross-curricular guide.