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Newspapers level versus Academic level Newspapers and Academic writing- theoretical views o Definition o Short history o Characteristics and differences o Differences between American and British style American Newspapers versus American Academic British Newspapers versus British Academic

Newspapers and Academic writing- theoretical views Even if the Americans and the British are split by the Atlantic Ocean, which gives so many jokes, they still have many things in common. No matter if talking about language, culture, academic writings or newspapers industry they tend to have a common root. Definition Newspaper is a publication that appears regularly and frequently, and carries news about a wide variety of current events. (Stephens) If for newspaper, we can come up with a simple, short and concise explanation of the term, for academic writing things are a little bit more complicated. There isnt a hard-set definition, but we can qualify as academic writing the kind of writing used at colleges and universities, in papers written for conferences, research papers and research articles, in books or translations,essays and abstracts. Short history Newspapers have many functions, one of which is keeping the people informed by the current situation in particular areas. Information has been spread orally since humans started to speak. At first, they used language to tell stories. For example, at a time when the written word hasnt been obtained, a man who met a wolf in the forests and try to escape would go to his tribe and tell what happened. An interesting point is that he would say that a ferocious wolf hunted him and he fought him and won. This is because our mind records things a particular way. A mother would never say that my son just graduated college, but she will try and give a context to that fact, saying something like: you know how hard my son has

learnt for several years now, and he has finally come to the point of graduating. Likewise, the first articles spread through oral communication rapidly through a society. With the arrival of writing, news gained a new revival, but this time in a more formal way. The first newspapers to be recorded were in Ancient Rome and China. In Rome, they were handwritten news sheets, posted by the Government in the Roman Forum from the year 59 B.C, and they were filled with subjects coming from the political background. In china, there were the so called tiapo, which were first circulated among officials during the Han dynasty. The first newspaper printed in England appeared in 1621. The publishers ot these early publications had to deal with what was called the readers expectation of weekly Newes. This meant that they had to found stories worth to be published in a newspaper and also it was the weekly schedule to be taken into account. Another issue at that time was that stories were published pretty much as they come into the print shop. This was to change for the first time in London, when one of the early editors tried and edit the stories into narratives. In the Britains American colonies it seems that the newspaper entered relatively late, somewhere in 1690, with the first publication in Boston. The sort of journalism that first appeared was an incendiary one, expressed by Benjamin Harris in Publick Occurrences, publisher who was thrown in jail in Britain and was forced to flee to American for his passionate presentation of things. Another newspaper has not appeared unless fourteen years later, which had a more calm style. The fact that newspaper industry was an underdeveloped one for a long time was caused by many factors. First, there were few literate who engaged themselves in such a job and paper was hard to get. Everything changed with the invention of the letter press by Johann Gutenberg in the 1450s. He was the one who arranged stamps so as to display the letters of the alphabet meaning that a page of literature could be copied several times. Although it was a great step foreword, this method still implied the rearrangement of the letters before each new page was to be printed. Another advancement in the history of newspapers was the usage of a steam-powered press and replacing wood with iron in the building process. This meant an adjustment of price and more and more people were able to read the news. The next step was the invention of computers that took the newspapers industry a step further to how we know it today. (The news: the process behind the presentation - newspaper: the history). It has been said that the academic writing was invented by Plato in 1864. This was a necessary occurrence in order to organize information in a scholarly manner. It was a time in

which grea pressure was on scholars. Baker and thomas advocated for a unified style of writing as well for the use of citations in order to ensure that there is no confusion as to the person or persons from which ideas have originated.(Academic writing) Characteristics and differences When I start to write an academic paper I keep in mind that there is a difference between this type of writing and and informal one, such as an newspaper article. For example, one of the characteristics of academic writing is planning, meaning that before starting to write the paper there is a certain amount of planning and the result will be an analytical and organized paper. With newspaper things are not very different. Before writing a newspaper article there is a certain amount of planning, but maybe little than there is for an academic paper, because almost all the day the articles have a quicker due date than an academic paper. Another characteristic found in both writings is the outline. This actually means the organizatory part of the paper. A proper outline will help formulate the ideas and also draw some relationships between topics. It will be the tool to be used when deciding whether a certain information is adequate for the subject or it has to be excluded. Moving to stylistics properties, the tone in an academic paper is formal, without slang words, whereas in an newspaper article the tone is an informal one with the use of abbreviations, informal words and phrases, prepositional phrases, action verbs, phrasal verbs, jargon, idioms, or many cliches. The language used in an academic paper is quite different from the one used in an newspaper article as well. Even though the language in both publications have to be clear and the words need to be chosen precisely, the language of an newspaper article is somewhat shorter rather than elaborate, complicated and long. Point of view is another characteristic found in both writings, but in an academic paper I expect to find a third person narrative, because the focus of the academic writings is to educate on the facts, not present or support an personal opinion as it might happen in a newspaper article. The newspapers and the academic papers are also different in structure. The academic paper is divided into title, introduction, body and conclusions, whereas the newspaper article is divided into headline, orientation, main body and reorientation. The title of an academic paper is the correspondent of the headline of an newspaper article. The two have some differences and some similitudines. Both have to engage the reader quickly, but the title is more formal than the headline which uses alliteration, action verbs and characteristics of the informal style. The introduction of an academic paper has to be a strong start, pointing some

interesting or unusual information after which the thesis is briefly explained. This seems to be more like the orientation of a newspaper article which introduces the story, is meant to catch our attention, sets the scence and summarizes the main idea, all in a sentence. The body of the two publications has to have coherent paragraphs which have to be connected to each other and also to have clear sentences. Cohesion within the text is achieved through repetition of the key words or using synonyms for the main subject. A newspaper articles main body almos all the time has to be shorter than that of an academic paper and they both answer the question: why and how. The conclusion of an academic paper can be cut from a newspaper article because they usually restate the thesis of the paper and summary the major ideas, which in a newspaper the author of an article lets the reader to draw his own conclusions. (Characteristics of Academic Writing) Differences between American and British styles of writing Newspapers

When it comes to newspapers each of us has a different way of perceiving the news. I mean that some of us like their news to be served gently, others prefer them thrown directly, some prefer less information other want the maximum. One such difference can be spotted between the American newspapers and the British newspapers. The two have different styles. For example, the American newspapers present their news in a way that strikes the reader at a first sight. Their style consists of big headings, in bold type, and distributed on two columns. Whereas the British newspapers treat their readers gently with small headings, and with a general air of quietude and respect. Also the target reader of the two publications differ. The target reader of the American newspapers are people who are usually in a rush. For example, a man eating at a lunch counter or the people in a subway express, everything pointing to a agitated atmosphere. Meanwhile, the target of the British newspapers is made up by calm people, for example a retired person eating his breakfat slowly seatting in a comfortly chair. This points out to a slow, calm life-style. There is also a difference in how the two sides treat news and the words they use. Words such as gun-men, joy-ride and death-cell are expected to appear in an American newspaper and not in a British one, which will use phrases like person of doubtful character or corridor No.6. If a milk-waggon collides in the street with a coal-cart, the Americans would write that a "life-waggon" has struck a "deathcart." They call a murderer a "thug" or a "gun-man" or a "yeg-man." In England they simply call him "the accused who is a grocer's assistant in Houndsditch." (The American and the

British Press). Related to language is also the difference in the opening sentence of an article.In the American newspaper the reader has to find the idea of the article at first sight and after reading that if he wants to continue reading he can, but if not he has already found out the main idea. This means that the opening sentence has to be concise and give everything. Whereas the British method is to slowly present the information. (The American and the British Press).