WHY I WRITE BY GEORGE ORWELL AS AN ACADEMIC TEXT

“Why I write by George Orwell” is a text about the author experience as a writer during his life and the reason why an author writes, using the word “I” most of the time during the text, so it is not easy to know if this is an academic text or not. However, there are some signs that show this text as an academic text.

In order to show why this text is an academic text, we need to define what an academic text is. It is the kind of writing that you are required to do in a college or university. It is a writing that develops some arguments with the purpose to build knowledge.

To know if a text is an academic text, we need to look some characteristics like: the text organization (how?), the topic (what?) and the audience who is directed that text (who?). Other important clue is the use of technical vocabulary, the use of examples and the use some definitions.

“Why I write by George Orwell” is clearly an academic text because it has some organization (introduction, arguments and conclusion) there is a main idea and some arguments that develop it, at the end, there is a conclusion. Besides, it is directed to an academic group as students, writers, etc.

During the introduction, the author uses his own experience as a writer in order to illustrate the main idea: “the experience of life influence a writer work”. So he develops some arguments as: the reason why a person writes and how difficult is to write. “I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer…” in this way, George Orwell makes some definitions: “according to the atmosphere in which he is living. There are: sheer egoism, esthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose” also, he uses some examples “let me give just one example of the cruder kind of difficulty that arises. My book about Spanish civil war, Homage to Catalonia…”

Finally the author writes a conclusion about the main idea: “looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery…”

“Why I write by George Orwell” has all the characteristics of an academic text, despite it is about the author experience, he is being objective from his subjectivity to make some knowledge about writing.