ABSTRACT
Any piece of academic writing is organized according to the reason why it was written. Research articles in scholarly journals present original work and are written for people researching and teaching in an academic field. Textbook chapters are written by academics in order to help students learn a new subject. Essays are written by students to show their teachers their understanding of issues in their subject; in the field of Applied Linguistics they are the most common means of assessment on Masters courses. While each type of academic writing is different, they all contain similar organizational features. They begin by introducing the reader to the subject, and then signal what the rest of the text will contain. After the main part of the text, there is a final section which summarizes the content.
