Academic vs Technical Writing:
What's the Difference?

by Chaim I. Chatan

The purposes of academic writing can be: 1) to present the results of one's knowledge, 2) to present the results gained from one's personal research, and 3) to present one's point of view. Of course, both technical and academic writing is laden with jargon, but the jargon is used for different purposes. As far as technical writing is concerned, the purposes of technical writing can be: 1) to teach someone how to use a specific product or service; and 2) to describe the procedures that are employed by companies for carrying out various tasks.

The audiences are completely different. The academic is writing to fellow
scholars, and often, depending on the journal or publication, to the general public. The technical writer is writing to the user of the product or the service, or to government inspectors who need to see how the company carries out certain tasks. Users, of course, differ from product to product. In addition, technical writing differs from area to area. For example, writing documentation for software is different from writing documentation for hardware.