Abstract:
Academic writing is a common type of writing in many academic institutions. In higher education, the practice
involves inquiry that uses research and writing to either form new questions or pursue existing enduring
questions that would be of interest to the academic community. It is also viewed as a platform that provides
learners with an opportunity to navigate through critical questions in their field of study. At the undergraduate
level, the research inquiries and write-ups mainly rely on secondary sources of information. Higher education
involves adapting ways that may lead to understanding, interpreting and organizing knowledge. Problems may
arise in students’ writing due to gaps between the expectations of the academic staff and that of the students
regarding what this kind of writing involves. Bearing in mind that this type of writing has its own characteristic
features and distinct style, we conducted a survey research from a corpus drawn from a twelve per cent random
sample of all chartered Universities in Kenya. The collected data was analyzed with a view of determining the
perceptions from both students and members of academic staff regarding most of the issues associated with the
process of academic writing such as knowledge, authority, technical skills and linguistic competence. Guided by
the principles of Gricean pragmatics, the qualitative and quantitative responses enabled the study to interrogate
how perceptions in the entire process influence management of this very important aspect of learning in academic
institutions. It is hoped that the views from this exploratory overview as well as findings and the discussions thereof, will contribute some meaningful insights that will deepen the understanding and management of this
discourse practice.