No. As I tell my students, there is a distinct difference in writing style and conventions from one subject area (or discipline) to another. There is an even greater variance in style and conventions between creative writing and academic writing. Sure certain aspects are included in all genres – complete sentences, proper punctuation, clear paragraphs, etc. However, after those basic elements, every level of writing can change by discipline – writer’s voice, word choice, sentence structure, paragraph composition, document organization, and format or framework.
These differences are difficult for student’s to grasp, quite often, because they have had little exposure to forms of writing other than those found in an English class. Carnegie Melon’s Eberly Center points out that even when students may have read papers or books exemplifying the writing style of your discipline, this does not guarantee that they can reproduce it in their own writing. Research has shown this phenomenon holds fairly generally: it is easier to comprehend new information or a new style of presentation than it is to generate it. So what’s a teacher to do?
Carnegie Melon’s Eberly Center (a wonderful resource for teaching resources) suggests three strategies for helping students become more proficient discipline writers:
1) Identify the key features of writing in a particular discipline
2) Make writing expectations explicit
3) Model how to approach writing tasks in the discipline
For more information, I encourage you to explore Eberly’s resources on the topic of discipline writing.