Academic Literacy refers to the critical thinking, reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills learned within the academic society. Academic literacy allows an individual to effectively establish communication within all areas of his academic environment. To become academically literate, a person has to familiarize himself with the levels of communication that exist. .
Academic literacy is a vast topic; there fore in order to define and understand the topic it must be broken into segments. Academic literacy has an array of sectors that must first be met to achieve academic literacy. In order to become academically one has to become familiar with academic discourse. .
Academic discourse is a type of writing and speaking skills that are used in specific fields. People communicate with each other in their own discourse communities. These discourse conventions are a way that people in a specific field communicate using certain terminology.
Academic Exposition refers to critical thinking and writing strategies that are used to help people communicate effectively. Expository strategies allow authors to be classified into cultural categories. These cultural categories consist of an author's race, nationality, class, age, profession, gender, and region basic demographics. .
Specified categories influence an author's way of writing. Langston Hughes is an example of a categorical cultural influence on writing. Hughes was an African-American who attended an all white college. The time period in which he lived, affected his cultural ways of thinking. Huhges" age and gender also played a critical part in his writing. When he wrote a "Theme for English B" he was a young twenty-two year old, lower class student. At this point in his life he lacked personal identification, until he was able to find himself in poetry. .
Another strategy of academic exposition is the comparing and contrasting of an author's story.
