Structure
For academic writing, there are different guides present like that of APA, or Harvard. These guides guide you in terms of format, and selection of other things. These things include margins, types of space, line spacing, heading style, and other elements. These guides also give you instructions on what kind of language you should use. In different fields, different languages and tones are used. All types of academic writings need a structure, no matter what. This structure allows the information presented to flow logically from one section to another. This structure is used regardless of the formatting details. These details are used according to different writing styles.For example, an academic scientific research article includes abstract, introduction, methods, analysis, results, and conclusions. But the paper of humanities has a different structure than that of the scientific paper. Different structures are used for different writing styles. A creative writing style gives more freedom to you. This is because you can present your ideas without any evidence in a simple, and easy language. It is easy to understand as well. You can also use first and second-person pronouns, unlike the case of academic writing. In creative writing, you can support your argument with your personal experience. You can quote the information that you heard, even if you’re unsure about it. Creative writing does not have to follow any criteria for its structuring either.
Tone
The tone of your piece of writing influences the way through which the reader will get the ideas. Different writing styles have different tones. The same goes for academic, and creative writing. Both styles use different tones for communication. The tone of writing varies with the audience, and purpose of writing. In academic writing, you have to eliminate all the personal biases about an idea. But in creative writing, you can quote your personal bias. You can also quote what you presume the people think about a specific happening in the society. If you’re working on a piece of academic writing, you must display objective information. This is because in academic writing requires you not to add emotional arguments. In creative writing, you can add an emotional argument and make it general.Audience
The tone of the piece of writing always depends on the subject's audience. The target audience always influences the tone, language, and formality of writing. Creative writing is done for the public seeking entertainment or simple explanation. The audience of creative writing looks for something easily readable. They look for something imaginative, symbolic, and easily understandable. In academic writing, your audience can include researchers, professors, and experts in the field. Your family, friends, or fellows may be included in it. How you communicate with teachers or professionals is different as well.The way you communicate with friends, general people, or family is different. Your vocabulary of academic writing should suit the one you use for communicating with your audience. The language you use for creative writing should be informal. It should be easy to understand by most of the people. Sometimes you are uncertain whether a particular vocabulary suits your audience, or not. In this situation, you can consult with your teacher, or friend.
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On the whole, academic and creative writing apply different styles of writing. Whether you are going for creative or academic, you should ensure that your work is free from errors. Academic writing should be formal. Creative writing should be informal. You can use your personal experience, or ideas in creative writing. You can also use your ideas for helping, or entertaining people about events or happenings. Knowing the difference between creative and academic writing would be of great help. This is because it would help you in making your academic writing formal since it needs a formal writing style. It would also help in making your creative writing informal. You have to use a different tone and structure for creative, as well as academic writing.