| S.No. | ACADEMIC WRITING | GENERAL WRITING |
| 01. | Academic writing focuses on proving a theory or viewpoint in one way or the other and emphasizes upon one specific subject. | General writing focuses on general subjects of writing. |
| 02. | Academic writing contains contents on specific discipline or field. | General writing contains contents on any topic or it may based on some imaginative or creative prose etc also. |
| 03. | It follows standard structured format. | It follows artistic unstructured format. |
| 04. | It is used in research projects, conferences papers, essays, abstracts, reports etc. | It is used in letters, emails, diaries, journal entries, magazine publish etc. |
| 05. | It is always formal way of writing. | It may be formal or informal way of writing. |
| 06. | It is usually has a specific set of audience/ reader who belongs to the same field on which the academic writing is based on. | General writing has no specific set of audience or readers anyone can go for any general written topics. |
| 07. | Academic writing does not use contractions. | General writing can use contractions. |
| 08. | Academic domain is related to any academic area/field. | General domain is related to any life in general. |
| 09. | It focuses on more academic/subjective words related to the topic. | It focuses on more common words suitable to the general topic. |
| 10. | In academic writing graphics, charts and numbers are sometimes used to explain the concept well. | In general graphics are sometimes included to make the writing more attractive. |
| 11. | It always uses referencing and citation. | It does not usually use referencing and citations. |
| 12. | For example suppose a professor writing on a concept related to Chemistry and that published on college's monthly magazine. | For example writing any prose or story which will be published in a local magazine comes under general writing. |