This article reviews research and developments that are relevant to second language students writing in academic settings. First, it reviews research into writing requirements at undergraduate and postgraduate levels of study. It then discusses the particular socio-cultural context of academic writing, including the notions of genre and discourse community, and the politics of academic writing. The article then reviews descriptions of academic writing that draw on register studies, discourse studies, genre studies, and corpus studies. This includes cross-cultural comparisons of academic writing, disciplinary differences in academic writing, and critical views on the nature of academic writing. The article then reviews the development of approaches to the teaching of academic writing. The article concludes with a discussion of the assessment of academic writing and indications for future research in the area of second language academic writing.