The present paper is an attempt to study different aspects of academic writing and develop the profile of assessment criteria in academic writing. Since scholarly discourse is not uniform and monolithic, in Part One academic writing is discussed in terms of its three-fold purposes (viz. teaching, learning and assessing), its key distinctive features (complexity, formality, objectivity, explicitness, hedging, and responsibility), and the relationship between academic writing and other kinds of writing. University studies-related and most common genres, learner study skills and strategies (among which summarising, analysing and synthesising are emphasised) as well as different ways of acquiring adequate skills in academic writing are also discussed thoroughly. Part Two of the present paper focuses on establishing criteria for assessing certain pieces of students’ academic writing, viz. summaries and analyses. While pursuing this objective, manifold aims and principles in assessing academic writing skills, analytic and holistic scoring methods are given consideration, and a step-by-step procedure for developing analytic rating scales is constructed. The analytic rating scales (for assessing student written summaries and analyses) developed in the course of writing the present paper can provide students with useful feedback on the language gain and progress made. In Part Three of the paper, the devised scales are used to assess and discuss VPU second year student written... [to full text]