The article was published in the journal: Higher education in Russia. — 2015. — No. 6 . — C. 44-51. The article presents the key characteristics of one of the main aspects of academic writing, which in the Western academic tradition is called "focus". Particular attention is paid to the formulation of the thesis and its role in the scientific text, as well as the logic of building a text around a single line of reasoning from the formulation of the problem to the main conclusion. Viewing scientific text as an intellectual action, which the researcher contributes to the scientific discussion, The author outlines a range of problems, arising from Russian students and specialists due to insufficiently accurate understanding of the requirements , submitted to texts by foreign universities and scientific journals , And they offer a way to solve them.... The examples used relate to socio-economic and humanitarian disciplines, but the recommendations are based on a transdisciplinary approach.