You believe you know how to write. In fact you are sure of your writing skills from all the previous experiences that you have gained so far. What if now, you are asked to write from your other hand? Not from the one you are used to. Would that be challenging? It would be that you would know exactly what to write but wouldn’t be able to pen it down. This is just a brief idea of how difficult or herculean it is to be doing a PhD. Learning to write within the defined lines of an academic genre is a different ball game all together.
You know, when I started to do my PhD, I came across so many terms and styles who names also appeared alien to me. Harvard, APA, Chicago citation styles. Little did I know these terms existed anywhere in the writing world? I learnt that how, writing in quotes is not the same thing as plagiarising. Well, if this sounds the world to you. Let me tell you, this is just the basic of academic writing. To be able to summarise the work of other authors and scholars and create the required citation density is very crucial for research.
In my initial days, good quality academic articles appeared impenetrable to me. They are created with a certain level of academic audience in mind. Over the years, after having spent endless hours in my field of study and familiarising myself with the nuances of academic writing, I have familiarised myself with citation writing and so can emulate the work better than before.
There is a lot of worthy reading material available online and on brick and mortar stores that target academic writing skills. Consider reading them and believe that in the course of time, with practice, you would surely develop the skill of academic writing.